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

Thanks. Figured it might be something like that, along with niche flashlight producers generally being very small potatoes to the big manufacturers.

I think Tint is affecting peoples judgement here .whenever you put two lights side by side you'll almost always choose one over the other and even your favorite high color rendering light suddenly looks green when side by side compared to a "Better" emitter. So everyone knows what subjectively they think is a better light . John is just comparing his own lights against his own lights and noting what he subjectivly thinks he likes best .

The somewhat green hi cri sst 20's and the high cri 219C's made everyone rethink what they thought was true of hi cri . The rosyiness of the 219B 45k made lots of people equate red or rosy as being high cri .

Being able to fix a tint with a Lee filter ..and doing it to a green tint that almost everyone considers as just plain nasty is a pretty easy and quick n dirty fix .

the issues of the uv coated lenses that Olight and 4 7's used for so many years that created foul green tints hasn't even begun to be addressed . Or the fact that the newer emitters in general seem slanted towards green too.

My simple thought is that high cri is paramount ....output is relative and pretty limited in most cases and tint can be fixed or modified . but low cri is only fixed by changing the emitter .

I used to love to bring up the inverse square law to illustrate the point that your brain can't see moderate increases in power .Visually the differences between 300lumens and 600 lumens is minuscule ,it looks like someone made a bad mode spacing choice on a driver .... but you can't miss the difference between low and high cri ..My point was.. I want to pay for what I can see ..Not what I can't .

AWB.

SST-20, 4000K

LH351D, 2700K

XM-L2, 3000K (don’t remember, between Ra 80 and 85, Opple is undecided)

XP-L2, 5D

I think the camera does with AWB what our mind does, so this is a fair comparison. Data says, the color rendering quality should degrade top to bottom. Eyes say…?

bottom two inferior as expected, 2nd is compensating its crap r9 by being low cct. also, cri is only really perceivable on natural high contrast items, like skin. wood works, but it’s lower contrast than skin a lot of the time. plus, the cameras people use are not great - and most are in sRGB space, which is drastically smaller than what we percieve. not to mention many monitors are crap.

Either way, 4000-5000k is ideal, and cri doesn’t matter a whole lot except on high contrast natural items. the biggest issue with most LEDs is blue bump, cyan dip. the red dip is not very perceptual to our eyes, because we hardly see the cutoff anyway

In direct comparison with the bottles the SST-20 wins hands down. The XM-L2 is not bad, but a little weak on cyan. The Samsung is terrible. Outside, the 4000K SST-20 feels a little to warm, but still performs incredibly.

Rendering comparisons on a single piece of wood without other other colors around is a fairly useless comparison other than simply showing how that particular object looks under the light. Where CRI/Ra really shines is giving more comparative visual information. A rosy tint will make the wood look good, but it also makes everything ELSE look very rosy, which may be pleasant, but doesn’t offer the same benefit to distinguishing/identifying colors.

I’m not convinced that we can assign a very specific color temperature to the midday Sun without specifying where on the earth we are and what season it is. However assuming we can even get close to a specific number, whenever the sun is out I have sunglasses on. Even if the Sun is hidden behind a whole lot of clouds, I have sunglasses on. If it’s raining and I’m driving I have sunglasses on. I don’t like the color temperature of midday Sun. I like it a lot warmer. I have speculated in the past about people that live in city or suburban areas with a whole lot of extra street lights and signs and so forth somewhat being accustomed to cooler temperature lights.

thanks for trying to take useful photos…

because the blue can looks different in every shot, it tells me the WB is different in every shot. But that said, I like the SST “best”.

I also like the 2700k LH351d, but, I almost never use such a warm light, unless I am waking up in the dark… I would never use it during daylight adaptation, not even under incandescent…

There are two ways to fix white balance differences…

1. if taking separate photos, dont use AWB, set to a consistent 5000k WB, or daylight white if the camera does not specify…

2. If you dont have manual white balance, then all lights should shoot separate cans but all in the same photo, lined up side by side… just the can with the fruit colors… leave the blue can out of the photo completely (and dont overlap the spill of each light)

opinion:
The colorful can is not ideal because it is not natural, organic, red pigment… would be better to line up some tomatoes, or strawberries, not oranges, they are not red enough… but a lineup of red objects might not work… to show the difference in a photo, that may be more obvious to your eyes

bottom line is that it is very difficult to photograph to reveal CRI… I trust your eyes and personal impressions, more than photos. I also rely on maukkas spectrum charts, to show the actual R9 value, those tell me the SST has the best R9, much better than LH351

one of the easiest CRI tests I have, is the palm of my hand…

in any case, congrats your your selection of test LEDs… hope you find the ones that work best for you :slight_smile:

When is 1000K tint coming out??

I chose those LEDs more or less randomly. My choice depends on ambient light. The Samsung was never a favourite.

The use of AWB is a result of my beamshots on TLF. It makes a picture taken look like I perceived the original scene. E.g., in the darkest night even a 6000K XHP70 looks good imo. Adjust the cam to 5000K and the picture looks terrible.

My 2 cents worth….

The woodwork in my house appears more like it really is with a higher CRI light. Maybe I can tell more than others because I stained all the trim and doors myself and made and finished much of the furniture. The stained woods have a certain amount of reddish tone to them. When I walk outside around the home or through the woods the brown pine needles and pine cones on the ground are more distinguishable from the grey and black earth. The green grasses seem to be more true to color. The old (red) McCormick IH tractor is truly red as is my Tacoma. The funny thing is I used to accept what things looked like with low CRI lights. But now I see the difference and it can bother me to see falso color rendition when I can have a choice for higher CRI.

Since it seems the LH351D emitter in my Skilhunt isn’t the best high-CRI emitter, I’ve ordered a Skilhunt E2A with an SST-20 high-CRI emitter to do some comparison.

(Also heard that someone ordered a Zebralight with a supposedly high-CRI LH351D and it turns out it wasn’t really high-CRI at all, so I wonder if my emitter falls in that same mediocre batch.)

It’s important to note a 5000K white balance does not fix white balance differences. Setting a consistent color temperature fixes white balance differences. It could be 3500K, 3000K, or 2200K. The important thing here is to shoot at the same “K” or kelvin rating.

Your going to be comparing the first one at 5000k to the second one at 4000k. You’re almost guaranteed to like the 4000k hi cri. You won’t ever want to get anything above 4000K again.

The LH351D doesn’t do so well on Reds (R9), but it is still a good compromise between high CRI and lumens.

To be fair, you’d only really notice that on deep reds. Orangey reds like my powerbank case, ketchup packets, etc., still show up fine.

True. The reds with the LH351D are still better than 70CRI lights.

Alrighty I got my E2A today, and that was the light that calibrated my eyes. Now I can discern the difference better thanks to the more accurate SST-20.

Still not a huge difference, but I’m catching on.

Yup, I can definitely see it now. Getting this light was a good move. With the Skilhunt everything is nice and clear. With my other lights it seems like there’s a slight fog over all the colors.

> Still not a huge difference, but I’m catching on.

well done… it does help to have other lights to compare to… I keep a Low CRI XM-L2 around, just to remind me how good my sw45k really is

> With my other lights it seems like there’s a slight fog over all the colors.

yes, I call that “washed out”…

suggest you practice seeing red… I find it very informing to illuminate the palm of my hand… some LEDs make skin look alive, others make it look dead

I also suggest you simplify your color targets… I would avoid plants, and complex multi color targets. Focus on organic things that have inherent red pigments, including wood, skin, and meats.