How much lighting is needed for detailing?

The older I get (and my eyes get) the more light I seem to need in my shop to detail. :rant:

This afternoon while my wife and daughters were in the kitchen baking Christmas goodies, I slipped off to the home improvement store and bought myself and early gift. With my new purchase, this increases my total fluorescent lighting wattage to 1500w for my 24'x30'x8' shop. Add to that my portable halogens for paint correction and I shouldn't have any excuses for missing anything on a detail for awhile. :thinking: :roll:

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How much and what type of lighting do you guys detail with?

Thanks in advance for the replys!
DLR

 

Sunlight for me is KING!!!

 

Oh man lighting..one of my favorite topics to talk about :woo: :woo:

Lighting, is very important to when it comes to detailing. There is a bunch of different lights to choose from and currently in my garage I'm runing a total of 30 regular T8's wich if I remember correctly puts out 30W per light. Now I'm currently waiting for my new light fixtures, I got the lights already, the new lights I got are T5 high out put. Again if i do remember correctly these T5's put out 55 to 60W each. The nice thing is that these new T5's are more efficient and have a higher out put compared to my current T8's. I'm just waiting for the fixtures to arrive and I'm good to go :thumb:

Oooh I should post pictures of how I set up my garage...I'll post them up shortly :thumb:

Also I got the 3M Sun Gun and it makes a true difference compared to any other flash light I've used.

So when it comes to lighting I try to get the best lighting available within reason that is eace:

 

A lot! The more the better. However, you can have all that light and if you dont know how to look at the paint, then youll still miss imperfections.

 

in my garage i have seven 6' floresents...plus my halogens

 

I used to relay on natural sunlight with the help of some halogens. My 3m sun gun came in the mail today and am very excited to try it out.

 

I still like to pull vehicles outside and give them a final inspection before the customer arrives. That is how the customer will see it day in and day out. :gasp:

Me too! My friends thought that I was crazy for spending so much time in the planning stages for wiring and lighting the shop. In their opinion, all you need are a couple of pull chain 100w fixtures and a portable work light and a workshop is complete. :shakehead:

You will like your new T5 lighting set-up! The inspection areas at our factory (full time job) have "light tunnels" equipped with those. Man, talk about bright!!! I looked into this type of a system for my shop, but it was VERY cost prohibitive. I guess that will have to wait till my girls are through college. :idea:

Yes, please post pictures!!!

I agree 100%! 25 years ago, I thought those swirl marks that were installed by poor washing techniques meant the car was well taken care of. :roll: Now, I even have my wife "trained" to spot a re-paint in a parking lot from a distance or the lack of proper polishing performed by others.

Thanks guys for your responses! Time to go do the Santa thing. Merry Christmas!
DLR

 

Just posted this, take a look:
http://www.detailingbliss.com/forum/f5/my-garage-896.html