Why do you buy lights without High-CRI emitters?

I hope I get a good one, my understanding is that the S42 models have an annoying UI, but the S41 I have ordered should have the A6 UI, which I really like.
Ordered it mid-April so will only find out around June/July, average delivery to me so far 77.1 days.

thanks for making me famous! SliderInternetPhotoMode… (SIPMode) is not “real life” LOL

S1 Mini 5D? Utorch or Olight? Got Photo? rotfl

If CRI and Tint are overrated, then CCT is what really matters :wink:
oh, wait, Beam shape matters most to me now that I have a Mule, I think HotSpots and Throw are overrated too.

Why buy a beam with a dim spill and glaring hotspot, when you can have a wide even flood?

It depends what you need to light up, how big it is, and how far away it is. If you’re lighting up closer OR bigger you would probably be happier with “flood” or at least a very wide beam. If you are trying to light up something smaller OR further away, you might prefer a tighter beam so that only the object you want to see is well lit. It’s about your field of vision and seeing what you want to see without too much light shining on distractions. For general purpose, a small TIR light like the Olight S1A I had, was the perfect beam profile.

Yes, we have no bananas. My NW Utorch has the best beam for fruit :wink:

Color is overrated

We are very very similar in many ways( TT-tint taste), except i have many many 4000,5000 and a few 6000k’s, I prefer 5k for day time, can use evening as well, but prefer 4k given the choice. Not sure exact, but must have 20-30 4k lights. Guess 30-40 5k as i can use 5k any time, be it day, evening or in the night. For work which is mainly day time and full of artificial light, 4k can often see off to my brain/eyes. The 4500k 219b does work excellent though, the 219c 4k also is quite good. Generally 219b/c 5k works the best to fight off that artificial ugliness . The last cool white i bought was a zebra sc62 , rated around 6300k and looks clean/pure white. Although colours are not as pimped up, they look fairly accurate even though lower CRI (compared to nichia). I admit out of the 10 or so illumination tools , most are high CRI, yet tint actually is more important. Being in cool/cold artificial light, off tints raise their ugly head permanently. So rather than colours popping! i need to see everything in a tolerable tint if makes sense. My most used of late thanks to newlumen, is the olight H2r. This is a neutral xhp50, no doubt 80CRI or even less. But damn………………everything i look at looks very good! Dare i say it, but yes, just as good as my 219b/s in work……………to my eyes anyway. No fruit bowls in work, just dust covered robots and other machinery .

As long as my eyes/brain cell sees objects and perceives they look as they should(massive variable), i dont care what the LED is rated at in CT and CRI. I have been disappointed with some nichia’s, i have been impressed with some CREE.(xpl HI and xhp).

What we call low CRI is actually relatively high CRI, which is why most of us aren’t really complaining about poor colors…

The OP question was simple, the explanation for each available answers are not. But he asked only for the answer (can’t give multiple choice unfortunately).

My analogy is transportation vehicle. It’s a technology to move from point A to point B faster than walking, that’s it.
The fastest and straight to the point way could be a just simple cart tied to a rocket with brakes - expensive, no safety, not easily reusable, hard to park, but super cool to the kids. Engineers have been created all kind of vehicles based on our needs (terrains, comfort, mileage, budget, safety, status, etc…). To drive from point A to point B while enjoying the ride is optional, but the most important thing is to get there (safely, within reasonable time, etc…).

Don’t let the additional features obscured the primary target. Only when the main goal achieved we can then add the rest to the basic.

If you can only use one tiny AAA flashlight inside a dark underground mine, high CRI LED is the last thing you need.

- Clemence

Good point. :+1: … I had not really thought about that.

Blah, blah, blah, high color rendering index is so much better etc. Cool! Good to know. Guess I’ll see when I get it. But then I also pulled the trigger on a Nitecore 2017 Tip CRI…. still can not believe the dramatic amount of difference between a CRI light and all of my previous Cree flashlights.

I prefer High-CRI, it can better restore the object original appearance, make it more comfortable for us to read and work.

Cheers ^:)

For the things I’m likely to use a flash light for, CRI doesn’t matter to me. As long as the color temperature is not too blue (beyond 6000K) I’m happy.

Combination of #1 and #3… I can certainly see a difference, but its not worth the lumen output sacrifice… Hence I am not willing to pay a a little more for it.

Personally, I buy with high CRI emitters when I can, especially since even a 25% difference in brightness is not easy to spot, but a good tint high CRI light can be extremely easily noticed.

Ive done a bit of math on the lumen outputs of the Lumintop Tool w 4000k N219b 90 CRI, 6000k XP-G2 70 CRI, 4000k N219c 90 CRI
The high modes are 80 lumens, 110 lumens, and 110 Lumens.
for me the Color Temperature and Tint of the 80 Lumen N219b is prefered. The CW makes reds look brown, the N219c has much lower R9 and a much greener Tint than the 219b. Supposedly the 219c is the same CRI as the 219b, which is true, but, thats only half the story, the R9 on the N219b is about 300% that of the 219c.

Comparing the 110 lumen 219c to the 80 lumen 219b shows the 219c is 38% brighter than the 219b, otoh, yet both have a CRI Ra of 90. But, thats before considering the RED (R9) output increase of 300% in the 219b over the 219c

now lets compare some colors on a specific light I recently had modified, on the left before, on the right after the LED swap to Nichia
(note the pics are to show color and tint, I did not take them at the same time, so the brightnesses are not accurate, the yellow light has almost double the lumens output on my meter, than the purple white light on the right.) and remember it takes a 4x incease in brightness to make a slightly noticeable difference in brightness. Doubling the brightness does not make a light Look twice as bright… anyway, I think this pic sort of demonstrates what I think might be a reasonable difference in brightness. more research required for further accuracy.

If you had to give up 48% of the lumens to gain 36% higher CRI Ra, would you do it?:slight_smile:

Another factor is a type of CRI called the Saturated Red (aka R9 CRI). On the Nichia it is over 95 Ra, on the XPL is is a negative number, about –15. That means that the Nichia has over 500% more Red output than the NW XPL. I have never seen anyone discuss this detail, so I started a thread about it.

If Im only looking at green things, then the piss yellow light works fine. I can even tell green things apart from red things (that look brown actually).
Otoh, if there are red things to be seen, the Nichia is a Joy to behold, for me, in the way I use my lights, which is mostly at very close range and almost always below 100 lumens.

I cant wait for midnight, Im waiting to see if the drop from 0.2 lumens of XPL to 0.1 lumens of N219b is still effective to find the toilet without stepping on the cats toys, or gooey wet hairballs… :slight_smile:

So percentage loss on a nichia swap Lumens is more than 25%, but so is the increase in CRI Ra, and so is the increase in RED CRI R9

If you had a choice to have the light on the left at 400 lumens max, or the light on the right at 200 lumens max, which would you pick?

when in doubt, the correct answer is both :slight_smile:

Same fruit under super high CRI lighting

1 Thank

Yes, a 48% drop in lumens is worth it if I would gain much higher CRI.

Even then, a 50% drop in output is not really that noticeable.

LOL!
when did you sneak into my pantry?

agreed. You and I understand each other.
The rest of the world still thinks a NW piss yellow LED is not that noticeable in actual use, and we can still tell colors apart with negative R9.
Its a tint snob thing, for whitewall hunters, to focus on R9 values, like I am atm.

I have however gained a much better understanding of people with NW leds who say things like, “it looks almost like a Nichia”. That made me put my money where my mouth is. I discovered that “I cant tell in actual use unless I look at red things”. A Low R9 LED makes red things look brown. But, I have special whitewall hunters training. :slight_smile: Im not average, or “normal”… lol

use whatever light rocks your world.
for me that means No Negative R9… this is beyond CRI Ra, which Zebra, Eagle, and Olight, have learned to “game the system”, producing “high cri” lights with low R9, green tint, and nothing like the Nichia 219b that my generation was born to love.

no judgement, just personal preferences

LEDs do not produce the same full spectrum that sunlight does, much as I wish they did. Not even all Nichias, but some Nichiast come closer to full spectrum and sunlight tint, than ALL Crees. Biased, who me?, Why, Yes! I know Red when I see it, and Cree cant show it the way some Nichias can.

btw, the N219b is extinct in the wild. There are a few left in captivity. If you want any, adopt some soon, before they are all gone to good homes.
get yours here [GB ended, news update only] Last batch of 219B sw45k R9080 and sw40 R9080 or from one of the friendly modders on that list who are stocking up. :slight_smile:

There is the E21A and Optiolosis series of LEDs that have R9080 and R9595 respectively though to meet your sunlight needs.

BTW, another unexpected of higher CRI LEDs is while they are usually less efficient, they usually have lower forward voltages, meaning, especially with a buck or boost driver, brightness is even more stable over the runtime of the light.

yes Im very curious to see some of the E21A and Optisolis.

Im not educated enough to fully comprehend VF as you describe in relation to stability over runtime

I wondered if the Nichia had a higher VF than the XPL, but I dont have the data. I just know the Nichia lost a considerably higher percentage of brightness compared to the 5000k XPL, than a 4000k Nichia does compared to a 6000k XPG2… based on brightness differences I have measure before and after LED swaps… dont know why… more education welcome