That last photo from Toykeeper and the posts by firelight2 sum it up for me. High CRI without also having your preferred colour temp and tint is pointless.
I have two astrolux A01 lights, supposedly both with high CRI Nichia 219, yet one is too cool and washes out the colours, the other too warm and muddies the colours. I dont like either, as far as I am concerned I want colours to look real and natural, and a 70 CRI neutral temp smashes a 90 CRI with noticeably off neutral tint out of the park every time.
I have a neutral 90CRI on the way, and will be very interested to compare it to my other neutral lights, but honestly, I’m not expecting to see much difference.
Simply because most of lights I’m interested in don’t have high CRI version or…. the other features makes high CRI LED not so important.
It’s important to me but, low/no CRI is better than no lights at all.
Pic lit by Maratac AA Cu Rev 5, Nichia (deets unknown, would love to know). I mis-spoke earlier when I said the Nichia in the Reylight Mini was about perfect for me; it has the better beam profile, but the Maratac has better tint (temps are both neutral, but again, deets unknown). The Maratac temp and tint seems really close to the BLF Q8’s to me (XPL HD V6 3D,) but obvs with higher cri.
Because I suspect that the CRI makes very little visible difference. I have tried to replicate the obvious differences in the photographs of hands under different CRI ratings, and in real life, the only thing that makes a noticeable difference is temp, even tint is only significant when white wall hunting. I realise thesr things are subjective, and that cameras bring different factors to the party,but this thread in particular has convinced me that it is not just me, it would take a lot to convince me now that CRI above 70 is worth pursuing.
Perhaps the single most blatant demonstration is my bedroom. The walls are a light cream colour, and the ceiling plain white. None of my high CRI non-neutral lights can illustrate that they are different colours, they look the same.
ALL of my neutral lights clearly show both colours distinctly.
What is the use of high CRI if it cannot show the difference in two colours side by side?
As a point of clarification, I’ve had some fun with pics here, but would agree that my pics at least are pointless in demonstrating anything other than to have a visual. You either see a difference that matters to you in real life or you don’t, no worries either way.
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