Hi all.

This might be of interest to those creating computer-generated interior models. The following table comes from an article on ships' lighting in 'The Electrician', and should be self-explanatory. The illumination seems pretty dim by today's standards, but I expect it was typical back then.



Regards,
Ralph

Attachment #1, (jpg file)

Thanks for that Ralph, it is indeed very interesting.

I think we all knew that the lighing was comparatively "gloomy" but that observation is coming from a modern perspective.

This removes a lot of guesswork.

Thanks - Mervyn.

Mervyn Pritchard
Former Maintenance Officer
SS Nomadic.

Ralph,

that is one of the most useful and revealing tables of information ever posted here. What a find. Not only does it give us specific data but, as noted, it truly reveals just how dim Titanic's lighting was by modern standards.

For those who are not familiar with the foot-candle measurement of light intensity, it is simply this: one foot-candle is the amount of light one candle will generate at a distance of one foot. The measurements in the table were taken at a height of three feet off the deck. Take the figure given for a First-Class stateroom: three 30-watt bulbs in decorative fittings produced 1.6 foot-candles of light. That means that if you had a newspaper sitting on top of a three-foot-high table in one of those staterooms, the amount of light falling on the newspaper from those three stateroom fittings combined would be less than if you held up two candles one foot away.

Is it any wonder why I have been harping for years about the importance of not over-illuminating one's Titanic model?


Regards

Art Braunschweiger
TRMA Trustee

Ralph,

What a Discovery!! It must looks so beautiful night with that the light gloomy around on the Titanic and Britannic too... It will be help me to understand for my artist in near future! THANKS!

Regards,

William

DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES. DEAD SHIPS, HOWEVER, DO!

Ralph,

That's a first class find! Incredible! Thanks for sharing with us!

Regards,
J. Kent Layton
www.atlanticliners.com
*Atlantic Liners: A Trio of Trios (2009)
*Lusitania: An Illustrated Biography (2010)

Most interesting, Indeed it causes one to wonder when you see a painting for example of Titanic's interrior , or for that matter James Camerons movie and the night interrior scenes that they are actually not representative of what it was actually like . It would seem that from this description that wandering around one of these pre WW1 Liners at night would be more compareable to wandering around a modern office building at night after the power has failed and emergency lighting is on only. Please correct my impression if I am wrong.
Bill Young

I noticed that it mentions that those figures are minimum values, which means that there's a possibility that they could've had the ability to be a little bit - or substantially brighter- than those figures indicate. It's always a possibility.

Having said that, I agree with everyone with respect to this being an excellent find.

Steve,

this is just speculation on my part, but when they referred to minimum values, I took that to mean that they didn't take their readings at a point where the light shone more directly, for example right beneath a lamp where the light wasn't diffused by the shade.


Art Braunschweiger
TRMA Trustee

Thanks for the replies; I'm glad you found the information interesting. I was a bit surprised how poor was the lighting in the machinery spaces, but I guess it would have been even worse in the pre-electricity days.

Regards,
Ralph

"...I was a bit surprised how poor was the lighting in the machinery spaces, but I guess it would have been even worse in the pre-electricity days.."

Ralph,

I was thinking the same thing myself. "Shaft Tunnels"? "Shaft Caves" might be more appropriate! What I found to be most ironic of all was the low level of "general lighting" within the electric engine room, of all places -- amongst the lowest levels aboard the entire ship!

As far as perceptions of what was an adequate amount of light 100 years ago versus what we're accustomed to these days, a comparison using the measurements taken in the 1st Class Dining Saloon would be very interesting since we have contemporary commentary from people such as Leonard Peskett which indicates that they felt the lighting in this room was very bright, to the point of being excessive. It would indeed provide us all with some valuable insight to see what an Edwardian engineer thought to be excessive! Considering Peskett's comments about the amount of heat generated by the lighting within this compartment, when looking at the paltry amount of light actually produced by all of those fixtures, including the Linolite lamps which back-lit the stained glass panels, it also gives some idea of just how inefficient the incandescent lamps of a century ago were.

Regards,
Scott Andrews
TRMA Trustee

PS - Regarding what was considered adequate in the way of lighting in days gone by versus our own perceptions, I recall reading a comment on this subject from a number of years ago, at the time they were doing a complete restoration of the Radio City Music Hall. Supposedly, the output of the indirect lighting that illuminates much of this Art Deco venue was increased nearly five-fold over the original 1932 levels.

This is truly a first class find. Well done!

Paul
--
Titanic essays at http://www.paullee.com/titanic/

The eye of course does not measure light in the same way that a camera or exposure meter does, as far as our ability to ee is concerned, lighting is a completely relative affair. This is best illustrated by the phenomenon experience when going outside on a bright sunny day. The light seems blinding and we are forced to squint, but very soon our eyes adapt and we can see quite comnfortably. It is only when we go back indoors that the lighting (which appeared quite normal before) seems relatively dark. But again, aftr a few moments our eyes adapt and we can see quite clearly again - the human eye is a remarkable instrument.

I wuld suspect that the interior lighting was probably more than adequate, particularly at night. It is just that our modern expectation of internal lighting does not require our eyes to compensate quite as much... but this "compensating" is not something we are usually concious of undr normal circumstnces.

It was perhaps only during the day when coming inside after being on deck that the wide contrast in illumination levels wuld have been so remarkable. After a while the eye would have adapted accordingly and the reltive gloominess would not have been that obvious

As for the machinery spaces, it my surprise you just how sensitive the human eye is. A starlit night can seem very bright for example in the absence of any other polluting lighting sources. This of course is why astronomers prefer remote rural locations to carry out observations, because any artificial light will cause the eye to adapt, impairing night vision sensitivity.

I suspect then that the low light levels in these spces may only have posed a problem after a crewmember had been topside. They may then have had difficulty seeing when returning below, but only until their eyes could re-adapt to the relative darkness.

This also explains why on a dark night steamers appeared to be blazing like christmas trees, even as seen from many miles away despite the dim lighting. In contrast, during daylight hours, with the overwhelming influence of natural daylight it may have been almost impossible to ascertain if those very same blazing lights were even turned on or not.

- Mervyn.

Mervyn Pritchard
Former Maintenance Officer
SS Nomadic.

P.S. Sorry for the many missing letters in that previous post, i have a sticky keyboard which i must get around to replacing.

- Mervyn.

Mervyn Pritchard
Former Maintenance Officer
SS Nomadic.

>It would seem that from this description that
>wandering around one of these pre WW1 Liners at night would be
>more compareable to wandering around a modern office building
>at night after the power has failed and emergency lighting is
>on only.

Bill,

If I owned a light-meter I'd try that sort of comparison. It's hard to get a feel for light levels just looking at the numbers in the table.

Regards,
Ralph

Ralph,

Thanks again for sharing a fascinating discovery! As Scott indicated, it certainly helps put Peskett's comments into perspective, both from a 1911 viewpoint and the modern one.

Best wishes,

Mark.

Mark Chirnside,
Warwickshire, UK
www.markchirnside.co.uk

Thanks all for the additional comments.

Regards,
Ralph

Olympic's measured minimum ambient lighting levels in the 1920s that were listed in the table appear to be anywhere from about 1/2 to 1/4 of what is commonly the recommended minimum ambient levels of today. From 5 miles there still would be no mistake as to what type of ship she was.

As mentioned above, the eye does not respond to brightness linearly. Subjectively, when something looks like it is half as bright, it usually is much dimmer than that. To get a feel for what 1/2 the illumination actually looks like, just go out and replace some 60 watt incandescent lamps in a fixure with 40 watt incandescent lamps. The change in room lighting should measure about 1/2.

The apparent brightness of lights seen at a distance at night depend to great extent on the darkness of the surroundings. On an extremely clear and dark night, lights at a certain distance away appear brighter than they would when compared to when a moon is up, or when there is some small amount of haze in the atmosphere. As they say, everything is relative.

Great find Ralph.

Sam