In my living room, against the wall of truth . While GT-FC40 is NOT 219b (IMHO more brownish magenta for FC40, versus true magenta of 219b), the overall picture partly explains why I had some difficulty telling them apart with the garden shots in my front courtyard.
In fact when it comes to imitating 219b, one could almost say GT-FC40 out-Nichia another Nichia lol, the 519a with its warm yellow tint.
Pleas ignore the note about hotspot vs spill color rendering for the moment (something noted in throwy lights with bright hotspot, where you see 2 color zones as a result). That’s topic for another discussion .
Below are close-up crops of the above picture. My son’s USC red cap against the very slight off white window blind. GT-FC40 renders the off white color IMHO best, very close to 219b 4500k which tints the blind a little grey-magenta’ish. Red cap is also rendered very well - extremely close to the color in real life. R9 (strong red) is very hard to achieve, anything above 50 is considered good, and GT-FC40 with R9=76 is approaching top class rating R9080.
Pictures are starting to emerge pun intended that this GT-FC40 is for real when it comes to color rendering. The shots duplicate what I observe in real life.
These living room pictures are from a few days ago. Yesterday I took pictures of neon pink and yellow flowers, plants, and trees in the front yard, in the dark of night (this hobby - I’m sure neighbors are like WT* lol). Very interesting result again showing the fantastic ability of Nichia 219b to render flora and fauna, with GT-FC40 awefully close to matching it. Will post that next.
For a frame of reference, I will first compare Nichia 219b and 519a.
It’s interesting to note that without a lightly colored background such as my living room’s light beige wall (versus dark green background of this picture), the magenta tint of 219b is not as easily noticeable. In addition, differences between LED are more subtle. The easiest way for me to tell which LED is which is the flat grey surface of the palm tree. Here the more yellow tint of 519a is more obvious.
Looking at the hot pink geranium flowers, 219b somehow just seems to make the flowers stand out more from the leaves. More depth and 3D, color differences more distinctive - just my subjective opinion so if you don’t see it, I won’t argue :-). It will be interesting to do a crop comparison.
I am fairly hard core into photography, and this shoot-out has been very interesting because it confirms this observation I have about 219b in real life viewing: colors seem to “pop” against background, for example blue rosemary flowers against the green leaves.
To my eyes the hot pink geranium is rendered extremely well with 219b. Flowers pop against the green leaves, achieving depth and a 3D effect not seen with 519a, IMHO. The effect is so strong I had to go back and check if my 519a shot is out of focus (it’s not).
Second, the hot pink color itself is rendered with much more accuracy with 219a than 519a, where there is a yellow tint to the flower. This is not a surprise as 219b has about the highest Ra and R9 of any LED’s. The next question is of course, how would GT-FC40 fare against the gold standard 219b?
Also I think the main reason why the pink flowers pop more on the 219B image is because there’s harsher shadows behind them. If you white balance both pictures to the tree bark in lightroom, the differences are in flowers between the two are negligible.
You’re welcome. Automatic expo and then extremely-fine-adjust on RAW software so that the exposure doesn’t favor one light or another. It’s a little more tricky when a light has hotspot and hence has different color rendering between spill and hotspot, like most throwy lights, and like the Convoy M21B. As opposed to for example a floody light like the Convoy S21D where the illumination is even. In difficult cases I make an executive decision on how to adjust expo :innocent: . Thankfully with Nichia most lights are floody with a smooth field of illumination so it’s not a big problem.
BTW I have found photography flawless in showing differences between LED’s or showing when two are the same, but always must be combined with real-life viewing to confirm what the eyes actually see. It’s been a very interesting experience.
When I compare brightness, then of course expo is also manual.
Yes. Especially for gray objects like bark of trees, the Nichia 219b’s magenta tint shows the most and could be a bit much. With other colors, for example green leaves and colorful flowers, it excels, IMHO.
And yes I too sometimes find that magenta too much, especially when I am out there walking and over analyzing everything I see :innocent: . That’s why I think the GT-FC40 will be a winner for many hobbyists. It distinguishes colors and shades almost as good as 219b, but has tint that leans towards warmer magenta-gold-brownish (yes I made that up lol), more natural IMHO.
I think the background of the hat picture above (the off white window blind) explains this much better than my description.
Palm tree shot with GT-FC40 in Convoy M21B, as usual white balance 5000k.
Note the beam profile - M21B is a throwy light so center is bright and peripheral is dark compared to pictures with the floody S21D Nichia’s.
For shutterbugs: I’ve mentioned it’s a little tricky to shoot a throwy light, because now you have to deal with two beam tints/colors: the hotspot vs the spill, and have to make a decision which part to adjust exposure to. The geranium flowers for this shot are at the edge of the hot spot, so upper middle part is hotspot beam, lower lateral part is the spill. In this case I made executive decision to adjust exposure to geranium, so that I could compare the geranium between GT-FC40 and what for me is the gold standard, Nichia 219b.
The hotspot is shining on the upper part of the crop (the palm tree) - the light here is a pleasant warm white color. Much warmer than 6500k SST40 in my Nitecore MH12S. It reminds me of a good warm-white household light bulb in its lack of a tint one way or another. If you don’t like the magenta of Nichia or the yellow-green of SST20 4000k, you will embrace this IMHO.
The spill is shining on the lower part. Overall the hot pink is spot on. Tint of leaves right lower quadrant nearly identical. Somewhat oddly, despite of the positive Duv, this LED has minimal green or yellow tint so dreaded in positive Duv LED’s. To my eyes, it is extremely close to Nichia 219b rendering and closer than any other LED in my small collection.
The crop on the right is 219b in Convoy. A very floody light so it’s an even smooth field, as opposed to GT-FC40 getting darker towards the edge.
Photography confirms my experience with real life view. The very first time I turned on M21B with GT-FC40 I thought to myself, goodness this one is a Nichia imitator.
GT-FC40 4500k in Convoy M21B compared to Samsung LH351D 4000k in Sofirn SP36 BLF. The Sofirn SP36 is one of my most favorite lights, but unfortunately it does have a green tint that’s quite prominent especially in the spill.
Pics were shot in RAW, camera’s white balance is fixed at 5000k. Exposure matching is never perfect with 2 throwy lights; do you set expo to the hotspot, or the spill, and where in the spill, etc. I set this pair of crops to match exposure at the hot pink geranium as best I could.
For s non-Nichia LED with positive Duv, the GT-FC40 LED is unusual for its lack of a green or yellow tint. IMHO this is likely the reason for its Nichia-like ability to make different shades and colors more distinct - making for example red flowers “pop” against green leaves (what I observe in real life viewing).
Thanks - let me check. My lens looks purple if I look at it from the side and green if I look through it.
Edit: BlueSwordM is referring to the “newer” Convoy AR lens that actually lowers the Duv about 20 points, vs the older Convoy lenses that do not. How to tell which lens you have: The newer Convoy AR lenses have green reflection (of ceiling light bulb for example), whereas old AR lenses have purple reflection. Mines are the new ones, and I believe (not sure) most if not all Convoy from early 2022 onwards have the new green reflection lenses.
See some discussion on this topic +*HERE and white-wall beamshot HERE
Are there older lens vs new lens and coating with Convoy? Has this extra green been a point of discussion with Convoy coated lens in the past?
EDIT 5/26/2022:
I PM’ed Simon and was told the lenses in my 5 Convoy flashlights (all bought in 2022) are the latest generation with green tint so I take some pictures using light bulb test. This test involves looking at reflection of ceiling lights on the lens, basically using the flashlight’s lens as a mirror. In my case, I just put the flashlight on the dinner table and look at reflection of the chandelier’s light bulbs above it. The M21E lens is shown here, with a green reflection.
Out of curiosity, I also checked my AR coated eyeglasses and got the same green reflection.
I have some AR coated lenses from other brands that reflect blue and purple, but for my 2022 Convoys (M21E, M21F, M21B, S21D), all lenses reflect green.
Arrival of more toys, M21E and M21F, is imminent . With daylight saving time and end of winter I no longer need a flashlight for my walk, so these two are purely unneeded toys lol and should be the last flashlights I buy for awhile. Unless there’s some urge about some light I totally do not need.
Both of these have on board USB-C charging and side switch, both my preference. The crucial question for me is how the beam pattern is vs M21B’s, which IMHO has a perfect beam for a daily use EDC - bright floody near field with good throw far field.
. While GT-FC40 is NOT 219b (IMHO more brownish magenta for FC40, versus true magenta of 219b), the overall picture partly explains why I had some difficulty telling them apart with the garden shots in my front courtyard.
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