testing two of KD's new Nichia 219b leds (4500K'92CRI' and 5500K)

Thanks Djozz for the tests!!! Highly appreciated!

Now I'm looking forward to hear more about the CRI.......

I devoted quite some time in finding out how to reproduce tints and CRI on the internet, and although it is possible to show differences between leds, it is just not what is happening in real life. I had a discussion with RaceR about the usefulness of an as good as possible representation of led tints on colour charts and photo's, and although despite the quite disappointing results I still thought it was worth the effort, RaceR thought not. But it gives an idea how hopeless it is, especially if you want to demonstrate CRI with pictures, high CRI leds look nearly as good as any neutral led in such a picture while in real life it is so much nicer...

Mind that the triple that KD is selling is the with old type 219A, great emitter up till now, but with this new option I would not want it anymore. Great price though :-)

lower forward voltage, and more lumen!

WIN

You must have misunderstood me. I personally found the charts very interesting. :) I was the last one posting in that thread too..

I just did not think that using the same white balance for emitters in the 7000K and 3000K gives the best comparison when comparing various and completely different emitters ability to render colors (CRI).

If the white balance is correct for two different tints (basically white should be proper white) it will be easier to compare their ability to render colors correctly. Especially if you have a benchmark (100 CRI picture) where the WB is correct too (again, proper white).

If you want to get some sort of visual point of view, then the approach with a fixed daylight setting is "ok". Im saying "ok" because there is no great way capture tints like the eyes perceives and adapts to various tints. For a CRI comparison, id say correct WB on all pictures is easily the best way. But there as still challenges......

At the end of the day, it would not be easy to distinguish a 92 CRI and a 80 CRI emitter with certainty anyway. So your subjective thoughts would be good enough for me. You have lots of experience with various emitters and tints. The best way is always to personally experience tints in real life and in various environments anyway. :)

Thanks for explaining RaceR86, in the end this all means: tint photography can be useful, but only bleakly reflects what we see in real life..

And even if you manage to get a picture that accurately reflects what you see in real life, it may look completely different on somebody else's monitor. There's likely a bigger difference between two different monitors than between two similar LEDs.

That is huge variable indeed, different panels (TN, various IPS), personal settings (brightness, Kevin of the monitor), browsers often times do not display colors well. Most monitors are bad anyway even if you can say "I see rich colors"

My pictures, with my camera and as displayed by my monitor, only look 'right' with the white balance on the fluorescent setting. They may look like harsh blue-purple utter crap on everybody else's monitors, who knows. Using the daylight setting on the camera gives something that looks like it's from the 1940s.

Djozz, how well do you feel the emitter maintains its CRI level throughout increasing current?

I have several 119s and 219s and I just somehow feel the higher the current, the less pleasant the tint becomes.

Great info as always. Thank you for the testing djozz.

thanks for the review djozz, that’s a huge help. More output and lower Vf are huge improvements. I wonder how the 92CRI 219B would compare output wise to an XP-G2 R3 3C or 4B? I was thinking about one of those with an XM-L2 T6 3C for a new bike light, but if I can get higher CRI with the same output (throw is not such a big deal) then the 219B looks like a good alternative.

Disappointment!

I put the '92CRI' 219b in a AA-host with a BLF-mini driver (it runs at 1.3A on a Li-ion) to compare it to other lights, a ssUFc3 with a 'old'219Ahigh CRI Nichia also on a BLF-mini driver, a sk68 clone with a Osram Oslon SSL80 4000K 96 CRI led, and my old Xeno03 modded with XP-G2 3C (5000K).

(left to right: Xeno with Xpg2 3C, AA-host with KD's 219B, sk68 with 96 CRI Oslon, UF with old 92CRI Nichia 219A)

I did some thorough comparing by eye, and I am afraid that I am not convinced that this led is 92CRI. It sure is a nice tint, but it does not have the warm yellow and red that the 'old' Nichia 219A 92CRI and the Oslon SSL80 96CRI show. In fact, it is very much like the XP-G2 3C (5000K) that is in my Xeno03 at the moment, a tiny bit less yellow, and a tiny bit more red, so it might be a 80CRI 5000K led.

I tried to capture the comparison in a photo of some colourful objects, but although I could easily see the difference by eye, it does not show on the picture.

I do give you a beamshot comparing KD's 219b on the left, and the old 219A on the right, not because the tints that show are exactly what I see by eye, but because it does show that the tints are quite different.(you see some PWM on the left beamshot because the light was on medium mode)

So what should i say? The tint comparisons I just did are not scientific enough to proof that this led is not 92CRI, although I can not imagine how you can make a 92CRI led with visibly less red, and paler yellow in it than the other highCRI leds I compared it with.

So sorry, all my subjective senses say that this not the 92CRI one

Appreciate all the great info djozz!

How does this 219B render skin color, is it closer to your XPG2 3C or more like the 219A?

Thanks

I was almost ready to pull the trigger on a few of these, thanks for updating and letting us know about the tint Djozz. :wink:

That was a tough question, I just tried that out, those are subtle differences you are talking about! The only reason I can answer this is because the three lights these leds are in can be set to a very similar output and have a very similar beam pattern. And the answer is that it is closer to the XPG2 3C. (When CRI is going down -at least caucasian- skin appears less natural and more towards 'dead body'. These leds still all have nice tints, and do not quite make you look dead, but slightly less natural than the 92CRI one: yes :-)

(off to bed now, sleepy!)

I was also about to jump on these and build up a triple. Looks like we will have to wait for IS to restock them.

The non-high-cri nichia though still seems very promising as it provides about the same/more lumens at a lower Vf than the xp-g2. I guess there would be less throw but it should still throw decent. I don’t know nichias very well but do they have something in the 5A tint region?

Its really though to compare these things.

I have two examples where emitters with good or high CRI were a bit disappointing.

XM-L2 7D3 (90+ CRI), from IS. Just too yellow for me. Subjectively I found the 7A3 (80+ CRI), from Convoy Aliexpress guy. It had way more red and rendered colors better. I just liked the tint better. The balance between yellow and red where better, making it more "white" in a warm sense..

The XM-L2 6A1 (80+ CRI), from IOS. Is the most pink emitter I have ever seen. It lacked to much yellow IMO. and a 75 CRI emitter would visually be better for me.

So I would say that you can get emitters that have good or high CRI, but visually don't render colors like you prefer them do too.

Many of the emitters thats got a bit extra on the red side are great for tint mixing with other emitters though. The reason why I like the tint from MT-G2s and my tint mixed Supfire M6 is because the beams are both quite white looking within their temperature (K) range. Despite both being around 70 CRI.

My point is, if the tint is "right" you can get away with lower CRI and still perceive the beam to be comparable or even better than a light with better CRI in normal use. At least that is how I perceive it.

I thank you for your subjective thoughts djozz. Im not a fan of KD, so im sitting quite nicely up on the fence for some more time.... I like the typical NW Nichia 219A and the cheap WW 119 because of their ability to render red nicely too, the emitters you got does not same to have this "trademark" that I consider typical for the Nichias Im using.. So, like you say, sounds a bit disappointing, in terms of tint..

Apart from tint differences that you can prefer or not, what the 90+ CRI emitters that i have seen sofar all have in common is that they show blue as real blue and not purple-ish, and at the same time show yellow and red as really bright and vivid as well, not pale. Non-90+CRI emitters can be really nice and pleasant, but fail in one or the other. This KD Nichia shows blue as real blue but clearly is not as good as the other two 90+CRI leds in the red/yellow area.

i think that main problem in this situation is the sensor of a digital camera, if you have custom white balance setting on your camera in which you take control shot of white card (or any other object that you know is white) the camera automatically compensates and the two pictures taken with high CRI and regular non high CRI LED will eventually look the same, on the other hand if you use same white balance setting for both LEDs ,again it will not represent the real life experience…i guess the best way is to take picture with custom white balance set on bright sunny daylight and then wait for the night but keep the same settings and take pictures of the same scenery in the night with different LEDs (at least in this way the differences will be shown but again i’m not sure about accuracy with real life experience…i have the cameras but i still haven’t decided which nichia 219 should i get (sportac triple dropin or IS bare LED’s if they are available again or to try some of KD…) EDIT: i will take djozz’s word and pass the KD 219 as it is not the high CRI…