I'm in the market for a T5HO fixture and came across this one which seems like a good deal. Do the high bay reflectors focus the light straight down too much to be used a foot or two away from the plants. Will the edges of my shelving get poorly illuminated compared with a fixture built for plants?
Anything else about this light that would make it ill suited for Orchids?
It looks good. As long as it is as wide as your shelf it wil spread the light from back to front but not very much outside the sides. The geometry of the tubes combined with the reflector give this for all fixtures of tubes.
Straigt under the fixture you will get the same intensity over the hole width. How much it spread the light from the front to the back is hard to say but those reflectors does look pretty flat and The spread would be quite good.