Why do you buy lights without High-CRI emitters?

I feel like the slider on this page is interesting and fairly approximate vs. my experience:

https://www.yujiintl.com/high-cri-led-lightin

Maybe subtle at first, but I’ll take the more vivid colors please. :smiley:

I thought I was pretty sensitive to green tint, but I’ve never felt that issue with my nichias and I have them in 5 or 6 lights. Don’t have any of the Cree hcri though.

And yeah, there are some good options out there, but most of them are wonky in one way or another, hence the frustration.

the fact that most flashlight makers and most flashlight buyers dont care about CRI, is real

however, that does not make low CRI better, just marketed better

this thread shows how effectively Low CRI has spun their marketing, some people have been led to believe High CRI has more green tint than low CRI, the opposite is true, so masterful dysinformation campaign by the Low CRI vendors

there is more profit in Low CRI than High CRI
so marketing points out that Low CRI is brighter, and the buyers follow their lead, and buy into the brighter is better idea

courses for horses, if you need brighter, and cant get it with High CRI, then go for brighter

but if you can have bright enough with High CRI, why settle for Low CRI?

If that slider shows accurately the difference between high CRI and low CRI, then I’m definitely in the “I don’t care (much)” camp. It would certainly be at the bottom of the list of things I do care, if I cared at all.

thanks for that link, heres a pic

if you just need a pencil, any CRI will do,

but if you want to really enjoy colors like purple, orange, and red, CRI will help them not to look faded, muddy, and brown

There are no high intensity LEDs that also have high CRI.
If you want both extreme throw and high CRI you need a short arc lamp or possibly HID.
Those come with their own downsides.

I have to say I agree with you. I’ll give up a few lumens for a 5000k tint. And granted the couple lights I put 219c 90 cry 5000k look nice in. But id rather have better output at 4500-6000k. Then high cri. Usually when I use my flashlight I’m doing something and don’t have the time to appreciate the better colors I just need to see something. I find more of a difference looking at something with a cw then a nw emitter. Then let’s say a 70cri nw and a 90 cri nw emitter. Nw is easier to make things out

thanks
can you give examples of usage applications that favor high intensity, and applications that favor high CRI?

could that be greater distances outdoors vs shorter distances indoors?

is throw better for identifying large targets like Deer, and High CRI better for seeing how cooked the meat is on the BBQ, illuminating the food on the table, and relaxing around the campfire after the hunt?

Besides what you mentioned above. I imagibe high intebsity leds are good for stage lighting and other events. Where you need to light up a specific thing and not everything around it Or maybe not. Flashlights make up a very small fraction of a percent or few of led sales. So these high intensity leds arnt made just for us. There are some kind of uses for them

I don’t know if 80cri counts as high cri. But xpl hi comes in 80+cri. I havnt looked at Crees datadheets in awhile to see if they make them in 90 cri. But mtn electronics has a couple of them in 80cri

To me I think 80 cri leds are a good compromise if someone wants better cri without sacrificing output as much as long as you can get the color tempature want. Richard only has them in 2700 and 3000k. And u4 bin. Don’t know if their are others maybe someone can pull their binning chart/order code chart and see for xplhi or other xhp35 hi

I recently lent a friend of mine a 4000K 90+ CRI light to go mountain biking at night. He has only used cool white low CRI lights in the past.
He came back saying that he found he didn’t have to strain his eyes as he did with his other lights, and was able to bike just as fast as before with less light. He said he was able to identify the features, rocks, roots, etc much more clearly with the high cri light and it felt more useful than the brighter cool white low CRI leds he’s used in the past.

As a tint and high cri fan, I am also a foodie. Some are content with bulk cheap icecream. I personally prefer to eat less and have some quality Italian gelato. To each their own.

If LED manufacturers were to release ultra low CRI leds with even more output, where would people draw the line for the lumen race?

I was wondering the same
here are two identical lights except for the LED
one has 600 lumen max and 70 CRI, the other 450 lumen max and 90 CRI
(25% less lumens and 29% higher CRI)

Its an uphill battle to convince buyers that giving up 25% or the lumens to gain 29% in spectrum is a good thing. Marketing is going to have to spin it, and make High CRI have perceived value, example, for tracking blood when hunting, working in an ambulance, cooking steak and salmon, illuminating other colorful and delicious foods… or sex, High CRI inreases libido… think that would sell?

pretty fair to say one is not as bright, but I agree with your mountain biking friend,
“I can see better even though its dimmer.”

  • I insist on neutral white.
  • I strongly prefer 5000K, but have been known to experiment with other colour temperatures.
  • I prefer high CRI and insist on it for EDC lights with general purpose beam profiles.
  • For lights where throw is a priority, I’ll sacrifice CRI for extra lumens.

My Nitecore MT06MD - 2×AAA, 5000K, 90+ CRI Nichia 219B - is by far my most used light. It’s the first light I think of when I’m in the house or working on electronics.

My next most used light is a custom Convoy X3 with 5000K XP-L HD and BLF A6 electronics. I’ve been using that one whenever I’m outside in the dark for the last two years now. Built for me by James at 3Tronics, top quality work.

I use an Astrolux S41S with 4× 5000K 90+ CRI Nichia 219B as a desk lamp. The floody beam profile works nicely for that.

If I’m awake, I have a BLF-348 with me. Again, 5000K 90+ CRI Nichia 219B.

from elzetta;

” In tactical applications, where one may search for and identify persons based on the color of their vehicles or apparel, faithful color perception is essential. Imagine searching for a suspect known to be wearing a red shirt and last seen near a light blue house. With a cool-tint flashlight the red shirt will appear black and every white residence in the neighborhood will seem to match the described blue house. With a neutral-tint beam, however, colors are accurately observed and proper identification may be achieved quickly. All Elzetta Alpha Models and Bravo and Charlie Models equipped with High Output AVS Heads produce neutral-tint beams.

Further benefits of neutral-tint beams manifest when smoke, haze, or fog is present. In such conditions, cool-tint beams tend to “splash back” with greater harshness than neutral or warm beams. While such harshness is generally more of a perceived phenomenon than a quantifiable one, most people find cool-tint beams to produce more glare in adverse conditions than neutral-tint light.

The pursuit of high lumen ratings has led manufacturers to use cool-tint LED’s in the vast majority of tactical flashlights today. Unfortunately, like so many other features which are driven by Marketing Departments rather than thoughtful user-based engineering, these bluish beams sacrifice real-world performance. When faithful color rendition is important, as it is in tactical applications, look for a flashlight with a neutral-tint beam. After all, there is nothing “cool” about being blue. ”

The only use I can think of where high CRI would be a high priority are fine photography (most normal photography doesn’t even need it), art exhibits (lighting on the artwork), and maybe some jobs where you have to be able to discern between several similar colors, like telephone cables and automobile wiring.

Yeah, that’s Beam Tint and/or color temp. High CRI isn’t strictly needed for that.

He was mostly seeing the very real, very large difference that color temp makes.

thanks, so HCRI wouldn’t work better in their lights than tactical ?
surely, the better light quality, the better the brain can react rather than having to decipher more whats happening.

I have to disagree. I think it’s an equal contribution of CRI and colour temp.

Not really. Whether a tint is slightly green or slightly rosy has nothing to do with CRI.

That’s determined by beam tint: Whether the tint is above or below the BBL (Black Body Line). Above the line tends to look green. Below the line tends to look rosy.

You can get high CRI LEDs both above and below the BBL. Some examples:

  • Below the BBL is the popular 4500K Nichia 219b with rosy tint.
  • Above the BBL is the LED used in the Zebralight SC64C with greenish tint.

Having high CRI doesn’t change the beam tint, all it does is make the existing colors in the tint look slightly more vivid (like the slider in the post above). The benefits of high CRI are extremely subtle and very hard to see without a side-by-side comparison in front of you.

There are the lumileds MZ leds. They are domeless and high cri.

a good explanation of the Color-Rendering-Index system. > Color rendering index - Wikipedia