mindstalk | Life by candle-light (Reply)

Not that long ago, I read At Day's Close about pre-modern night and darkness in European light. I also have a recurrent interesting in low-tech 'fantasy' settings. All this got me wondering what candlelight is actually like, something I haven't experienced in a long time. Happily, I found that my host has 8 pillar candles in the basement, plus some long lighters, so nothing had to be purchased.

Photos from the experiment. Text was somewhat readable close to the light and eye, especially if larger text (like a book rather than a spice bottle label), and if 2 candles were lit. Lighting 6 candles in the dark basement was somewhat impressive, but hardly bright. I spent the night by candlelight (and night glow, the house isn't dark dark), and phone entertainment. No idea if it impacted my circadian rhythm. Simply having the candle burning was so-so for the air, PM2.5 going to 16-18 from 0, this in a poorly ventilated kitchen but with an air purifier going. Blowing out the candle is terrible for the air; tonight that knocked it up to like 45.

I decided that I might like using "candlelight" more at night, but also that actual candles were a bit much in cost, air quality, and fire risk, and looked into electric candles, ending up buying the first two things on Amazon. One was a set of 24 "tea lights" for $10, which is pretty impressive -- batteries included, off switches in each tea light. The other was a couple of "pillar candles", cheaper, but needing AA batteries purchased separately. No switches, just a remote control.

Second photo gallery. To my surprise, the actual candle seems to be much brighter than any of its LED imitators. I feel I could read better by one candle than by 2 of the electric pillars, and by those better than even 4 of the electric tea lights. Probably I shouldn't be reading by any candlelight, but if I did, the burning wax is in the lead.

But putting reading aside, the tea lights do work well for a dark-adapted eye. The past couple mornings I've woken up at 5 AM, in a very dark room, turned on one light, and voila! my bedroom is pretty well-detailed. In the bathroom, they're redder than my plug-in nightlight, which is nice. And in a dark house, even one light makes for a passable short-range flashlight, e.g. for seeing the steps better.

I don't know how long they'll last, but similar products seem to suggest 200 hours per battery. I would be very interested in the lumens produced, but they don't say that. Perhaps I should get a light meter, though I'd want one accurate at low light levels.

The electric pillars only got their batteries today, so I've yet to find what they're like in the wee hours of the morning.

I've already mostly reserved paper reading (if at all) for daylight reading; I may shift my later evening away from the laptop (when I can) and toward 'candle' light and phone reading. (Both laptop and phone are heavily red-shifted at night, but the laptop unavoidable produces much more total light.)

Edit: the tea lights have an artificial flicker which I find excessive. For the pillars, flicker is an option you can turn off via the remote control, hooray.