In addition to savings of $500–$1,000 per year in operating and maintenance costs, another major benefit of Lumencor’s SOLA Light Engines over metal halide lamps is their superior output in the red region (>620 nm) of the visible spectrum. Images of selaginella autofluorescence, excited from 617–645 nm and detected under identical conditions, illustrate the improved image data quality delivered by the SOLA Light Engine. Excitation at >620 nm provides advantages in terms of greater sample transparency, less generation of phototoxic reactive oxygen species and lower background signals compared to excitation at shorter wavelengths. Many red-excited fluorophores including Cy5, Alexa Fluor 647, ATTO 647N TO-PRO-3 and DRAQ5 have been developed to allow exploitation of these advantages.