Review: "BLF" Mini 01 Out-of-the-Bubble-Wrap Preview . . . going green

There must be a lot of variation as my CW Mini is a lot brighter than my BLF Mini. Hard to gauge with the different tints but if I had to guess, maybe 20% brighter?

Thanks for the pics and info Foy. I remember when I got my first neutral… it looked really weird to me. I know you already have a warm xm-l drop-in from reading your P60 round-up thread, but I don’t remember if you have other neutrals to compare to? Almost all of my neutrals have a different tint. Depending on which ones I compare side-by-side, the apparent tint can seem very different. i.e. light A looks insert_color1 when compared to light B, but when light A is compared to light C, it looks insert_color2. Is this some kind of optical phenomenon where the eye auto adjusts white balance? Also, could the time of day that you were taking shots make a difference? It looks just before dusk to me. All this to say, I wonder if it would look less green compared to a different light or in different circumstances. But… maybe I’m just being hopeful that when I get mine that they aren’t too green. Or… maybe it’s just that I’ve grown accustomed to the tint on my TK35.

Am I the only one who thinks that it doesn’t look THAT green? The rocks actually look pretty natural to me.

Edit: I guess I’m not the only one. Thanks SashiX for making me feel not so colorblind/crazy…

I missed out one these. Kinda makes me wonder if it might have been a good thing though.

Certainly seeing the greeness of the tint and hearing other peoples comments it wouldn’t inspire me to jump onto another BLF custom light using a NW emitter (z8….)

Well my TF Mini-01 is confirmed brighter than the BLF Mini, but not by much. Probably driven the same, just the tint difference is the reason for the lost lumens. BLF version popped 571 lumens and the 01 blasted out 664 lumens on the same just off the charger TF Flame 16340. It drops quickly, these are just first 10 seconds figures that I give out, not the 30 second ansi crap everyone else does :wink: I mean…. I’m not going to show the light to someone and cover the light for 30 seconds before I show them how bright it is!

Mini-01
High 664
Low 68

BLF Mini
High 571
Med 187
Low 11

If that tint is green, compared to the WK26 I'd take that tint any day! Just look at how much better and natural the rocks look under the Mini's light compared to the washed out horrible light of the WK26.

From the photo of the rocks the tint looks yellowish to me too. But the picture can only tell so much.

Could you maybe take a few night time photos? Perhaps we could judge better.

+1

True, the Mini gave such nice natural color. I really don't see much green.

I wish I’d picked one up during the group buy. Shame about the apparent tint lottery because it sounds like it’d be a nice pocket light. At the very least it’s a perfect candidate for an emitter swap (doesfoyhaveanynichiasyet).

Received both today, wohoo!

Rants:

- pre-flash occurs, not too bad but clearly visible

- PWM present, would prefer 2KHz etc. but I can deal with this.

  • Twisty is always just a twisty: SS-threads may grind, occasional contact errors occur…

Cheers:

- UNBELIEVABLE price / quality -ratio!

- Tint 3C, spot on. Low amount of tint shift from spot to flood and around it.

- Power! Tested draw with basic 14500, still getting 2.25Amps.

- No effort paid trying to make almost a keychain light to throw. Nice big spot and wide flood, just as EDC should be!

- Battery as a bonus!

- Really low-low, around 0.02A. Runs ages.

  • No strobes.

Its a good thing to have.

It does everything that my last EDC CR123, iTP A1 SS could not do.
I mean beam and tint-wise, power also…

I’ve got to admit, looking at the colour rendering on both the wall shot and the ground shot, the mini does look pretty natural to me. I’d find that quite useful compared to the cool white of the xtar, that just whites everything out.

Perhaps foy is a reverse tint snob? :bigsmile:

Was yours part of the BLF custom run ?

Yes it was. I may be wrong but I recall previous iTP having around 2KHz PWM and this 1KHz?

Looks pretty green to me—I don’t like the tint on either of those lights.
Need to find the Goldilocks tint that is “just right” between those two

Would love to see a comparison on the rocks of one with a N219 swap vs that green tint out of the same host.

Maybe it looks different in person? I have to say when I first looked at this thread on my work PC with newish HD spec widescreen monitors the tint really did look green. However at home on my crappy old 4:3 monitor running much lower res it looks a lot less green…

The outer part of the beam shot is clearly greenish, IMO (not color blind and I’m using large 1080p monitor) . . like most lights, harder to see tint in real life use vs. wall hunting.

The earlier questions about the GID o-ring at the lens is a good one - I added GID to my 2100 that Erik did and noticed I get a bit of green outer ring on wall shots that was never there before (2X as noticeable since it also narrower beam since ring is fatter than oem). On mine, there is clearly some green reflection from the GID ring. But I don’t notice anything in normal use even though there is some green induced into the beam.

EDIT: The pattern on mine is different, green ring is smoother and slightly inside the outer area of a beam shot. So it may be the tint or different angles.

Actually, I think these pictures show it a little less green than it looks to me in real life. I've got neutrals and I will admit being a late comer on the importance of rendering and I'm also notoriously slow to criticize tint. Call it neutral green if you want but green is what it is. Yes, it was right at dusk and I do agree that the Xtar cool white does wash out the colors, as most CW's do . . . maybe I'll put an IO neutral next to it.

However it compares, I don't like the tint. Wouldn't be the first time I was alone with my opinion. Maybe tint can sometimes be an acquired thing. I'm from Georgia so, perhaps Foy isn't cultured enough for caviar or tint.

pouponFoy

I don’t have the BLF mini but rather the TF mini which I purchased from eBay. The white on my light is really bright. If I were to compare to any one of the lights I own in my collection I would say the same tint as my X8 only not as bright of course.

I love my mini! It has been on my key chain for about 6 months and has held up very well.

I swapped the stock XML with a NW (5000K) XML and it’s really sweet! Try running it with IMR 16340 - you will be amazed at how much light this little sucker and pump out.