High CRI... not what I expected? (Happy ending in post 118)

R9 of the LH351D 4000K is closer to 75 at medium currents. The 5000K washes out reds a bit by comparison.

had the same experience when I received my very first high CRI light. It takes a while to get used to the light quality. Using the light in the garden, on skin, on flowers, etc will also help to see the difference.

I’ll add my 2¢ here I suppose. LH351d has not impressed me with color representation, esp with the dome on. Sliced and at high currents and a tint correction film/spray it’s a different story- but then by that point any advantage of the samsung is gone imo. Domed SST20 in 4000K under narrow pebbled TIRs are my go to for now. Best tint IMO comes from 9080 nichias with a duv around –0.0020 and 4000-5000k. My absolute favorite tint/cct/everything is an e17a quad with mixed 3500 and 4500k. For warm, 2000K e21a is my go to. For throwers, I find the osrams cw to be somehow acceptable. I have 75cri 4000K MTG2s that look great next to an FC40 95CRI due to lower duv of the CREE. I nearly puke everytime I turn on my Armytek Dobermann with 6500k XPL HD :confounded: Domed cw XHPs have the same effect. 3A/3D HIs though become bearable again. The lower duv+cct and better color-over-angle of the HI make the same CRI night and day difference to me.

Moral? R9, duv, COA, CCT, Rg, Rf/CRI in mostly that order. Any single variable can ruin it all though IMO.

I’m hopeful for lower duv bins of the Luminus to arrive in 3500/4000k. Praying for a 95cri SST40. Also hopeful the B35AM works out for us with below bbl tints.

Speaking of MT-G2s :heart_eyes: , where ya get pcbs for ’em anymore? I got a few bare emitters, need boards for ’em.

Well personally time of day (or night) doesn’t change whether seeing color is important?

I’m okay with the efficiency and output compromise, because 90+ CRI emitters now are as efficient as CW, 70 or lower CRI ones were not very long ago.

CRI at night can matter to some people. My truck has the old style HIDs (xenon) with a deep purple/dark blue color. They don’t blind oncoming traffic, but I always thought that other cars had weird colors whenever I had my headlamps switched on.

It is the same with any other light application, riding a bike, hiking, walking your dog, etc…

I can’t say I am feeling it either. CRI I think is critical as a doctor or a lab technician but for the rest of us us that walk their dogs and work on cars, not really feeling it.

I’d be interested to know if long-term exposure to lower-CRI lighting like indoor LED bulbs leads to color vision atrophy.

I get what you mean. I’ve been walking through meadows and along the edge of the woods at night lately. All the different plants and grasses at different heights with scrolling shadows look richer with a warmer tint. I don’t know how much CRI plays a role. I’d have to check back to back but I seem to get the same effect with XHP50.2 and XHP70.2 at 3000K as I do with SST-20 at 2700K.

More likely IMO that the same people not bothered by and/or unable to notice one, wouldn’t mind the other.

If something appears or looks different at different times and in different circumstances, how do you know which one is the real one. We know an apple is supposed to be red but if one led shows it as bright red and one shows it as a duller red, which one is closer to reality?

Even two people using the same light source will see the apple differently.

good questions… do some tests :slight_smile:
see what you learn

numerically speaking
If an LED does not produce red, then no red will come back from the apple to our eyes.

High CRI LEDs produce more Red, show the red pigments better.
High CRI is more Full Spectrum, closer to Real Daylight, but not the same.

the LED on the left wont show Red, it cant, because it does not produce Red.

one light completely fails to show the red content of broiled chicken:

to me, the Low CRI chicken looks disgusting…
the High CRI Chicken, is much more appetizing…
it Tastes more like Real Chicken
lol!

My inbred kids won’t be able to complain about always having chicken for dinner anymore, now they can choose between low CRI chicken and high CRI chicken.

and make you commit adultery.

That is 90% the tint and/or CCT of the two lights making a difference, and the other 10% being the high cri led producing more depe reds.

CRI is such a limited way to objectively measure light quality. R9 is just a sliver of deep red taking from a broad spectrum of light— or rather one single color sample. Just because a light has -R9 on its CRI graph doesn’t mean it can’t produce any red content whatsoever.

I bet if you compared a high CRI light with amazing R9, but green tint and high CCT, and compared it to a lower CRI light with pink tint and warm tint but only so-so R9, you’d probably walk away preferring the lower CRI light.

And on the topic of CRI as a whole— it’s a subtle quality to light. It is miniscule compared to CCT and tint. The only real way to accurately qualify how CRI affects light is to pit two light sources of the same CCT and tint against each other, but with varying CRI levels.

I’m sorry honey, but the blue light made me do it! I told you to swap the lightbulbs at home!

Hey, I’m happy to report the high-CRI does seem to make for better photography! The difference is more apparent through my phone camera. Combined with the TIR optic I’m able to get some good shots for my QC dealings.

Thank you, I completley agree. That is the ONLY way to show the benefit or lack of benefit of CRI. Eliminate all the variables except CRI & let the chips fall where they fall. :wink: :white_check_mark:

CCT perception is mostly a matter of raw lux, at low lux, low cct is better.

The sheer amount of lux needed for lights over 4500k to be perceptually good renders anything over that pointless in a flashlight. 6500k is for intensely bright (500-1000 lux) corporate lighting in offices etc…

My favorite Chicken Lights have 219b sw45k, like the light in the middle:

Post photos of Your favorite Chicken Roasting Light!