I don’t.

Ill sometimes buy one to get max lumens/throw such as the BLF GT else ill buy em if they are easy enough to swap out for hiCRI

I was one of those “brighter is better, cool white is brighter, big lumen number is better ” guy
So the first choice is my answer. But now I’m more of NW after I got my MF01 Nichia and Emisar D4 XPL HI 3A. They just look and feel better to my eyes…
but I still like my CW lights.

For real though, sometimes CRI isn’t the most important factor. The BLF GT, for example. Or, to make something which looks more like a real candle, white light isn’t ideal. Or sometimes wide-spectrum is better than high CRI. Or sometimes even a normal medium-CRI light with good tint can look better than a high-CRI light — my XP-L HI 5000K triple with ~75 CRI looks nice, but a ZL SC64c does not.

CRI is a factor to optimize after other things are taken care of, since its visible effect is relatively small compared to things like color temperature, beam shape, and beam consistency.

Because I then can have a reason to mod the light and have a mini pocket sun to illuminate everything like nature.

Also, it is quite a bit easier to find almost perfect low CRI lights, and then mod the heck out of them.

Maybe add the option “I don’t” lol

… I don’t
unless it’s at a price that cant be passed up and given as a gift to somebody.

All my lights are HCRI

Wellp, is there such a thing as a 90CRI S2+? If not, buy a host for 10bux or hopefully less, throw in the emitter of your choice, and probably a driver without the annoying blink-on-low to change modegroups.

Drawing a blank, probably, but other’n the BLF348-219, just how many other high-CRI lights are there? I can’t think of any others, at least not offhand. Oh, and the Lumintop Tool AA. That’s all I can think of offhand. Others, I ain’t got.

I wouldn’t waste it in a C8 for hi-rez spotting 100m out, but in a nice floody light for close-in work, absolutely.

If I need to see something in the dark, right now, I don’t really care about CRI.

If National Geographic sends me down to the Amazon to catalog poison arrow frogs, or I take up night time portrait painting, then I’ll worry about high CRI emitters, then.

Chris

ChrisGarrett wrote:

If I need to see something in the dark, right now, I don’t really care about CRI.

If National Geographic sends me down to the Amazon to catalog poison arrow frogs, or I take up night time portrait painting, then I’ll worry about high CRI emitters, then.

Chris

I wish this were multi-select. Due to colorblindness, I can’t see a difference. And if I can’t tell the difference, it’s output over CRI all day!

When building lights for friends, though… they sometimes opt for high CRI.

Back in the day when bright was considered 100 lumens, I could understand that we would want to max out the lumen output.
Now that we are in the 1000+ lumens, you can barely notice the difference in output between a 1600 Lumen 90 CRI vs 2000 Lumen 70 CRI unless the lights are tried out side by side. On the other hand, I can def discern the difference in color rendering between 90+ vs 70…

Assuming the tint, and color temperature is already good, I really don’t see why one would chose a low CRI if they had the option to go with high CRI.

Now, trouble here is that many Cree LED’s in high CRI don’t have a great tint, so I completely get it that you would prefer a lower CRI with good even tint without nasty Green in it.

I find it interesting that there are very few throwers with high CRI. Why would color rendering not be as important in a thrower as oppose to something designed to light something up close? I used to have a 219C throwy light and the rendering was fantastic.

Factors I consider when choosing the output of an LED light in order of significance:

• Lumens
• Beam Pattern
• Tint: 4000K-4500K neutral white
• Below the black body line – I prefer my tint to be rosy and not greenish.
• CRI

Of the factors I look for when selecting an LED light, CRI seems to be by far the least noticeable and least significant. I’d take a 70 CRI light with beautiful rosy tint over a 90 CRI light with greenish tint any day.

gchart wrote:

I wish this were multi-select.

Same. Would be nice if BLF had a poll style other than “vote for one”. Like, approval voting (vote for one or more) and various flavors of Condorcet. They tend behave much better for polls with more than two options.

Plain and simple there just aren’t many affordable (<$30) headlamps with a high CRI emitter.

I went with the H03 and don’t care nearly enough to swap the XML-L2 out.

Zebra = too expensive
Manker E03H = ugly with that sliding diffuser

With a good tint I can see things fairly well I prefer a good tint to high cri. 5000k is my sweet spot. But I still use my cw lights as long as its not pulsar blue. 6500k is the max cw I can go.
I do have a clear c8 with 90 cri 219c it and it has a great beam and tint. Reminds me of a c8 with xpg2 with the dome on. The light just gets hot quickly with a fet drivr.

Not available in the lights (hosts, UIs) I want and I’m not a modder.

Just because you can do a led swap doesn’t mean you always want to, plus some lights are extremely difficult to get inside.

Heck, I can’t even get NW in many of the lights I like, let alone High CRI.

Lightbringer wrote:

Drawing a blank, probably, but other’n the BLF348-219, just how many other high-CRI lights are there? I can’t think of any others, at least not offhand. Oh, and the Lumintop Tool AA. That’s all I can think of offhand.

Ya, there ain’t many…

Here’s a few I know of:

http://budgetlightforum.com/node/59513

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/JAXMAN-E2L-3LED-TIR-LENS-flashlight-18650-flashlight-torch-CREE-XPG2-camping-cycling-outdoors/1812094_32812945810.html?spm=2114.12010612.0.0.40bb7b081K53zC

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/JAXMAN-E2L-3LED-TIR-LENS-flashlight-18650-flashlight-torch-LG-high-CRI-led-lamp-free-shipping/1812094_32834451512.html?spm=2114.12010612.0.0.40bb7b081K53zC

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/JAXMAN-E3-high-CRI-outdoor-Flashlight-Torch-use-AA-alkaline-or-Ni-MH-battery-Nichia-219B/1812094_32610831028.html?spm=2114.12010612.0.0.40bb7b081K53zC

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/JAXMAN-E2-Nichia-219B-18650-LED-flashlight-torch-High-color-rendering-index/1812094_32601073098.html?spm=2114.12010612.0.0.40bb7b081K53zC

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/JAXMAN-mini-C8-Nichia-219B-18650-LED-flashlight-torch-High-color-rendering-index/1812094_32601972032.html?spm=2114.12010612.0.0.40bb7b081K53zC

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Jaxman-X1s-high-CRI-version-CREE-XHP50-26650-LED-flashlight-flood-illumination-tactical-tail-switch/1812094_32839002320.html?spm=2114.12010612.0.0.40bb7b081K53zC

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/JAXMAN-Z1-Turning-Optical-Zoom-...CRI-CREE-XHP50/1812094_32840010969.html?spm=2114.12010612.0.0.40bb7b081K53zC

http://www.zebralight.com/SC53Fc-AA-Floody-Neutral-White-High-CRI-Flashlight_p_230.html

http://www.zebralight.com/SC64c-18650-Neutral-White-High-CRI-Flashlight_p_213.html

http://www.zebralight.com/SC600Fc-Mk-IV-Plus-18650-XHP50-Floody-4000K-High-CRI-Flashlight_p_228.html

http://www.zebralight.com/SC600Fd-Mk-IV-Plus-18650-XHP50-Floody-5000K-High-CRI-Flashlight_p_227.html

Although I prefer lights with high CRI emitters, for some applications other attributes are more important to me. For example, I went with XP-L HI in my D4 because for me that purchase was about getting the most ridiculous amount of light possible out of a tiny torch.

Generally a nice neutral white tint is good enough for me, and high CRI is a bonus. I generally don’t buy anything cool white unless I’m planning an emitter swap, although I did put an SST-40 in my L2 out of curiosity.

What I have learned recently is that colour temperature, tint, and CRI are somewhat independent of each other.

I was quite happy believing that colour temperature was everything, and the more neutral the temperature, with a certain bias for preference, the better colours would show.

In practice, this appears to be true (at least for me) to a much larger extent than CRI values.

I have high CRI Nichia lights with warm and cool temperatures and to my eye, neither of them represent colours as well as a neutral light such as my BLF A6 set to an equivalent brightness. I compare the three both outside with a wide range of foliage colours and inside with reds, greens, pastel colours, and browns. I apparently cannot see any advantage to a high CRI light if the temperature is not neutral, since it seems to my eye to taint the colours compared to a neutral light, which shows colours as I would expect them to be, despite much lower CRI.

Lightbringer wrote:

Wellp, is there such a thing as a 90CRI S2+?

…

Jaxman E2 maybe? And this one must be with the 219B 5700K Ra9050.

Cheers

Factory lights usually have only one or two emitter options with unknown CRI.
Fortunately e.g. Emisar’s lights have big palette of high CRI emitters.

I prefer high CRI for indoors. It is hard to feel any difference outdoors when surrounding areas are grey and ugly.

I have a good few of most options, so although I do like hi cri. It’s not always a deciding factor, colour temp and actual tint is more important for me. For example the xpl2 I have had, too yellow so don’t care what the cri is if my eyes/brain can’t stand it.

I tend to use hi cri at home, edc and at work mainly. If I am using a big gun, hi cri becomes less important than a light used for close up tasks. For example hi cri in dedicated throwers is not important for me personally. Yet for a mule , it’s pretty much critical!

So yes I buy hi cri, but it’s just a single part of my flashlight puzzle . If I want a 4500k light with 80cri, it won’t stop me buying it.

Pavlo wrote:

I find it interesting that there are very few throwers with high CRI. Why would color rendering not be as important in a thrower as oppose to something designed to light something up close? I used to have a 219C throwy light and the rendering was fantastic.

Someone said it above. When you’re looking to spot something far away, nothing really matters except that you get light on the person/place/thing that you’re pointing at. Usually, the more light the better, which is why cool whites are used a lot for throwers.

beam0 wrote:

Ya, there ain’t many…

Okay, so… Jaxman and Zebralight. (I’ll throw in Lumintop for ya.)

Sofirn? Thorfire? Convoy? Thrunite? Niwalker? Nitecore? XTAR? Haikelite? Manker? UTorch? Wuben? Fitorch? …

3 brands out of 14 brazillion.

Yah, lotta choice there…

Like I said…

ven wrote:

I tend to use hi cri at home, edc and at work mainly. If I am using a big gun, hi cri becomes less important than a light used for close up tasks. For example hi cri in dedicated throwers is not important for me personally. Yet for a mule , it’s pretty much critical!

And what I think everybody’s overlooking, because no one mentioned it yet, is that in a reflector light, any kind of tint-shift will of course skew the color balance. Bad enough in a fried-egg beam the hotspot is yellower and the spill is bluer, and who knows what hideous color the corona might end up being.

For a high-CRI LED to be used to its fullest, you need at the very least a TIR lens to blend/mix the colors better and more consistently, or use an aspheric lens or just plain use it as a mule to get a nice even dispersion of light.

That almost certainly means a flooder (narrow-angle TIRs being the exception… maybe), which would usually mean the light would likely be used for close-in work where color rendition matters.

Kinda underscores my point. The vast majority of mfrs primarily cater to lumen-hounds, and secondarily to those who’d insist on warmer CTs (or at the very least not Angry Blue™).

As for high-CRI… I doubt very many than the handful listed would even know what a “CRI” might be, let alone pay a premium to use a high-CRI chip.