Wurkkos TS21 with Nichia 219c 5000k - perfect "daylight neutral tint"? Impression & comparison w/ other high CRI LED's

Great comparison shots. I’m much in agreement with your grading (if you will) of these emitters. To my eye, the 219C is superior for rendering outdoor scenes, and looks pretty darn good inside as well. Seems to be a fantastic all around workaday emitter choice. I have a (few) Lumintop IYP07 with 219C(T) emitters. They label it “NW” and 93 CRI. I’m guessing color is closer to 4500K in that light, but I really like it. I use it to illuminate my outdoor grill surface while I cook because it gives such a natural tone to the meat.

I was hoping the 5000K 219C would have been an option in the new Convoy T4. I know everybody is lovin’ on the 519A, but I’m not on that train yet. I compromised with 5000K LH351D, which seems to be a lot better with Simon’s new ‘green’ AR coated lens.

this post by maukka has measurements for the 5000k 219c as well as the 4500k 219b.

fwiw, your garden photos do not contain much Red, which could be used to show the effect of R9 CRI (except the beak of the bird):

also, I respect that you are seeking to show that the 219c is closest to sunlight… it is, because the Tint of sunlight is above the incandescent BBL:

here you can see the jog in the BBL, at 5000k it steps up to DUV 0.0032 (in the pic above that is show as the D50 reference)… you can see the 219c is very similar in CCT and DUV, to the D50 reference.
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(ignore the arrow and duv value from another post)
here you can also see the jog in the BBL:

I agree the sst-20 4000k has the most yellow Tint, it is also Warmer CCT… which brings me to my next point, about comparing LEDs to daylight. That is fine, for LEDs above 5000k, used during the day, when the brain is white balanced to sunlight.

otoh, at night, when the brain is adapted to incandescent, 5000k, even 4500k, looks more cool Blue than necessary…

imo, for LEDs used during the day, it makes sense to compare to daylight… otoh, for LEDs used at night, I do not choose CCT above 4000k… I prefer 3000k or 3500k…

point being, when my brain is adapted to nightime lighting, it is using a different CCT (3000k), and a different DUV reference (0.0000), than sunlight (5000k and duv 0.0032)… at night my brain is using Incandescent as a reference (not sunlight), because thats what my house lights are…

When using lights for outdoor night time activities I enjoy a neutral ~5000K light. In this case I’m not really adapted to incandescent light and I think that 5000K is best at providing contrast outdoors for me.

Where can one get these 219c emitters by themselves?

Thanks Jon you’re a great source of info. That’s what I was looking for & thanks for the explanation. A couple of questions please:

1. How do I know how close the Wurkkos LED is to that 219C sm503?
2. Do flashlight companies typically use LED’s with 3 step MacAdam ellipse sorting, AND does that mean the LED will be close to sm503 in this case?

> how close

each led can vary within a range, you would need to measure with some sort of instrument. It is not uncommon for an LED with a nominal CCT of 5000k, to test between 4800k to 5200k (thats an 8% range). Tint DUV also varies, slightly visibly in side by side comparisons.

our brain is really good at comparing two different LEDs… but when there is only a single source, the brain makes it white… I like to use a Red Target for comparing LEDs ability to make Red POP (Red Color Rendering)… this is a separate test, for R9 CRI, different from our Tint and CCT perceptions when making side by side comparisons on white targets.

> typically

varies

maukkas numbers are informing, and though not necessarily identical, unless you find a way to measure, its the only reference you have… and imo valid

close enough, and Much better than nothing

For anyone new to this, like me :innocent: , this article R9: More Important Than CRI?. Some new lighting standards call for… | by Greg Yeutter | Medium discusses some of what Jon is talking about WRT to Ra (based on the 8 pastel colors, the “CRI” that you typically see) versus R9 (deep red, or strong red - why is it important?), which is often not quoted by flashlight companies. I was really surprised to find out the CRI most frequently used is actually based on pastel colors.

The rating of Nichia 219b 4500k for example is R9080, meaning Ra/”CRI” is at least 90, and R9 is at least 80 (it produces red very well - among the best there is). R9080 is the highest rating, partly why that 219b LED has so many obsessed fans - kidding.

So far I’ve compared Wurkkos Nichia 219c 5000k to other LED’s at different CCT’s (Nichia 219b is 4500k while SST20 is 4000k). Next would be a famous LED with same CCT, Samsung LH351D 5000k CRI 90, found in my Sofirn D25L headlamp.

Below are beam shots of Samsung LH351D 5000k CRI 90 in Sofirn headlamp, Nichia 219c 5000k in Wurkkos, and Nichia 219b 4500k in Emisar. No label because if you’ve read this thread, you should already be able to guess which is which :slight_smile: . Samsung is above BBL line (yellow greenish), one Nichia is close to BBL line (slightly above), and the other Nichia is below BBL (magenta).

I was taken aback by how two 5000k LED’s could look so different from each other (beam colors depend significantly on where each LED lands on the 5000k line).

Is Wurkkos / Sofirn on lockdown? I kinda want one of these but not if it will be delayed potentially several additional weeks…

There’s something odd going on. The AliExpress link that lists the Wurkkos with Nichia 219c only has black ones left and I thought the ones with Nichia are blue. I would check with Wurkkos; they are here on Budgetlight.

the initial purple splashed blue ts21 version with nichia 219c was a limited run and seems to be sold out now.
at present it is available in other host colors at wurkkos directly web store:
black
metal gray
red
([Clearance 30% OFF] Wurkkos Nichia 219C TS21 2800lm Flashlight with Anduril 2.0, 90CRI, 5000K USB C Rechargeable 21700 LED Flashlight)
i grabbed a several of them with diffusers as a smaller and less weighting anduril lantern alternative to the sofirn sp36 blf.
your pictures perfectly show their wonderful neutral tint and great color rendering :+1:
my familiy uses them often and we like them a lot!

I call this part of my house the “wall of truth” :slight_smile: . Shots against this wall so ruthlessly exposed differences. Top is Sofirn D25L headlamp with Samsung LH351D 5000k, above BBL with yellow greenish tint, bottom is Wurkkos with Nichia 219c 5000k, shown in previous test to be just above BBL and close to “daylight”, with magenta tint.

I find it remarkable that two extremely well regarded 5000k LED’s could look so different from each other. I really did not expect this when I started this thread.

It seems at extreme ranges of CCT, a 2700k light is going to look yellow/red and a 6500k light is likely to look blue. OTOH in the middle range CCT 3500-5000 or so, what a LED looks like seems to depend on CCT value, but very much also where it lands WRT to the BBL curve, above BBL (yellow green) or below BBL (rosy magenta).

> I find it remarkable that two extremely well regarded 5000k LED’s could look so different from each other. I really did not expect this when I started this thread.

Excellent photos and info, including using a consistent White Balance!

The green Tint and 9050 rating of the LH351d are the reasons I do not use that LED.

I find the green Tint is less obvious to my eyes, during the day, when my brain is adapted to using Sunlight CCT and Tint as a reference.

At night, my brain is adapted to Incandescent light sources which have less Green Tint than Sunlight and warmer CCT, so I tend to choose LEDs with CCT and Tint closer to those night time reference sources, that my brain is adapted to at that time.

For these reasons, I tend to choose a cooler CCT during the day (until recently that was 219b 4500k 9080 but I recently switched to 519a 4500k 9080), and a warmer CCT at night (219b 3000k 9080, or a dedomed 519a 4500k that comes down to 3400k). I also tolerate Tint that is closer to sunlight Tint, during the day.

here are a couple of 519a lights,
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and a couple of 219b lights:
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I'm really not one to interject this into conversations but why isn't running a 25 cent piece of zircon minus green filter a consideration ?

Because I sell it I find myself going out of the way to avoid commenting about using minus green filters .

In some of my favorite older convoy S2 lights I have xml 5C tints. for years I'd been promoting them as a easy answer to great tint and maybe a bit higher cri from a cree emitter .

When white wall hunting it's obvious that it has a tinge of green not really seen until you put it up against other lights .. even some older nichia219A's have a touch of green .So last night I thought /why not ? and stuck a piece of minus green under the lens of it while doing another s2+ with a SSt20 4000K that needed some green tint killing much more .

Simple short and dirty is that they both just got ,,,Better .

Better may not be perfect but guess what ? There is no perfect in tints . My great 5c tint got better... and all the 4000k sst20's deserve a minus green filter in every case, all the time ,without a doubt ,unequivocally .

Simplest answer is to just not use your computer at work .

If the boss takes issue with it ..tell him he's an ass for not seeing green in tints . Stand up for your rights !

It sure is. I’ve modded cars, cameras, audio stuffs all my life - modding has pluses and minuses (the mod itself has problem, time, headache lol) but it sure is a great way to improve and to learn. Other options:

  1. Change LED
  2. Read thread like this and don’t buy the light :slight_smile:

For me and I’m sure I’m not alone: personal preference. I actually want different tints in my collection and don’t necessarily always want that magenta tint. If every light in my collection has that same tint I would go crazy. The most obvious example is that last comparison between Wurkkos Nichia 219c vs Samsung LH351D here Wurkkos TS21 with Nichia 219c 5000k - perfect "daylight neutral tint"? Impression & comparison w/ other high CRI LED's - #24 by cannga. I was very careful not to say which is better, just diffferent, and wouldn’t put a green filter on the Samsung LED. Photography comparison exaggerates difference - by itself “in real life,” Samsung is not that green.

As a fairly hard core shutterbug, I should note that when I adjust WB of my pictures (shot in raw format), magenta tint is the last thing I would add to any picture (it’s ugly). That’s why hobbies are so interesting.

Some tints are so bad you can't fix .

point and case is the Thrunite ti3 NW. I was happy to see JonSlider swapping out the 519A and nichias in them . there's no other reasonable option .

You're allowed to say what's good or bad . Maybe not publicly but this is the internet , You're allowed to have an opinion ...even if it's wrong .

Not certain if you mean the V2 of the ti3 NW? I still remember when I got that as compared to the CW version. I thought it was beautiful! Continued liking it after the SC31 Pro with the SST40 6000k. I really thought it was a nice tint. Then I got the E02 II with the 4000k SST 20. What was once beautiful instantly became ugly. I can now see why you would make that argument. I really don’t have a good eye for such things but put them side by side in real time and I can tell the difference. What an amazingly interesting hobby!

The pictures in this thread are very interesting to me as well. The living room shots really point out the excellence of the 219c 5000k. Clearly the most accurate. However, I still like the SST-20 4000k. Not sure what I would think if I had both in person. However, from the pictures, even though I can see that the 219c is more accurate I just like the warmth of the SST-20 better. I’m happy with my TS21 with that setup and don’t think I would be happier with the 219c.

Thanks for the info; Wurkkos just told me the same thing. So my blue w/ splash is actually limited edition? I like it better already :slight_smile: . OTOH the red one is really tempting at only 30 bucks.

“accurate” when compared to 5000k White Balance, but at night, I dont see the Sun, instead I see 3000k Incandescent.

So the “most accurate” (“whitest”) under 3000k Incandescent White Balance, would be the LED whose CCT is closest to 3000k, not the 5000k LED… like this:
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An example of the effect of white balance, compared to LED CCT…, I clipped these 3 red Hats from cannga’s excellent photos above…
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Look at the backgrounds… See how the one on the left is the “whitest”, that is because it is closest to the 5000k White Balance used for the photo.

otoh, look at the backgroud of the second pic, it looks least “white”, because it has the warmest (lowest) CCT of the 3 samples (519a 4500k have been testing around 4300K actual).

next observe the differences in how Red the Hat in each photo looks… Since the 219c on the left is a 9050 LED, it has the lowest R9 CRI, so it makes the RED color Pop less, it looks more Maroon (Brown), than the other two 9080 LEDs. Iow, the 219c has the Least Brilliant (least accurate) Red Color Rendering…

Jon you really make me nervous crop-analyzing my pictures like this :slight_smile: .

Kidding aside - I put the hat there because of comments you have made, really. I suspected you were going to use it and appreciate the good analysis.

One interesting aspect I’ve noted is I can’t control where that hat is wrt spill and hot spot. For example a bright more floody LED/light like Convoy 519a means hat is more in hot spot zone whereas 219b means it’s a little more in spill zone, hence dimmer/less exposure and more magenta’ish.