Why do you buy lights without High-CRI emitters?

What I have learned recently is that colour temperature, tint, and CRI are somewhat independent of each other.

I was quite happy believing that colour temperature was everything, and the more neutral the temperature, with a certain bias for preference, the better colours would show.

In practice, this appears to be true (at least for me) to a much larger extent than CRI values.

I have high CRI Nichia lights with warm and cool temperatures and to my eye, neither of them represent colours as well as a neutral light such as my BLF A6 set to an equivalent brightness. I compare the three both outside with a wide range of foliage colours and inside with reds, greens, pastel colours, and browns. I apparently cannot see any advantage to a high CRI light if the temperature is not neutral, since it seems to my eye to taint the colours compared to a neutral light, which shows colours as I would expect them to be, despite much lower CRI.

Jaxman E2 maybe? And this one must be with the 219B 5700K Ra9050.

Cheers ^:)

Factory lights usually have only one or two emitter options with unknown CRI.
Fortunately e.g. Emisar’s lights have big palette of high CRI emitters.

I prefer high CRI for indoors. It is hard to feel any difference outdoors when surrounding areas are grey and ugly.

I have a good few of most options, so although I do like hi cri. It’s not always a deciding factor, colour temp and actual tint is more important for me. For example the xpl2 I have had, too yellow so don’t care what the cri is if my eyes/brain can’t stand it.

I tend to use hi cri at home, edc and at work mainly. If I am using a big gun, hi cri becomes less important than a light used for close up tasks. For example hi cri in dedicated throwers is not important for me personally. Yet for a mule , it’s pretty much critical!

So yes I buy hi cri, but it’s just a single part of my flashlight puzzle . If I want a 4500k light with 80cri, it won’t stop me buying it.

Someone said it above. When you’re looking to spot something far away, nothing really matters except that you get light on the person/place/thing that you’re pointing at. Usually, the more light the better, which is why cool whites are used a lot for throwers.

Okay, so… Jaxman and Zebralight. (I’ll throw in Lumintop for ya.)

Sofirn? Thorfire? Convoy? Thrunite? Niwalker? Nitecore? XTAR? Haikelite? Manker? UTorch? Wuben? Fitorch? …

3 brands out of 14 brazillion.

Yah, lotta choice there…

Like I said…

And what I think everybody’s overlooking, because no one mentioned it yet, is that in a reflector light, any kind of tint-shift will of course skew the color balance. Bad enough in a fried-egg beam the hotspot is yellower and the spill is bluer, and who knows what hideous color the corona might end up being.

For a high-CRI LED to be used to its fullest, you need at the very least a TIR lens to blend/mix the colors better and more consistently, or use an aspheric lens or just plain use it as a mule to get a nice even dispersion of light.

That almost certainly means a flooder (narrow-angle TIRs being the exception… maybe), which would usually mean the light would likely be used for close-in work where color rendition matters.

Haven’t had much free time since I started the poll, but really appreciate the votes and responses so far. Lots of interesting perspectives and factors to consider, thanks all!

Also, Maratac and Reylight make some lights with Nichia emitters as standard, but afaik they’re both limited to AA/AAA (maybe 14500/10450?). I have a Xeno E03 with Nichia as well, but I think it was a limited run and mine crapped out.

Kinda underscores my point. The vast majority of mfrs primarily cater to lumen-hounds, and secondarily to those who’d insist on warmer CTs (or at the very least not Angry Blue™).

As for high-CRI… I doubt very many than the handful listed would even know what a “CRI” might be, let alone pay a premium to use a high-CRI chip.

The only Mankers I own (E02H and E03H) are un-modded with high CRI nichia emitters. Those might be the only high CRI lights they sell, I dunno. Hmm. Nope, E01, maybe MK34.

Ah, okay, so 4 out of 14 brazillion… :smiley:

A good point Lightbringer, i have noticed with the same LED (not always literally )used in a reflector, optics and mule to produce different tint flavours. Now i admit i have not got it to a point of X LED in X type engine= X tint. But for example, the 219c 4000k is nicer to my eyes in a reflector than in a triple optic. By that, still towards yellow, but not as yellow……….quite yellow!

I mostly don’t. When I get review lights or buy something based on other features and it’s not at least 80 CRI, it gets modded. Those other features usually do have to do with the host or driver.

This XHP70 and this XHP35 HI are recent favorites for applications where Nichia doesn’t really have anything for us.

Here are 88 high-CRI factory lights. A few are near-duplicates and a few are not traditional flashlights.

Selection is small though, and I’ve been making a habit of pressuring/encouraging manufacturers to offer more.

Makes sense. My ZL SC600w HI has an 80 CRI emiter and the color rendering is still very good.
My personal preference is still higher CRI if a good option is available.

If getting as much light on the target is the main goal, low CRI for increased output makes sense.

I have
Maratac AAA High CRI lights, some modded to warmer CCT, some stock w Nichia, some with 9080 nichia swaps.

Mecarmy PT16 and PT18, modded to High CRI 3000k and 4000k Nichias

Olight S1 Mini High CRI

Lumintop Worm, and Tools w stock High CRI Nichias

in Cool White that I only use for comic relief I have Fenix E01, Thorfire TK05 and Olight Copper S Mini (planned to mod to high CRI)

For me High CRI is required. Neutral tint or below the BBL tint is required. Depending on the white balance of my brain at different times of day and night I use 3000k, 4000k, 4500k, 5500k, All High CRI with good tint.

Sometimes I use Lee Minus green filters to improve tint and move it below the BBL
I dislike tint above BBL, I dislike NW low CRI lights with negative R9 values.

tint matters, CRI matters, CCT matters

using CW after dark disrupts melatonin, promotes cancer… see

I find blue light keeps me awake, warm light helps me relax and go to sleep

otoh, to prevent falling asleep at the wheel on long night drives, CW might be stimulating to keep alert till safe arrival, and
CW is good for working on cars during the day, when green tint wont be noticed, but I still want High CRI

the reason there are not more High CRI lights is because consumers are not aware of the details regarding spectrum, tint, and color temp, they just buy the brightest specs, out of ignorance

and,
majority of posters hype up their low CRI, high brightness lights, which makes others follow the Piper

Personally, having tried lots of low and high CRI lights, I think of high CRI as mostly just a marketing gimmick.

Lumens, beam pattern, color temperature and tint below the black body line all matter much more than CRI.

Didn’t know any better…….at the time. Oops.

Totally agree with this, it’s the most important thing to me. I don’t like Blue/Green or Orange/Yellow emitters either. Have a couple high CRI EDC lights I built and 80 CRI XHP35/50/70 high performance lights I built and I’m not that impressed with them. But that’s just me.