Convoy S21D w/ legendary Nichia 219b :) - Review & comparison w/ Nichia 519a, E21a & other lights with Nichia LEDs incl. Emisar D4V2, Convoy S21F. (Summary & measurements on P. 1)

Thanks Jon - you’ve piqued my curiosity with your posts, leading to these crop comparisons. :slight_smile:

On page 1, I had a picture of my living room of Nichia 219b 4500k vs E21a 4500k, showing the two LED’s are for all practical purposes identical. The only difference being E21a is always dimmer than 219b during a run-down from Turbo. I jacked up the thermal limit of the E21a to 60 C, and it’s still dimmer.

Now here’s the lavender crop, showing PERFECT rendition of the lavender plant. The colors are so close I had to go back and forth several times to make sure I didn’t just post the same picture, proving again the only thing that could look like a Nichia, is another Nichia. :innocent: Albeit NOT as bright. At any rate, unless there is some other reason I don’t know about, IMHO E21a is one I would bypass on if I already have 219b.

So far I have done comparisons of Nichia against each other: Nichia 219b versus 519a versus E21a, all at 4500k. Now although it’s off topic of Convoy, I thought it would be interesting to compare other famous LED’s at 4000k vs Nichia at 3500k.

First up is the highly regarded Luminus SST20 4000k in a flashlight I love, the Sofirn IF25a, here compared with Emisar D4V2 with Nichia 219b 3500k. The interesting thing with comparison (either by photography, or by back to back real life beam shot of for example my living room) is it tends to emphasize a tint that you might not have noticed before. In this case the green tint of SST20 4000k.


Another observation of last picture above: Although both beams as a result of the lower CCT (4000k and 3500k) are “warm” in nature, the “tints” are clearly different (one is green, the other rosy). And IMHO the tints are different likely because the 2 LED’s have different Duv (the other factor besides CCT, that affects “color” of a beam).

If I have to guess, it would be that SST20 is above the BBL line (positive Duv, resulting in greenish tint), whereas Nichia 219b 3500k is below BBL line (negative Duv, resulting in that rosy/magenta tint that is so loved by flashlight hobbyists).

The trees trunks definitely look the most natural under that 519A 4500k vs the 219B SW45K.

What makes SST20 so nice is that it has such higher throw and lumen output, that you can afford to put a minus green filter in front of it, sacrifice some of the output, but still come out at or above 519A output.

Btw, lavenders are not supposed to be naturally rendered strongly from CCTs at only 4000 to 4500k. Those lower CCTs have less purple and blue content in their spectral balance. It’s why 100 CRI 2700k incandescents do a terrible job at distinguishing purples from blacks. The SW45K is only emphasizing the lavender plant because it’s emphasizing magenta hues in it, at the expense of making the tree trunks and rocks look magenta as well.

If you want the absolute best color rendering and separation, you’d get something with a very neutral duv, but at a CCT that has very good spectral balance, closer to 5000k or 5500k.

Unfortunately the S21D with the 519a went out of stock on AliExpress before I ordered mine, but I’m looking forward to the 219b. It shows as available on Banggood, but costs as much without the battery there as with the battery on Ali. Might be a brilliant sales tactic, be me hooked on the 219 so I pick up the 519 when it’s available .

I asked Simon and he says “the LED is out of stock currently.” If you/anyone is interested in 519a and don’t want to wait it would seem Banggood is the way to go while they still have them in stock.

I highly recommend the 519a also. Whereas 219b has that famous rosy/magenta tint (a result of a negative, below BBL Duv) that every hobbyist loves, 519a has a warmer, more yellowish/golden tone (a result of a positive, above BBL Duv). During comparison, I actually was struck at how different 519a is from 219b. See the hat crops from beam shots of my living room below (thanks Jon) - besides the red hat, notice the background. The window blinds are very slightly off white in real life.

I like the 519a because of how different its beam color is from 219b, and yet it still has spectacular CRI specs ( Ra 93.6, R9 82, R12 80, Duv 0.00091). While 219b has better R9 (reproduction of red), sometimes the magenta tint of 219b might be too much :wink: , and 519a’s golden tint provides a relief. In other words, like having different wines or food from different restaurants, all good yet different. I guess it’s called having fun with a hobby. At any rate the pair would make a great great back bone to any collection where CR and /beam color & quality is of prime importance

there are 21,000 more coming:

and fwiw, Hank is also now offering dedomed 519a:

Jon or anyone, what should we expect when 519a is de-domed? Lower CCT? More throwy? (I think this is what happens to my Olight M2R Pro Warrior when they decide to go to the flat HI version of the XHP35, versus the dome XHP35.) Lumen stays same? Thanks.

We are indeed lucky to have Convoy/Simon and Emisar/Hank.

Dedomed 519a, compared to dome on:

15% reduction in output (not visually significant)
24% reduction in CCT (Very noticeable)
Tint DUV moves below the BBL (Very noticeable)
Hotspot gets smaller. (Very noticeable)

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Thanks Jon. The dedomed 519a seems to have similar beam color as 219b 3500? If so what would we gain by buying that versus a 219b 3500k light?

I prefer the lower Tint DUV of 519a 4500k dedomed
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519a makes about 30-50% more lumens… (depending which CCT is being compared)
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I like dedomed 519a 4500k tint better than 219b 3500k, otoh, I like the color of 219b 3000k better than 519a 3000k

so overall, the dedomed 519a is brighter, and has better Tint, for my personal preference
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with dome on, the 519a is a good replacement for LH351d, XPL, and XM-L2. and the 519a is a 9080 LED, the others are not.

specific to a V11r, the 519a produces a much better beam profile (with dome on), than 219b. Because the reflector has an extra large hole at the base, and it produces an undesireable shadow in the spill beam with 219b, and with dedomed 519a:
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Below is a crop of the picture above, SST20 4000k in Sofirn IF25a versus Nichia 219b 3500k in Emisar.

Before the arrival of the Nichia’s, I hardly noticed any green tint with its SST20 LED. This is a perfect example of how comparison, whether by photography or by back to back “real life” views, magnifies differences. Nichia magnifies how yellow greenish SST20 is, and vice versa, SST20 magnifies that signature magenta tint of Nichia 219b. The morale of the lesson, for me: if there is a light you like, don’t do back to back comparison with these Nichia’s :person_facepalming: :slight_smile: .

The yellow green tint of SST20 4000k covers both the lavender plant and the bark of the big tree with a yellow greenish hue, turning the lavender plant almost all green. Nichia does same with its magenta tint, but does render the lavender plant more accurately. I would also like to note that green tint or not, the Sofirn IF25a remains one of my most favorite lights. It is brighter and for me much more useful in daily use than the Nichia because of its brightness. And when used by itself (without back to back comparison), the green tint does magically disappears.

cannga, what is the white balance set to on your camera?

5000k. Shot in RAW w/ Canon DSLR, processed w/ Capture 1.

Probably the most favorite light in my small collection is the Sofirn SP36 BLF with Samsung LH351D 4000k, a very well known and one of the most highly regarded LED’s outside of Nichia. (LH351D is the same LED that is used in the famous lantern Sofirn LT1 BLF.) Known for its high CRI, the Samsung to me stands the perfect middle ground between magenta tint of Nichia and yellow tint of SST20 4000k.

Before comparing Nichia vs Samsung, I thought it would be fun/interesting to first compare Samsung LH351D 4000k versus Luminus SST20 4000k, both in Sofirn lights. Both LED’s have CRI/Ra in the 90’s, but I don’t know about R9 (strong red). Judging by how the lavender plant is rendered, I would guess neither is as strong as Nichia’s R9 value of 80 plus in the 219b series (219b is R9080, the highest Ra and R9 rating possible).

I hope the photo shows why I love my Sofirn SP36 w/ Samsung LED. Without doing photography comparison or CRI consideration, if you were to ask me based on real life viewing which is my most favorite tint overall, it would be the LH351D 4000k. In this particular crop, LH351D is less yellowish/greenish than SST20 4000k, and has more faithful reproduction of the bark.

The LED’s tint has little to do with its R9 rating. 95cri 4000k SST-20s have R9 of 97 (with no additional optics or lens over the LED).

Thank you.

SST20 4000k Luminus SST-20-W 4000 K CRI95 color and output test
Looks like CCT 4312, Ra 96, R9 97

Samsung LH 351D https://www.reddit.com/r/flashlight/comments/8ah7ss/samsung_lh351d_is_a_winner/

CCT 3735, Ra 98, R9 97

I have not seen an R9 of 90+ on an LH351d before

it is nominally a 9050 LED, whereas the SST-20, 219b, and E21a are 9080 variants

the red bar is shorter on LH351d, than on 219b, sst-20, and E21a:

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look also at the DUV for each LED… the SST in this case, is greener tinted (higher DUV, farther above the BBL) than the LH351d (varies by CCT also)

additional food for thought
compare R9, R10, R11 bars (red, yellow, green)

notice the red bar is not shorter than the yellow and green on the 219b, iow it has the most consistent red, yellow, green color rendering capability

the yellow and green are taller than the red on the LH351d, iow it renders yellow and green, better than red

the green bar is taller than the red in the SST-20, iow, it renders green better than red and yellow

photos of plants tend to lack yellow and red targets, they tend to be rich in greens. trivia… plants look really green under low cri light, it does not reveal red pigments at all

Maukka did do a couple charts of the LH351D when he was playing with Lee minus green filters. They turned the LH351D into a CRI monster with like 98 cri and 80+ R9.

here is one of maukkas threads about Lee Filters,

and how they affect DUV…

they show a small increase in R9, not significant, and comes at the expense of a large reduction in output, imo

Lee filters Light transmission
No filter: 100 %
1/8: 88.8 %
1/4: 83.8 %
1/2: 73.7 %

Im not a fan of Lee filters… (they not only rob output, they also create excessive pink tint across the whole beam, when it might only be needed on part of the beam). The filter color is also not stable, it fades, and the coating is fragile, it wipes off easily with alcohol… I would rather use a better LED in the first place