Warm white lovers, what the best warm white?

You can see the archived poll results on the Wayback Machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20221220093741/https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/72959

Personally, I’d say 2700-3500k is my range of choices, with 3000k being preferred overall.

My quad Nichia E17A 2000K LEDs are pretty neat, but rarely do I use the flashlight. More of a novelty I guess.

2700K to 4000K is my preference these days. I agree with BlueSwordM that 3000K seems to be just about right for a lower CCT, but I like to have a variety of temps to play with.

I just got some 3000K and 3500K 519As and will be dedoming them, so looking forward to see how they turn out. They should be nice and rosy which is desirable (to me) with the lower CCTs.

1600K

Use a D4v2 with E21A 2000K or 1850K daily.

The key with very warm CCTs is a Duv on the BBL, definitely NOT ABOVE!

How is below BBL, for example 519A 2700K dedomed?

Good question, I don’t know yet :wink: A LT1 and a SC21 with 519A 2700K DD are on the todo list. I just haven’t gotten around to swap yet. It’s probably also nice, I just can’t say from own experience yet. All I know for sure is that above BBL becomes too yellow imho. To put it in different terms; I want warm white light, not amber. Which it becomes very quickly with a positive Duv. Don’t know if it’s normal, but my eyes just can’t adjust to perceiving amber as white. Not even after sitting a whole evening with a higher warm CCTs (e.g. 2700K in the living room).

I’ve tested a lot of emitters, and my eyes prefer the 3000-3500k range with a negative duv (but not too negative).
I voted for 3200k.

I have 519a LEDs in all warm CCTs, both in dedomed and shaved configurations.
Also have 219b, SST-20 and shaved 351d in all warm CCTs.
All in AAA hosts.

A dedomed 4000k 519a yields 3000k and duv –0.0025
A 1.2mm shave on a 3500k 519a should get you 3200k and duv –0.0015
(on emitters from Clemence I’ve tested, on my Opple Pro, so approximate. Emitters vary and the Opple gives an “estimate”)

I measured a dedomed 519a, 2700k at 2150k and duv of –0.0020.
(Again, approximate numbers.)
I’m not a fan of CCTs this low. I also prefer closer to neutral duv at low CCTs.

Just depends on what you like.

FB

Depends on what I use the light for. For walking in nature or sitting around I like the 3000k but for doing stuff in my workshop or other chores 3000k is weird and I like a more neutral color.

I grew up with 2700K incandescent bulbs in my house, and I prefer the same warmth from a flashlight or lantern indoors.
Also the good old krypton bulbs in cheap flashlights with the donut shaped beam is engraved into my mind.
Were they 2700K, or warmer? They definitely got warmer when your batteries got low on juice.

However, I’ve noticed that I prefer 3000K-3500K or even 4000K if I’m using the light outdoors, or for working.
There is some color information lost with a very warm white light.

Currently I really like the dedomed 3500k 519a.

All depends on the use case. For night photography I use S2+ LH315D (and more recently 519A) 2700k and 5700k, so my choice would be 2700k. However, I also like the CSLNM1.FY Amber.

If you like very warm, high CRI light below the BBL it’s wonderful. To me it’s the perfect indoor and night time light.

Depend by many factors like type of use, weather condition and hour of the night.
For example at late night and fog, more is warm better is.
Market still lack ~1800k high cri leds

No idea, but at least 5500 kelvin is to much! I’m running the lowest filters at the moment for prime, although testing some of the others as well. But it seems the lowest filter from…. The name eludes me…. Seem to be the best warm feeling for use. Like the light is primary for night, so it should not engage in keeping you up and awake but make you feel cozy for bed.
If I recall the filter that is highest in its arsenal can do 5500 kelvin to 3000 kelvin. I bought some filters to test out, 2 packages of warm light and one 100-200 filter test thing although much of them I don’t need, all the colors and so forth.

It’s really primary the dispersions and the warmer filters I was looking for to test. Although I have not figure out a setup with dispersion yet, It should not be more then the lowest and they do not exist in the LED versions… Not easy putting multiple filters together either… And I’m still looking into ways to do things best. I did have one LED lamp where the filter just snapped into the light so no glue needed, pretty nice.

Sadly I don’t think it would have worked on the other 2 designs I have but I don’t think the one it worked with, will come out. Going to take some to get it out if that is wanted for something… I don’t think I’m going to mess with it further, it does seem to be pretty white this one, but it did take it down a good notch… But clearly you can see different results with different lights. But I guess 2 of them where higher kelvin then my prime of 5500 kelvin. Even 5500 Kelvin seems to be in the low end compared to what these LED light sources are selling, and for me 5500 is still to much. I wonder how many kelvin my first warm yellow version was from Olight. I don’t recall. It was one of those version where they had a warm and a cool edition, long ago.

This filter thing is a new world to me, but it is nice to see solutions for the whiteness - this was something that was bothering me with my prime headlights, beside that they are near perfect I think. I ended up ordering 2 from the Middle East as Olight had stopped production and it was the only place I could find them, even with the 5500 kelvin. Apparently warm LED is a seldom thing with olight.

But in any case, now with filters I can make it lower and maybe even do some dispersion at some point for easier reading books, not sure how long those last before they degrade to much?… And the lower filter dispersions is sadly not made for LED versions. The lowest that there is still seem to be to much.

Anyway… Dunno what my prefered kelvin would be, but at least a lot lower then the stupid norm of today. Insanity at its best.

- Darkijah

I dedomed my 3000K and 3500K 519As and they are really really nice!

With their lower CCTs, the extra rosiness looks nice and makes things look not so yellow and dull.

I have triple sliced 2700K SST-20s that have very slight rosiness, but look plain yellow when compared to my dedomed 519As. Needless to say, I’ve ordered 2700K 519As to replace them. Not as a direct CCT replacement since I’ll dedome them and already have 2700K with the dedomed 3500Ks, but to turn it into a flashlight that I will actually enjoy to use.

I’ll vote 3000K as far as I know for now.

By the way anyone of you know those Zircon Warm Amber 5 813 with MINUS GREEN is for? Does it take away the green spectrum of light or something?

I have fixed pretty much all might Headlights and small lights I have with to Zircon Warm Amber 2 806, beside those I test with 2 other filters at the moment. At least it takes it down to a more warm level that I want.

I remember my first Olight being more yellow tint, but I did not have the manual and could not remember what kelvin it was, Olight says the S1R in natural white is 4000 to 5000K, apparently the kelvin fluctuate compared to the output? it seems. But at least I know it was warmer then 5500K which is on my main Olight mini S1 Baton which is way to white for me as I recall long ago trying to find one to replace my old broken which I could not.

In any case I think the Zircon Warm Amber 806 will do it for me. I’m still looking for something better to attached it with, but I have something that at least works although not perfect.

The Zircon Warm Amber 806 is the strongest of the filters that I seem to have, taking it from 5500 kelvin to 3000 kelvin, it is clearly the most warm soft light I have as far as I can gather. That most likely will be my main filter I will go to, although I do see different results with some of the different light sources I have tried. But again the main one I use daily is the Olight Mini S1 Baton which I will be using for years and years ahead as my main Lightsource in my home and on the track.

I would like some diffusion but the Zircon 812 seems still to still be to much diffusion and take to much light as well but it is the lowest LED they have. They have some others in the test kit, and the 2 lowest seems to be in scale I’m looking for but further testing needs to be done. As I understand the filters brake down over time of use.

But yea, it seems I prefer the 3000k filter, but again more testing and use needs to be done over time. I’m still sorting out things, but very nice that I at least now have a solution for the white light!

Zircon should make there filters with adhesion like the German company I have found who makes filters, it works very nice with there adhesion although the lowest filter they have is more like a Zircon 807 Amber 4 and thereby not as strong warm and soft as the Zircon Warm 2.

I have some silicone double buttom shaped tape things I use. It’s far from perfect but it is workable. They are to thick and bubbles easily gets trapped and you have with one filter 2 times the job to make it go clean without trapping a bubble or more, but they are clear in color and seem to do rather well overall withstanding the heat, at least for now.