Fireflies PL47 Flashlight

I haven’t seen the higher CRI Sammy, only 80 at 5000K. I tend to immediately change warm emitters, they go in the trash normally.

Edit: I got the SST-20’s for the high CRI and because they carried no additional expense. I didn’t want to pay $12 for the XP-L HI’s in addition to the $48 price of the light. I’ll change em if the suck…

Wait wut?

Don’t you like a smooth creamy 4000k that looks like the afternoon sun?

I love using my BLF Q8 and TK15 outside now because of this.

I don’t know what is going to happen with the PL47 though.

Especially since I have some Sanyo 20700As, and I recently found a Dyson pack with updated cells.

Guess what they are are?

YEESS! Samsung 30Ts!

I totally agree.

I got info outside the blf forum.

Ish. It’s more that I don’t like warm color temperatures. They don’t look white to me, ever. And using them to read or otherwise illuminate things makes my eyes hurt, even at 100 CRI.

As for tint, I have a strong preference for tints on the pink side of the BBL instead of the green side.

So I tend to care more about how LEDs perform at low power than how they perform at full power. Most LEDs get warmer and greener at low power, which are two traits I don’t like. Most of them look a lot better at higher power levels, but that doesn’t really help because that’s not how I use lights. For most of my usage, 1x7135 chip is plenty… and those only make about 120 to 150 lm. Split that between emitters in a triple or quad, and it’s only 30 to 50 lm per emitter. So the emitter’s low-power off-white tint looks pretty severe.

I tried that with Adobe Camera Raw a while back and it works quite well.

Thanks for the link. Looks like the Camera was a little inconsistent. I wonder if it can get fooled by bad tint when far off the BBL.
I also wonder if a camera with more dynamic range, say a Sony full frame mirrorless, will be more accurate than a micro four thirds.

The tint probably doesn’t play a big role. At least I didn’t see correlation between tint and the amount of error in my tests. The Zebralight H600Fd Mk3 is perfectly neutral, but had quite a big error in CCT.

There’s a separate slider for tint (magenta/green) in the RAW converter so you could use that to gauge neutrality. At least to compare the relative differences between lights, even if “0” wouldn’t mean perfectly neutral on the BBL.

I don’t think dynamic range affects the result very much as long as the exposure is good (near the middle range). The dynamic range of the photo won’t be very large as you would just include the spot (or area of interest) in the frame.

Interesting and thanks for the post. It amazes me that so many are angrily militant in terms of their unprotected cells and the power that they produce when the entire character, tint, etc. of LEDs is dependent on the more or (heaven forbid) ‘less’ power put to them.
Please forgive me fellow forum members for inquiring as to lower power protected 21700 cell fitment in this light with so many different LED options… :wink:

I like white lights and I cannot lie…

I’ve spent years doing everything humanly possible to ensure an expensive white wedding dress looks white in the pictures, no room in there for me to have a sunset orange light cast on everything, my mind just does not like it. White light, give me white light, and I’ll be happy.

Since most of my builds are essentially research as to how much a particular light is capable of making, I lean towards absolutes in the other end of the spectrum… and because when I actually use lights it’s typically in a wide open big range scenario, tons of light is the prerequisite.

This one is intended to use when feeding the dog at night. The back yard is essentially 200’ x 200’ with a tree line on most of 3 sides and some buildings to one side where skunks can be lurking. So, lot of light prevails over sheer high quailty or beam tint. We know what a skunk looks like, be he coated in pink or green hues. :stuck_out_tongue: (Yes, they WILL chase you down to spray you!)

On the other side of this coin, seeing a green cast on everything doesn’t sit right with my brain either. I’ve spent so much if my life around incandescent and sodium lights that a warmer tint is something I can stand however, even if its not my absolute favorite.

I still stick to the idea that blue light is something you want to AVOID in any activity where focus/depth perception is important. Amber lenses for driving, shooting sports, etc. for years have never let me down, and anecdotally cooler temps often seem to give me more “glare” at night when compared against warmer tints at the same brightness and intensity.

Spent all my life outdoors, working in construction. Wasn’t around a lot of fluorescent lighting. But when it comes time to go out in the dark and get something done I can stand a blue-white tint, can’t bear a campfire orange hue on everything, those old Maglite days are gone for me! Green hue, don’t care for it and it bugs the snot out of me but if I have something to do I can still get it done, it’ll bug me the whole time though. The cool white doesn’t do that, I mean, doesn’t bug me the whole time I’m out. Too much like the new headlights on cars I guess. Man, speaking of cars, my old ’51 Chevy had those dang near orange lights and I hated em even 40 years ago! lol

I am just the opposite. My eyes just don’t like cool white at all. I can live with neutral, but much prefer warm light. Earlier today I put some XM-L Hi, U4, 3000K 80+CRI emitters from mtnelectronics in one of my Wuben T046R lights. It now gives me a very warm, orange-ish, golden light. I love it.


I feel that, the Nichias I’ve seen as cool as 6000K still look great and handle red and brown tones really well. Personally I don’t like anything south of 4000K either as its just washed out orange like you said but to some people 4000 Is SUPER warm still.

On the other hand I HATE the cool white LEDs on some new cars. Hurts my eyes whether I’m using them or another car is shining them at me, its nice they’re a bit brighter when you’re driving with them but the tradeoff in eye strain really wouldn’t be worth it for me. Same reason I’ve got f.lux on my PC and a blue-blocker app on my phone too. I definitely think some people are more sensitive to it, and I’ve always had issues with even regular sunlight causing eye strain if I’m not wearing sunglasses pretty much my whole life (getting contact lenses helped - they block UV).

And all this, in a nutshell, is why there are no right or wrong answers.

That photo above, side by side lights with the orange on the right? I’d have those orange emitters in the trash within 20 minutes of opening the box! Read a book once where the divine wisdom was “Leave to others their otherness.” :wink:

Now we just need other brands to get on the cool white but high CRI/R9 train! :smiley:

Y’all just need to learn to mod… :stuck_out_tongue:

@DB Custom and BPlayd0h, there is the 5700k Luxeon MZ 90CRI for you, and the 5000k LH351D 90CRI.

However, don’t you both forget that there is a large difference in how 3500k and below emitters are represented in pictures.

Emitters with low R9 values and high CRI values will tend to look on the orange side of things at 3500k and below CCTs. See the XM-L2 3000k 80CRI above. That is due to the green wavelengths of the light emitted mixing it with the red, giving it a bad orange look. Doesn’t look bad, but doesn’t look good either, even to my warm tinted eyes.

Emitters with high R9 values and high CRI will tend to look towards red at 3500k and below. See E21As and LH351B 3000k 90CRI. They look gorgeous, even on a white wall. It looks more realistic since red tones are less washed out, making it look more reddish in tones, giving it an incandescent tone.

I just keep cramming MT-G2’s in everything Blue. :smiley:

Isn’t the reason for the MT-G2 having such a good beam because it works like a small COB LED chip?

And why it’s so biiig.