New Video! The High Pressure Sodium Light
Well now, here it is! I have a fondness for this sort of lighting, mostly because of its method of operation which is nuanced and fascinating. This video explores it a little bit, and in my next video we'll look at why they are being replaced, and how this is both good and bad. To be clear, it's mostly good, but there are some clear caveats.
The High Pressure Sodium Light: Ubiquitous, effective, but good? (YouTube)
Comments (11)
Great vid Alec, you definitely have a gift for presenting any topic in an engaging fashion. When I grew up in Scotland (many, many moons ago laddie), all streetlights were LPS and you couldn't even tell what colour cars were. Great show, as always... Keep up the good work :-)
Awesome video, keep up the good work :) Also, when's mah name gonna be on the list? I wanna brag to my friends!
I just added you to my Patron list doc, so you should appear in the next video!
Thanks for another great video. I think your sense of humour is similar to mine so I chuckled a lot! :)
Great video again! You always seem to make videos on things that I'm curious about as well.
Another fantastic video! I actually really really love the look of sodium vapor. I work in the film industry as a union set lighting technician and indie gaffer. Whenever it makes sense, I try to sneak the orange goodness into the films I gaff. I think it's a fantastic grungy-gritty look. It's very dramatic. Usually I'm trying to recreate sodium vapor rather than use an actual sodium vapor light. I've found it rather challenging to perfectly nail the look. I don't know of a way to control the hertz on the ballast, so I just stay away using a sodium vapor bulbs to avoid any flicker. I can't wait to see more of this series!
"But should they be?" "yeah" ... lulz.
A fascinating presentation. You've got a knack for making very informative videos on subjects that at first mention seem to be of no interest. As a result, my mental archive of weird data is growing larger by the week!
Another great video Alec. The voice reply @ 12:24 made me jump though. Guess I was too focused and not expecting that. lol
You might want to add something for the younger folks, who probably assume that the street at night was always this pink-peach sodium color, but when I was growing up in the 60's & 70's - the street lights were all that sickly purple-blue color of mercury lamps, because they were as ubiquitous as the sodium is now! - I am not sure which color is more annoying! - it's close. There was also the weird time, for a few years, as sodium was replacing mercury, where the streets were this odd random mix of both, as the mercuries slowly burned out and were replaced with sodiums.
Ooh, good point! I'll have to add that to my next video. Believe it or not, in Elmhurst (the town I grew up in) most lights in the residential areas are still mercury vapor. Assuming they haven't changed in the last 2 years I can get some footage. Elmhurst got very lazy with replacing them on a routine basis and many are still "functional" but with horrid light output.