OK, this is personal preference and it has been beaten to death…but that’s what’s good about BLF. We get to do just that!
I can appreciate neutral tint but sometimes I don’t even care about that as long as the tint isn’t green or something totally unnatural. I can appreciate how at times some things look for colorful at night outside with a warmer light. I even keep one such light for that reason.
In general though the more I think about it the more I think it’s an odd thing (warm tint). I’m sure ultimately manufacturers will just settle on neutral tints and be done with it.
I’ve been thinking along these lines lately after playing around with my new (old retro) incan light and after spending some time with astronomy. The Sun is generally listed at 5,700 K and it’s obvious with the older incan lights that they were very under driven thus giving them the unnaturally yellow/orange tint that many are attached to. There is nothing natural with this color however.
If you drive it harder even an incan becomes much closer to white and at 5.700 the Sun is basically cool neutral. The under driven incan that I just bought must be 2,700 K or in that range. If not for those under driven lights which for the most part we are so glad to get away from I don’t think anyone would have a attachment for warm lights (just my opinion).
Does it strike anyone else as odd/funny or whatever that there now is a fondness for something (under drive lights resulting in warm colors) that was at the time a product fault rather than a positive?
And the answer is.... the Kruithof curve. :)
The brighter the light, the the cooler it can be and appear natural.
The dimmer the light, the warmer it can be and appear natural.
AFAIK, incans cannot come anywhere near 5700K. I believe the max is closer to 3500K
In a few years after we are no longer using incan in our houses no one will even think that those color temps are natural 
Flashaholics will probably be asking manufacturers to make a special run of lights with a little more blue so as to appear a bit more natural and to bring out the greens and purples in the landscape at night
It does.
Since proper CFL-bulbs have been out, I have been replacing my incans with them for whiter light.
I hate those piss colored warm CFL´s. At kitchen I have 940 tubes for color renderition and like them a lot.
I bought one "neutral" Zebralight because for some crazy reason i thought it would be more NEUTRAL than the slightly bluish regular version. Dohh... It´s brown.
I’m glad to hear that regarding Zebralight. Not glad that it’s brown exactly but glad I didn’t miss anything by getting two regular LED’s in mine.
I’m please with what I have but thought that maybe I should have gotten neutral or the higher CRI version but I was concerned that it would be something I wouldn’t like since there is no standard for those things in terms of tint.
My idea of neutral is what you mentioned as well…neutral…a little less blue and not a little warm.
Ah ha...that's the one. I always talk about this phenomenon but could not find the name. For me i sometimes prefer warm white lights, esp those places which are somewhat errie. With a 1A, some places really become pretty errie looking.
We need multi-die LED with different tints on each die. Who needs brightness levels?... I want switchable tint levels. Cool, warm and neutral all in one flashlight. ;-)
The effect I find interesting is referred to in that link as well. I forget the name but it’s a guys name and starts with a p. Anyway at noon we see a wavelength of around 555 nanometers best and by 5pm as the light is gradually changing it switches to 500 nanometers.
The example usually given and the one that caused the effect to be discovered in the first place involves a red rose on a rose bush.
When observed at noon the rose looks bright red and the green leaves behind it look rather dark. By 5pm the rose isn’t so bright looking and has a bluish tint as well but the green leaves now look bright green!
In other words as light is reduced our vision is shifting toward the shorter wavelengths (blue and violet) and then it gets dark and we see no color (without additional light). So we’re shifting from cones to cones and rods to just rods.
Multiple with variable settings to adjust to our specific desired tint at anytime .:)
I know with CFL lights that the cool white or "daylight" ones make people look greenish. I do *not* like that look. Makes everyone look like they are sick. So I get the warmer tint and I'm much happier about it. The cool whites are relegated to outdoor use only.
I agree though about warm LED tints. I don't care for the orange or brown tints. But I definitely prefer neutral over cool white. I see 4Sevens just introduced a line of lights with high CRI (85+) XP-G LED's. Maximum output is a Q3 bin though. That's a big hit to take in brightness.
it could be that what people really like about incans is the 100 CRI. when you compare a bright Xenon bulb with a 3000K 75 CRI LED, the incan renders vibrant colors while the LED looks a lot duller and gives everything an orange tint.
If it’s well driven I agree that is probably one appealing aspect. However, it’s still not a “true” regarding colors as people might think as long as it’s in the 3000 k range.
How do you have “true” colors when you are “coloring” everything in yellow or orange?
Actually, CRI is not about trueness to the eyes. It is the a figure to quantatively measure a light source's ability to reproduce all the different gradations/naunces of colours of an object. It is important in photography (probably they mean studio) and cinematography.
It's only in flashlights and maybe perhaps in the aquarium hobby that we twist and market it to our "technical advantage".
Warm LEDs are actually 85 CRI usually, not 75. NW is 75.
that's why i was careful to say that incans renders vibrant colors, not true colors. incans may not render colors true, but they can still give a greater range of colors than a typical LED. even truly neutral LED's of around 5000K rated at 70-75 CRI can make colors at the extremes of the color range look kind of dull compared to an incan.
the warm LED's i've owned were rated at 75 CRI.