I know that tint and color temperature are a matter of personal preference, but the 219b is considered “perfect” by so many people and I honestly just don’t get it. It makes everything look pink to me, and I hate it. Admittedly, I only have one light with a 219b, and I bought it so long ago that I don’t remember what color temperature its supposed to be, so I recognize that I have a small sample size. But, the other high CRI emitters that I have are 519A and SST-20 and I would way rather take either of those compared to the 219b. Actually, I would say that the SST-20 in 4000k was my favorite high CRI emitter until I got my 519A. People say it’s too green, but I really don’t think so, especially compared to the low-CRI LED’s I have. But, even those are more pleasant to look at than the pinkish magenta filter that the 219b puts on everything.
In terms of efficiency and lack of overcurrent capability, I actually agree with you. There are now much more efficient LEDs that can be overcurrented much better with the same light quality and have the same optical properties.
As far as the light color is meant: as you have surely noticed, there is a wider range in the tint, depending on the selection of the color group and batch. I have 219BT-V1s that are not pink at all (duv somewhere around -0.0005 or so) and ones that are extremely pink like in your example (duv -0.009 or so). There are also 519A around that have an extremely reddish tint, which would then also have to be ‘garbage’ in your estimation. As I said: it’s only a matter of chosen color group or binning.
I would never think of calling this LED ‘garbage’ due to the sample size and thus non-existent significance
And if you’re more into green tint, Cree and especially Luminus offer a very good selection of LEDs of different types.
In the mid-00’s in Canada there was this sitcom about a guy who worked at a gas station in the middle of nowhere and his friends.
One episode the fancy city girl from Toronto brings an $18 bottle of wine to a dinner and everyone likes it at first but get mad at her after because they can’t go back to their $5 wine after trying the good stuff.
So they stage a revenge brunch to give her expensive biscuits, but she brings a $13 jar of marmalade, and now everybody is hooked on marmalade, they can’t go back to jam.
As a last resort they stage a super fancy dinner with lobster, but shes running late and they eat everything. When she arrives the only food left in the house is the frozen meatloaf nobody wants.
She tries it, and she loves it. She ends up getting hooked on frozen meatloaf, the cheapest food they know how to make. Everyone else has to keep eating lobster and marmalade, they can’t go back to the old stuff now, and they’re miserable. Meanwhile she’s ecstatic about all the money she’s saving eating all the cheap and plentiful frozen meatloaf nobody else wants. She wins in the end.
That’s you, the fancy city girl. Youre lucky that’s where your tastes landed, everyone else wishes that’s where theirs landed too. You can buy all the cheap emitters that other people don’t want and be genuinely happy with them. That’s awesome! Seriously. There’s so many of those out there and they’re so cheap. Meanwhile the rest of us are miserable trying to find the most delicate rosy-est emitters and buying $13 marmalade. I’m jealous
Sw45k often get down to -0.010~-0.015 at (relatively) high current, it’s too much, and at this CCT it also starts to look purple rather than ”rosy”. Above 4500K I prefer tints only a bit under the BBL whereas for warmer temps, going down to -0.005~-0.008 is desirable. Dedomed 519As are basically perfect for me, a 2200-4200K range with -0.004~-0.007 depending on CCT and current.
Edit : more recent batches of sw45k don’t have a duv that low though.
some people prefer Low CRI… they keep buying them because their prioritiy is lumens
otoh, if you use a light to look at organic things with red colors in them, such as some foods, and even the palm of your hand, you may discover why the 219b became so popular. When it first came out, it was one of the only 9080 LEDs available, and it was a total game changer.
The tint was just part of the package, but the real benefit is Red color rendering. The Tint is not the CRI.
Now you can have 9080 in SST and 519a, without the pink tint… choices are good, use whatever puts the biggest smile on your face
I agree, the famous SW45K can get so unnaturally pink that it boggles my mind why people prefer it. Maybe they’re just shining it at their skin and wood-tones and over and don’t do anything else with it, but have it illuminate full scenes at night, and things don’t look natural.
The higher binned SW45Ks like D220 aren’t quite as pink, but the less efficient ones can get super pink.
I prefer a pinkish tint to my lights too, but only slightly. My preference these days is a dedomed 519A, which is only around half to a third as pink as a SW45K. It’s warmer too, which looks a little more natural than the slightly cooler and pinker SW45K. I think the further up the CCT scale you go, the pinker it is, the more alien looking it is.
For me it’s not really the LH351D (the lights with them I tested were all ok in terms of duv) but the SST-20-H (up tp 4000 K 95 CRI). Everyone I had was not good looking at, greenish tint or subjectively not good tint or color rendition. With the Nichias (even the standard 519A) the color saturation and the color of brown and red is way better which also looks better indoors as outdoors.
Yes, someone knows it already, I am not a fan of Luminus LEDs
I feel the same way about the LH351 its way to green for my liking but yet i do like the green hue i get from Luminus LEDs strange. I think Luminus hit the mark with price, performance and tint.
Cree does a decent job with high CRI LEDs probably the most even tint overall? I don’t have the equipment to test tints so this could all be in my head lol.
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