I have retinitis pigmentosa as well, and that’s pretty much how it happened for me. All my lights were cool white, then I bought a neutral white Convoy S2+ to see what all the fuss was about and never went back. The only difference is that I prefer the T6-3A LED (somewhat cooler).
The day that 5000K S2+ arrived, I took it into the garden along with my 6500K Fenix UC35. I shone the UC35 around, and yeah, decent light. I shone the S2+ around and the colours were just so much nicer.
Then I saw a movement. A tiny little mouse, almost the same colour as the wood chips it was running across. I switched back to the UC35 and I could barely see it, even knowing where it was. Back to the S2+ again and the mouse was clearly visible. I was amazed at the difference. I’ve done my best to stick with 5000K LEDs ever since.
I’ve tried a warm white 3000K LED, but that was just too warm for me. I’m already noticing the “oddness” (to me) of warm white at 4500K heading for 4000K. It just doesn’t work for me, for some reason.
I like high CRI, too, especially when reading colour codes on wires or electronic parts, but colour temperature is my first priority. Changing colour temperature is a real step change to me, but changing CRI is more subtle.
Thank you for that TK and I completely understand what you’re saying and as I always say, “to each their own”!
I’m a total flashaholic and have been since the other forum started, (Original CPF member #123), all those years ago when all we would talk about was how to improve our Maglites or other flashlights in that era because there were no LED lights invented yet except for a couple of red emitters.
Boy, have lights come a long ways since then! In real life though, we don’t use our lights more than say 10 or 20 minutes at a time other than headlamps or camping lanterns or rescue crews or just showing off and that’s fine!
I’m still saying that flashlights are for seeing in the dark! Whether you like CW, NW, WW or whatever, it doesn’t matter. It’s still, if YOU CAN SEE IN THE DARK no matter what tint you like.
By the way, all these different UI’s are perplexing! Give me low, medium and high and a quick access to turbo. Click, click, click, but what do I know? Then when I turn the light off, give me the same access.
It’s like if it’s more complicated in this age of complications it’s like it’s just because we can! Look at all these new cars that have all these new electronics and the number one complaint is the new electronics! Look at all the complaints about flashlights now and it’s the same thing.
But to all of you that are so talented that you’ve brought us all these great lights, I thank you but I really think it’s time to get back to basics but let the innovations continue! Thanks to all!
I like when simple things are simple… and fancy things are possible. It’s kind of a universal design principle.
Some lights make simple things simple, like high-low-off with no other features. But fancy things are not possible.
Some lights make fancy things simple or simple things fancy, but that’s optimizing for the wrong traits, and it comes at a cost. Like trying to configure a sane mode group in a 2018-model Zebralight, or the Meteor, or a H17F — making it do something simple, like five evenly-spaced modes, takes an hour with a reference manual.
I try to stay in the middle somewhere.
I must admit to getting too fancy at times. The basics are usually pretty solid, like “click for on/off, hold to change brightness”. But I’ve definitely put in some other fiddly bits which people don’t understand right away. People help me stay on track though… the more questions I get about a particular fiddly bit, the more motivation I have to change it.
Maybe I’m playful, maybe I’m “Innovative” like they say in marketing slogans. Or maybe I’m just bored. I like to explore and experiment. But as long as the fiddly bits don’t interfere with the basics, fiddling is not such a bad thing.
I would totally agree if I had to choose between output and tint, but we’ve been able to have both for years. It seems like the same argument people make about moonlight and turbo capabilities moonlight is too low, and turbo is too hot to run continuously, so they don’t want it, even though modes can provide the output levels they find useful, especially with ramping UI’s. I have some lights with lots of extra firmware features that I don’t need, but that’s okay since they don’t come up unless I do the special click sequence to access them. Why accept mediocrity when we can have it all for the same price?
