Material Safety Guide DT Stellar Lighting (New Chart)

Material safety is our highest design priority. Digital Transitions considers Material Safety to be one of its three core design goals, along with Preservation Grade Image Quality and Productivity.

The impact that digitization lighting has on the safety of materials comes from several attributes of the light:

These attributes can, in turn, be derived by some combination of technical specifications and practical evaluation, which we do for the DT Stellar light below.

The DT Stellar is extremely low in UV output

For most materials, UV radiation is more damaging or problematic than visible-spectrum radiation. The Sun and many artificial light sources contain UV radiation along with visible light. Since our eyes cannot see UV radiation, it's important that the UV content of prospective light sources be measured and known to be minimal. A high-accuracy spectrum of the DT Stellar output is attached (DT Stellar Panel Spectral Irradiance) and exhibits extremely low UV content.

The DT Stellar dims between captures and the user has 0.01 stop control over power

Some light-sensitive materials degrade in relation to the amount of total visible light to which they are exposed. The user has complete control over this with DT Stellar lighting. The lights can be dimmed between captures to greatly reduce light exposure during staging/setup/handling. The lights can be set to pulse during capture at any level the institution deems appropriate. With 0.01 stop control, it is easy to balance material safety, operator comfort, and capture requirements without using more light than necessary.

The DT Stellar generates extremely little heat, even in the immediate vicinity

All lighting produces heat, but different technologies produce vastly different quantities. The DT Stellar uses LED panels which inherently produce very little waste heat. Additionally, the internal design of the system has been optimized for heat dissipation, including an outward facing fan that ensures a low and stable operating temperature. Heat output in the immediate proximity of the DT Stellar does not exceed that of the human body, which makes it possible to place photographic film immediately above the light.

The DT Stellar is CE Certified, professionally designed, assembled, and individually tested

Poorly designed or poorly built electronics can pose a fire risk that can indirectly threaten the safety of material in the collection. The DT Stellar was designed by DT in the USA. We individually assemble and test each unit at our facilities in the USA. We carefully monitor and minimize batch variation and hold the system to a mission-critical industrial build quality. The DT Stellar has been extensively tested by an accredited lab to conform to relevant CE and FCC Standards.

The DT Stellar is designed to keep the operator comfortable and focused on handling

Perhaps the greatest (and often least discussed) attribute of lighting, as regards the safety of fragile materials, is the impact it has on the operator. Some lighting products are unpleasant or complicated to use. An operator distracted by fatigue or complexity is far more likely to make a mistake in handling fragile material. For example photographic strobe produces a jarring, pseudo-instant flash that is quite unnatural and hard on the eyes. And some continuous light sources are so bright they dazzle the operator, leading to a "desert sun" effect – squinted and watery eyes. The DT Stellar maintains operator’s concentration in three ways:

DT Systems produces the best quality today, serving the most users and decreasing the need for future digitization

The safest way to handle fragile material is not to handle it at all. Ensuring that all digitization is done at the highest practical quality will reduce future handling of the object. The spectral quality (98 CRI, 98 CQS, minimal spikes or valleys); consistency and precision (0.01 stops); optional DT Fusion mode; and integration into the broader DT set of digitization solutions mean the DT Stellar is the highest quality light source available today. Especially when paired with a broader DT solution, this produces the highest quality digital surrogate currently possible. This means the digital image can serve as a surrogate for in-person access (and associated handling) for more use-cases and also decreases the likelihood that digitization will need to be repeated in the future.

DT has been producing digitization systems for more than twenty years and has produced DT lighting products since 2010. In that time, we have sold lighting to more than 80% of the largest museums, libraries, and archives in the US, with an impeccable safety and reliability record. And in the last few years, we have placed our lighting in a quickly growing number of institutions across Europe and Oceania as well. Conservators, conservationists, color scientists, program managers, and myriad operators and technicians have evaluated our lighting and found it suitable for use in the digitization of rare, fragile, and valuable materials. The incredible range of material held in heritage collections (in a wide range of conditions) necessitates individual risk assessment. It is safe to say that no single brand of lighting is as widely accepted and used for heritage digitization as DT lighting.