$1 Budget Beamer Beaters

Blue tint then affected TCR?

I can confirm, they used to do that all the time on “Hogan’s Heroes”.

Just blink a flashlight at the approaching plane a few times, and they’ll drop it right to ya.

No offence butt this is like comparing apples to walnuts. They both fall outta trees butt practicality-wise that’s about it. :laughing: Those 5mm’s would have to be assembled into something similar in reflector design, output, beam pattern, beam concentration, etc., to the OT 50L. Not really practical for most.

Yet if they’re in photo panels who can argue with that? I can’t. So you’re prolly right, they are likely CRI/TCR technically better than the OT 50L’s. Are they that discernably better walking around looking at a myriad of objects at night? IDK. I and others are happy with the TCR we see though. May not be good enuff for you though. I can see why. Butt that’s yer perogative.

Yet convenience of the OT 50L Walmart availability ‘outshine’s’ this hassle. As you say, it’s usable. I and others say it’s plenty usable enuff for these purposes. In this case practical too.

For $1.00 who can argue with that premise?

Ya gotta start somewhere. So I did. Hope others do too. :laughing:

I have 4 and they all have different tints.
This is expected.
And as far as this tcr thing where did that come from?
Its no industry standard i have heard of.

Yer not going to either. I invented it. TCR. True Color Rendition. In my too lengthy temporary signature. :laughing:

PS. In effect, a stretched derivative of this……………………………

PSS. Unabashedly subjective. Reasonably more supportable by consensus. Better than just relying on CRI when making a purchase if possible. Nonetheless CRI without any TCR inputs is where ya should start. Best said, TCR is most useful when combined with CRI numbers. To wit, “Trust butt verify”. :laughing:

I didn’t test it out with other lights, but here’s a quick pic with my cell phone camera on manual with WB set to 4400K. I don’t know if TCR is better than my other flashlights, but I do notice a blue tint. Left to right, sunlight, AB Nichia 219C, OT 50L:

Thanks, Scotty. Even if I view the rightmost picture isolated and let my eyes adapt to it (the blueish background then becomes almost grey after some seconds), the yellow part of the package is still green. Not so nice. Maybe it’s just the picture and it looks better by eye?

There’s a pretty extreme disparity here. Just on the concrete colors between the Nichia and the OT 50L. :open_mouth: I’m not buying it. I think it’s maybe yer phone’s camera not rendering watt is there accurately vs sunlight. Or the flashlights are being held too closely to the object basically overriding TCR. Looking at the upper left corner glare in the Nichia for example.

Then there’s the different surfaces. The sunlit box is on something different than the Nichia and the OT 50L. Then the sunlit box almost appears to be on polished stone/concrete if not mistaken.

That’s an interesting color test.

The blue in the upper right corner of all 3 appear more similar than the blue in the lower left corners with variations across the span.

Yeah. Great observation. I think there may be an ‘imbalance’ going on here.

I apologize, as I’m not familiar with the proper setup for beamshots. I thought I’d just do a quick pic to demonstrate that there is a noticeable difference. You all are right about the closeness, I was about 4 feet away at an angle of about 45 degrees, and the OT has a tight hot spot so I was using the spill, and the AB has a very wide hot spot which is probably adding to the issues. However, the difference is similar to what I observe in person between the two flashlights… with the box and the OT, the yellow is greener, the orange is more washed out, and the redish/muave looks more like a purplish/mauve just like in the photo.

For the record, the tint is similar to the first OT I tried with the almost dead batteries. I fried that one seeing if it would work with an 18650 so the pics are from the second of the four I purchased. I think it might have been a short due to the long spring under greater compression with the 18650 (and maybe the outer metal ring on the circuit board). Noob move, I know.

The sunlight was in my driveway, and the flashlight pics were in the garage. The color difference of the cement in the garage is similar to what I see with the naked eye between the two flashlights. For me, the yellow’s greenish tint with the OT is apparent by eye, too.

Although I won’t take a pic, sometimes I compare beam profiles and colors in my bedroom where I have a dark blue, red, and white can of LocTite foam sitting on a dresser. The bluer tinted LED flashlights often turn the dark blue to royal blue and the red tones become less vibrant. I tested all four lights for function and they all had a similar tint.

Edit: AB set to Low (50 lumen).

The sunlight is parallel, hence no variation across the box.

Ok lemme get this straight. Is the TCR of the garage concrete in the Nichia shot, brown or grey?

Thank you, that makes sense.

@Scotty, no problem i’m glad you posted the color test. You could see a difference with your eyes and that is what matters, and it agrees with snakebite saying it has a blue tint.

i’ll try several different OTs to see if i can find variations. i can easily tell when there is excess yellow tint, but not experienced or seen enough to know much on blue tint

I recommend setting white balance to automatic, so the camera may do what our eyes do.

Hmmm… that’s a little complicated. The garage floor is tan, but that area has a lot of dirt and salt residue that has turned it more greyish.

If I were to describe the color of the garage floor with sunlight, where I took the pic is about between the tan and grey you see on the AB and OT lights. If I remember tomorrow morning I’ll take a pic. The garage faces NE.

Edit: OK I’m having a technical issue. The grey is changing in my garage floor shots even though I’m using the same settings… I’ll try redoing all of the pics tomorrow morning if I have time.

Edit 2: Reposting the image I accidentally deleted when making the last edit:

This looks to me like the tint of the Nichia has turned the concrete into a TCR that doesn’t exist. I mean that’s basically brown. As I suspected the OT’s TCR in the concrete’s case from watt you’re describing is clearly more accurate as viewed out of the shadows.

PS. The slight blue tint is not necessarily bad as sunlight/daylight itself has a blue cast. Said a different way, warmer lights have more of a yellow cast/tone to them, whereas a cooler light which equates to sunlight/daylight appears slightly more bluish. Yellowish tints tend to skew TCR negatively. That’s why essentially the OT 50L works as well as it does. It is a ‘cooler flash’. Both literally and figuratively. :laughing:

And why when it comes to TCR you should try one. :wink:

BTW, I have an old DSLR I haven’t used for probably 10 years. If you guys have any setting suggestions I could try to use that instead of my phone. If I have time and it’s not cloudy out sometime over the next few days I’ll redo the shots.

… and I was told taking pictures of prints is not the best idea. Guess it was about the limited colors, basically CMYK.

So, shooting e.g. flowers with AWB might give the most complete and accurate basis for a comparison.

If I remember, when I retake the shots I’ll bring down my old Brinkman incan and compare. I remember checking the AB w/Nichia 219C against the old Brinkmann and was surprised at the noticeable difference.