With the huge positive reaction in the red Sofirn C01R thread I wonder what a use case for red lights look like. I’ve never needed or wanted a red light (except in the lab for photo work). What do you want to do with it? Which activity? Why red and not a low intensity white light?
It’s probably the false notion that red light preserves night vision better. Or maybe people just want to experience the exotic deep red emitter.
In my opinion a low lumen white light is always more useful.
maukka could explain more of that false notion, until now i have always believed that the red light preserved night vision and was less detectable in the distance.
White light can be used at levels much lower than red while still discerning detail let alone color. It is very difficult to get anything done with red light especially at low levels if you need to also make out colors. A Zebralight on its minimum level will not affect your night vision nor is it visible from afar and you can still see with it in pitch black. It is just that historically red lights have been very dim compared to white, because you need to filter a lot of white light to get red, which has perpetuated the belief. I’m not saying that a red light at a similar power level than white doesn’t preserve night vision better, but that’s a whole another matter.
Use case - I live about 15 minutes from a mountain preserve that does a guided monthly night walk. They only allow red lights on the walk. I use an old 3 AA Maglite with a red lens. It’s the only time I use red.
In their case I understand the red requirement. They have had people show up with everything from 4 D Maglites to hand held halogen spotlights thinking they will use them to look for owls. The red requirement keeps everything toned down.
I’m sure they would change the rule if someone turned up with an Acebeam X80. That red is something fierce. This also boils down to the output, not the spectrum.
Red light use cases?
To mark certain “questionable” districts.
Just kidding…here is another article that is interesting, Red myth.
I was in the military and we used red lights routinely. I lived under the impression that red lights aided in preservation of night vision as well for a long time.
Here is another myth (or is it not a myth) about red light.
Some do believe that red light helps while driving at night while others dismiss it as fairy tale bs.
Well I`m a professional freight relocation engineer or as everyone call us a truck driver, in my cab I always install 2 red lights that are on during the night driving. Fairy tale or not it helps my eye strain and overall eliminates my headaches that I used to get before experimenting with said lights. Will this work for anyone else ? some of my coworkers say it does and others keep telling us that we are full of **it .
I don't mean to disagree with maukka but...
Red light does not attract most insects as these are insensitive to this wavelength.
Red light is invisible to a wide range of wild animals (e.g. deers) as their eyes cannot perceive this wavelength.
Red light does not overstrain the human eye as much as white light does due to the absence of shorter wavelengths like blue or green.
Switching from adapted night vision to red light/3500K at the the same power, the red light was waaaay less hars and way more pleasant then the 3500K.
A good read on Deer/Predator eyesight…
Culling the coyote herd at night. I built a C8 with a red XP-E2 emitter. Doesn’t seem to scare them off like a white light does. I believe they can still see the red light, but see it more as a brown dot. Ideally, thermal scopes work much better, but a good one is in the $2500+ dollar range.
Cycling tail lights.
I use it to preserve night vision and not disturb animals. I’ll also use it mixed with UV. The contrast of 660nm/365nm really makes things glow under UV but I can still see everything with the red. Animals eye’s don’t dilate under red light either. So I’ll film animals under red light then I’ll swap to green in post. The results look just like a night vision camera.
Yeah, I need a red tail light when I’m pedalling my a around town.
Oh dear, that didn’t sound right.
I used to think that super low moonlight/firefly modes made red lights unnecessary, but back-to-back testing completely changed my mind.
I found that even with the extremely low firefly modes on my ArmyTek headlamps (so low that you can comfortably look straight into the emitter with fully dark-adapted eyes), my night vision still returned faster when I used red lights versus the firefly modes. This still occurred even if I used much stronger red light than white light.
I also found that even on the lowest levels, white light wakes me up if I need to get up to do something in the middle of the night, but with red light, I can go right back to sleep afterwards.
And when visiting the local astronomy club’s field viewing nights (where they require red lights), I was again able to do back-to-back testing, and found that red light kept my eyes more sensitive to minor differences in star color than white firefly mode light.
The advantages of red light for me were so big that camping-style multi-emitter headlamps with red LEDs have almost completely replaced my enthusiast headlamps for nighttime use.
Red has many advantages, but if constrained solely on preserving night vision, then green is the better choice. The eye at very low light levels is less sensitive to red, and thus more light is needed in red in order to discern a certain level of detail. As with green, the eye is much more sensitive to it at very dim levels. You can hence achieve equal clarity to red with alot less light, and regain your night vision faster.
When just trying to see the time late late late at night on an LCD clock (black on clear), the lowest red setting of my WK30 is plenty bright yet I can drop off to sleep right after.