For simple tasks my EDC is an FW3A with Lume1 and SW45
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Also still use plenty of 219b’s, the stainless AAA BLF345 or whatever it was called being most useful.
I’ve often wondered if there are predictors for what CCT/tint people like, eye colour, age, ethnicity, typical surrounding environment etc.
A few academic papers I found had a couple of studies, if I recall correctly, they were all “Joe public” subjects. It would be interesting asking the members of this forum the same questions.
I expect there to be bias based on “trends”, but also, people posting here have made decisions on a “real world use” basis (flashlights, desk lamps, etc) rather than in a lab, under observation.
I always thought that the sw45k was intended to be used as some kind of complementary LED on big light fixtures. I’ve seen some old light fixtures that had red and cyan LEDs alongside the low CRI white LEDs to fill the spectrum gaps, so the idea of using a LED with too much red like the sw45k alongside low CRI LEDs made sense to me.
Now tell us how you feel about the 219C… 
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I like the 219c’s that I have in 4000k. I have a bare emitters that I put into lights if I don’t like the stock ones. No complaint’s on the 219c’s.
I had one of the famed 219B 4500K lights and one MT-G2 5000K back in 2015 and have to say I much preferred the light from the MT-G2 even though its paper specs said its CRI number was 20 points lower than the 219B. It looked actual neutral unlike the Nichia.
I really think people attributed all sorts of magic and pixie dust to the 219B 4500K because at the time it was one of the few somewhat available high CRI options when most of the field was using cool white Crees that were all over the place. You could say a lot of folks have rose colored glasses on.
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The MT-G2 is one I’ve never quite loved the way others seem to. Yes, the tint is very nice on a white wall, but its rendering of colors in the real world looks exactly how I expect 71 CRI and negative R9 to look.
I’m just glad for the great variety we have these days. Most of us can even find LEDs we’re happy with in factory lights.
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I haven’t really used MT-G2 lights much… had one once and I don’t remember where it went, and I also have one on a MCPCB for a project I never finished… but that’s all.
The nice thing about it though, IMO, is the round-ish shape. I’d love to see more round LEDs, because they make a nicer beam shape when focused. Like, no pinwheel / starburst / flower petal shapes… and fewer artifacts in general.
Spin a light around its beam axis, and it should make a bunch of types of beam artifacts pretty easy to see. But with round LEDs, nearly all of those spin-related artifacts disappear.
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Agreed! I have a triple 4000K Nichia 219C (D240 90+ CRI) in a JAXMAN E2L. I bought the 219Cs from MTN many, many years ago.
They’ve always had good tint, but when I swapped out the purple AR lens with a green one, the tint is now noticeably rosy.
It seems the 219Cs are no longer relevant, and maybe the ones available these days are not as good, but the ones I have are very nice.
I have a Meteor M43 with 219C, which are quite green (not as bad as with Luminus or ‘Yinding’ LEDs of course, but it is visible). Outdoors this isn’t an issue, though.
On the other hand I have some 219C which are perfect in terms of tint, even in R8000 type.
The most obscure Nichia LED seems to be the 319A with its unique hexa-die. I have never seen mass-production lights with this emitter. The sample I have is also perfect in terms of tint (almost perfect on BBL, duv near zero.)
I wonder how many people notice that actually even regular shawarma places use warm lights to highly the rotating meat. Even the french fries usually are highlighted with warm lights.
On the other hand random more obscure some places do use cool white for their meat and the immediate feeling is that the meat is spoiled.
SW45k being designed for what you are saying makes sense and I always thought it was made for that, except most places will be using cheap lights and very few place will use high-end lighting and high-end companies that can create custom lights.
I have seen even world renowned history museums with different CCT lights on the same exhibited piece some even ultra greenish some ultra blue, seems that not all institutions that could be caring about such details care at all.
I wonder can the flower petal shape can be avoided with interconnected reflector type of multi LED setup-us with pure round LED, those always have some serious flower petal shapes, probably not really because the reflectors aren’t trully 360deg.
I guess a not so aggressive peripheral pinwheel beam is better for me.
But in the end the single LED use in a flashlight has one more advantage which may go unappreciated, is the natural just one shadow effect. So a quad Carlo LED generally will cast 4 shadows on plant all off-set by just a bit, which I can’t say I like at all, especially if behind there is a wall which can cast those multiple shadows. Then there are the streetlights that will cast the dozen shadow effect of tree leaves at night, feels like pixelated shadow due to so many tiny shadow off-sets The feeling I get is that will pass and change one day, but changes that will stay the same for the next decade or two the least.
It would be interesting to know for which applications the sw45k was most likely developed, which are truly special in terms of color group/duv. Presenting food (specially meat) was my first thought, but upon closer look as example the FreshFocus 2835 LEDs by Lumileds - which are developed for special lighting of food - are not even close to the color group of sw45k. Instead (in case of meat and produce) these versions have much more red and much lower duv than the sw45k ever have.
https://abload.de/img/lumileds-freshfocus-23ui2x.jpg
(right click → show image in new tab or similar for better overview)
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Very interest image with CCTs and DUVs.
I must say I have seen what in daytime would appear as almost pure red light on some meats, which I found strange at the time, but I have seen it maybe only on 2-3 occasions. So the 1799K with super low DUV could have been used there, but most likely wasn’t.
We can speculate that Nichia felt going too red or too low DUV would impair general sales of the LED, as in not all the way committed to it like Lumileds. Porbably 4500K is too white for meats and only the higher R9 and lower than average DUV makes that seem like designed for meats.
If the heatsinking is good, the current is decently moderate to low, an LED lighting solution will last a lot of time and probably not make a great business due to it’s very slow deterioration with years, I mean lumileds can’t have lots of recurring sales of something that won’t break.
Meanwhile, instead of one shadow, I usually try to get a global illumination effect… light coming from every direction so there are virtually no shadows at all. Or rather, infinite shadows, overlapping until they make the smoothest possible blur.
For example…
1 shadow: (point light source)
18 shadows:
Infinite shadows: (a.k.a. global illumination)
When shadows are a concern, it’s usually helpful to make light come from the largest area possible.
Here’s another, older picture of the same thing from a different angle. It might demonstrate the effect a little better.
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the 18 LED shadow.
Definitely the closer the multiple LED light source the more obvious the effect,
Actually indoors ceiling bounce can be a good way to have a soft light and see more especially with a narrower beam pattern is rather a must, I have been trying to show this technique but doesn’t seem to stick.
The streetlights can’t be changed, like I was saying those cast super multi dozens shadow effect that it literally looks like a pixelated shadow, which I tend to notice more when there a slight wind moving the leaves. I have hear only one other person mentioning this on their own as feeling strange about it, probably he mentioned it to me because we both studied drawing back in the day.
The only light I can think of is the Prometheus Mini Mk3, but that isn’t really a production light.
Mine is very nice as well, though I haven’t measured it in detail, just used my eyeballs.
The effect is the worst when using multiple different color light sources next to each other. Then in addition to having a bunch of shadows, the shadows are different colors. It’s probably my least favorite thing about tint mixing. The object being illuminated usually looks great, but everything behind it looks like a rainbow got sick all over the wall.
Indeed, I have noticed too.
BTW for those that might not know what I am saying with pixelated shadow street lights I took a couple of photos from Reddit.
219B makes red house bricks and tree barks really pop at night and thus is the GOAT for me.
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