Emisar D1sV2 respectively Noctigon K1

Emisar brand is for direct-drive, Noctigon is for regulated/boost/CC

I think most people tend to like about 4000K-5000K, which overlaps with the color temperature of direct sunlight for most of the day. Sometimes it’s lower at sunset, and in summer or in the tropics at midday, it can be a little higher. It’s mostly subjective preference.

For a thrower like this, there’s an objective reason to go warmer: backscatter. Warmer tints produce less visible backscatter, so you see more of what you’re illuminating and less of the beam.

I have to agree with you and eat lots of words lol :person_facepalming: My brand new Acebeam X45 came with the XHP70.2 P2 6500k emitters and it just ignites every particle in the air causing a white out affect if its not a clear clean night. I have to hold the flashlight above my head, those 18000 lumens are blinding.

That really is a great looking flashlight! Can not wait to get my hands on one.

Now consider that’s only 109 kcd. The K1 will be as much as 600 kcd.

The backscatter might not be as blinding with fewer lumens, but cool tints at that kind of intensity make beams that look almost solid. Good for looking cool; less good for seeing things.

Respectfully disagree about the tint difference, I have beam shots of two GT’s, one in warm white and one in cool white, illuminating a water tower in a light rain at 1.9 miles. The cool white is brighter and lights up the tower better in spite of the rain… and I had my wife shining the lights while I went closer to the tower for pictures of the illumination factor. With me 600 yds from the tower the cool white showed brighter and clearer and the pictures clearly showed it.

Fog lights work to undercut heavy fog because they have a flat beam that is focused close to the car. The Amber color is more to not distract oncoming drivers than anything… point them up for distance like your headlights and you will still see a wall of fog, just a different color wall.

The primary reason we see a difference between warm and cool is that the warm emitters are lower powered, thus they illuminate fog or smoke less than a higher powered cool white beam. This is my take on the ~1000 lights I’ve built. YMMV

This will always be an argument because we all see slightly differently, we all use lights to our own advantage as compared to how others use them, so just remember that any advise, including mine, is more relevant to that opinion than to what YOU might do with a flashlight. :wink:

I personally would love the White Flat in the new K1 but it’s pencil beam is not as desirable as a broader more powerful beam so I will go with the XHP-35 HI. Of course I have a lot of lights so slotting a new one between what I have is becoming more difficult. :smiley:

Dale, take those pictures from right behind or barely to the side of the light and the visibility difference will be very obvious.

Rayleigh scattering and interaction of water with different wavelengths of light are things that exist.

Whether a warm white emitter gets more light downrange due to less scattering/absorption vs the higher output of cool white is one issue, but it’s undeniable that cool white lights cause WAY more backscatter than the usual 10-15% output advantage would suggest and we have the science that explains why.

Cameras don’t function exactly like human eye does in many ways either, so while those pictures might be accurately showing what the human eye would see, they also might not be.

According to Raleigh Light scattering,shorter wavelength (bluelight) is directly proportional to the effect of light scattering.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/atmos/blusky.html

As for my personal experience, yellow sunglasses and flashlights have always seemed to provide more contrast, less glare, and more clarity while being easier on the eyes.

While I agree, that’s caused instead by the eyes sensitivity to blue light causing strain/constricting pupils more, and very likely due to the wavelength of blue light itself being harder to focus on. An easy demonstration of this is to set up a red light and blue light of equal size and relative brightness at night and look at them from a distance. The red light will be easy to focus on and “sharp”, while the blue light will appear “fuzzy” as with certain conditions (like pupil dilation) it is difficult for the human eye to physically get a good focus.

Raleigh scattering is for particles much smaller than the wavelength of the light and is stronger for shorter wavelengths. This is why the sky is blue; light scattering off air molecules.

But fog particles are several microns large, larger than the wavelength of light, and this scattering mechanism is called Mie scattering, which has little wavelength dependence. This is why clouds and fog look white and not blue.

We need some controlled experiments and photographs. I have seen photographs appearing to show both cases, cool light scattering more, and cool light scattering the same.

In a nut shell this is why I told Hank to make an aspheric bezel/lens for this light.

You guys are worried about micro particles in the air? The white hull of the boat I was on was a much bigger obstacle to my vision than the horrible fog we were in. The spill from the light reflecting off the hull of the white boat I was riding seemed worse than the back scatter from fog. If you are truly interested in seeing long distances you don’t need your feet lit up and pupils constricting while you are trying to spot something far away.

I wasn’t talking specifically about fog. A bright, cool white light (and even warmer temps) has an easily visible beam in even very clear air.

Agreed. But I think scattering off particles in the air is usually significant if not dominant, and that source of scattering would not be wavelength dependent.

All I can say is that in my experience and from many beamshots I’ve seen cooler light of the same focus and brightness has far more backscatter. I’m sure there are many variables to it though.

I have had the same experience. I much prefer warmer tints in my bright, outdoor-use lights. When standing directly behind the light, the scattering from the beam of a cooler tinted light can sometimes completely obscure what you are trying to illuminate. The beam is still visible with warmer tints but the glare seems to be much less prominent.

This is the same reason many people complain about glare with newer HID and LED car headlights that tend to be in cooler tints than your standard halogens.

For me, it’s definitely that the visible backscatter interferes with my ability to see, not that it seems like less light gets to the target. The effect is not significant if I’m looking from a position a couple degrees away from the light source, but that’s longer than my arms in situations that call for a thrower.

It’s a foggy night outside so I took my E07 SST-20 2700K and E07 XP-L HI 5000K outside for the test. I was surprised their reach is about the same. Though the XP-L HI was about double the brightness due to fresh batteries and brighter emitter. When using the 2700K, I get the impression that it penetrates fog better because I don’t see as much fog moving. With the 5000K, the moving fog is much more visible and it takes my eyes a few seconds to adapt to the glare to be able to focus in the distance whereas with the 2700K, I can pretty much see into the distance right away. But the amount of detail and the distance I can see seems identical with both lights to my surprise.

I think a 2000K flashlight might actually make more noticeable difference in fog.

I think a 2000K flashlight might actually make more noticeable difference in fog.

Now that is something I would buy. I lived off the coast of Washington ST. called Anacortes. Its located on Fidalgo Island, in the Pacific Northwest. It is conveniently situated halfway between Seattle and Vancouver BC and is the destination point for the San Juan Islands and International ferry runs. The fog there would get so thick it was like something out of a movie. You could feel it in your lungs it was so thick. I would be very interested in a torch designed just for fog with maybe an adjustable tint if possible.

Then you’d have to go with incan lights. LED produces one color of the spectrum (monochromatic), while incan emits all colors, making them better to pierce through smoke and fog.

Uh, no.
Monochromatic means one wavelength… that’s what a Red LED does for example, at maybe 635nm.
Or a laser, for example 532nm for a green one…
But a white LED emits all visible wavelengths… in a different way than an incan bulb of course, or even the sun