js
Flashlight Enthusiast
Brian,
I meant to post the link to the High CRI Nichias for D.I.Y. thread, but forgot about it. Better late than never! So there it is.
Finally, an LED light that rivals an incan's color rendering
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Brian,
I meant to post the link to the High CRI Nichias for D.I.Y. thread, but forgot about it. Better late than never! So there it is.
So by now seeing this GOOD light source, it begs the question about availability and use. Are they so new that McGizmo really is the only person to lay his hands on some? Are they so new that there is no wide distribution yet? And of course, what about this LED in a much much cheaper host?
I hope this thread keeps getting updated about this new source.
I hope this thread keeps getting updated about this new source.
tebore
Flashlight Enthusiast
I was really referring to Bernie's but now that I look at yours the Mule one seems overly blue. I can't see the EXIF data to see the color temp.
I know you may think it's accurate, and in some cases the AWB is dead on; but taking the 3 mins to use a gray card to set a custom WB can make a huge difference.
I didn't use to use a CWB but after listening to a few other professionals I started to and it indeed does make a large difference. You never have to worry about WB and CCT correction in software which in most cases you're going by memory and can really change a picture. Eg blue jeans becoming black.
js
Flashlight Enthusiast
tebore,
Using a CWB and calibrating with a card is indeed an excellent approach for getting good, natural looking images in the light you have, and I wasn't objecting to your statement, as such.
However, what I was saying was that I wanted to capture how the light looked to my eyes and not capture the best looking, most balanced picture. So, if you could see the CCT in K of the jpg's, you'd see that they are indeed different, and not the same. So there was some correction used. But not so much correction that the Mule photo started to look better than it actually did, in subjective reality, to my eyes. Someone else may indeed have ended up with a different WB adjustment than I did--no two eyes are exactly the same. But, I bet it would still have been pretty close, if their goal was to capture exactly what they saw with their own two eyes.
The K10D is an entry level professional DSLR. I can digitally preview the image, and see the effect of changing the color balance. It has the usual AWB, daylight, cloudy, shade, tungsten, fluorescent ,etc., as well as CWB, and manual numerical setting options if you know the CCT of your light source. On top of that, you can fine-tune any setting (even AWB) by adjusting the amber-blue axis or green-magenta one, or both. So, I could have done anything I wanted to the WB, really.
My goal was to capture the subjective reality of what I saw, actually saw. I neither wanted to over-correct it so that what really was a bit yellowy became neutral, or that what was really a bit bluish/cool, became neutral. Nor did I want to just fix the WB so that I had a "scientific", objective measure of what the camera "saw", as the camera is not the same as the human eye. So, for what I want to do, a CWB isn't the answer. It would have made those two pictures look a lot closer together than what they actually looked like to me.
What do you think? Does this make sense? Or am I missing your point?
You know what lighting people are saying now? That museums and art galleries would prefer to use LED's to light their displays. They are claiming that LED's do not project any UV, and they won't damage what they are lighting up. :shrug:
BabyDoc
Flashlight Enthusiast
JS, the analogy to music reproduction is a good one in many ways. Let's carry this a little further. Just as a sound system having a poor frequency response hides certain parts of the sound spectrum when it overemphasizes other parts, the same came be said of LED's that emphasize say, blue, and hide what reds may be there. Just as we have become accustomed to incadescent lights and prefer often the warm way they colors our interiors over more accurate colder daylight, many of us prefer warmer sound systems which emphasize the low midrange and bass, though it may obscure higher frequency detail. Ask any woman who has ever used daylight flourescents to put their makeup on, whether they like that light. Most hate it because it makes their skin tones look death-like compared to incadescents. Daylight fluorescents or incadescents (Reveal) takes the flush and blood out of their skins. Audio reproduction is the same. We don't necessarily strive for live instrument or vocal sounds. In this day of electronics, we seldom hear live music any more. So our reference point is colored by how we even hear live music. Go to any broadway musical, and it is unlikely you are going to really hear a "live" performance. The orchestra is hidden in a pit that is miked and amplified by less than state of the art equipment, just like the performers themselves whose voices are amplified by inferior radio transmitting microphones that are incapable of producing much of the sound spectrum. This doesn't even take into account that many musical instruments today have become totally electronic, like many guitars, pianos, organs, and even percussion instruments. After this exposure to "live" music, which in many ways is made dead by the theatre sound systems, we go home and imitate the same dead sound in our homes, and are happy with it. Outside of the home, we are thrilled to carry our IPODS with us and listen to inferior sound through tiny earbuds just because we can carry 100s of recording in a device smaller than a pack of cigarettes. High end stereo is all but gone, because few people can appreciate or remember what real live music sounds like.
Now getting back to light. It is very much the same. We spend more time indoors. We don't care as much about color rendition as we do about brightness. Its quantity or lumens (like the number of files an IPOD can hold), and not quality of light that matters to most people. People forget what the real world looks like since most of the time their world is colored by artificial light. Albeit imperfect, it is the standard by which they see things. Finally, it is difficult for flashlight manufacturers to sell color rendition. How do you demonstrate quality and sell it to the masses? CRI doesn't mean much to most people when it comes to flashlights, any more than 1080P means much to people buying flat screen TV's. (I know too many people with flat screen TV's who don't even subcribe to high definition cable service, yet they are happy with their big TV; again quantity and not quality is what most people care about.)
The bottom line of all this is, I don't personally believe there will be a big push to have high color resolving flashlights. The average guy just can't or won't appreciate them, or pay a premium to buy them. Since we are reading this thread and are therefore not the average guys, it is hard to imagine I am correct. But seeing what has happened to sound reproduction and how we are settling for less accuracy, I don't see it being that different for lighting.
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js
Flashlight Enthusiast
tebore,
Just thought of an important post-script:
When I was talking about what my eye saw, I was talking about a quick comparison: shine the Sundrop, take in the picture, turn it off, shine the Mule, take in the picture. If I only use the Mule (it's a SF L1 with one of Don's excellent ALM heads for it), then pretty quickly, I notice the skew less and less, and the second picture would indeed seem a little bit too blue to me as well. But, I mean, that really doesn't count, does it? I can get pretty well used to firelight and candlelight, too, but that is going too far into the realm of the subjective reality.
Just thought of an important post-script:
When I was talking about what my eye saw, I was talking about a quick comparison: shine the Sundrop, take in the picture, turn it off, shine the Mule, take in the picture. If I only use the Mule (it's a SF L1 with one of Don's excellent ALM heads for it), then pretty quickly, I notice the skew less and less, and the second picture would indeed seem a little bit too blue to me as well. But, I mean, that really doesn't count, does it? I can get pretty well used to firelight and candlelight, too, but that is going too far into the realm of the subjective reality.
This is all nice and well, and i really appreciate the high-CRI emitters that have started to spawn out lately, so please don't take this as bashing. Please read the whole post carefully before flaming...
The photos posted in this thread tell you absolutely NOTHING about the color reproduction. Nothing at all. You could've just as easily set the white balance to favor the colder light and get a Nichia high-CRI shot that lacks as much in the blue part of the spectrum as the "normal" shot in the first post lacks in the red part of the spectrum.
Here - look what happens when you neutralize the white balance for both shots (also fixed the contrast and brightness to show it better):
Can you tell which one was the high-CRI shot and which one wasn't?
Take a closer look at the color chart. Any differences in the saturation of any particular patch? Or its tint?
What does that tell you? It tells me the exact same amount of color information was "picked" off the scene by BOTH lights. The only difference was the color balance. And that's what's wrong with comparisons like this and the way CRI is defined.
It favours certain color temperatures and CAN'T really tell you much about the color reproduction of two lights with DIFFERENT color temperatures. It's ill concieved for that particular task. What it CAN tell you is how two lights of the SAME temperature compare to eachother, though.
The photos posted in this thread tell you absolutely NOTHING about the color reproduction. Nothing at all. You could've just as easily set the white balance to favor the colder light and get a Nichia high-CRI shot that lacks as much in the blue part of the spectrum as the "normal" shot in the first post lacks in the red part of the spectrum.
Here - look what happens when you neutralize the white balance for both shots (also fixed the contrast and brightness to show it better):
Can you tell which one was the high-CRI shot and which one wasn't?
Take a closer look at the color chart. Any differences in the saturation of any particular patch? Or its tint?
What does that tell you? It tells me the exact same amount of color information was "picked" off the scene by BOTH lights. The only difference was the color balance. And that's what's wrong with comparisons like this and the way CRI is defined.
It favours certain color temperatures and CAN'T really tell you much about the color reproduction of two lights with DIFFERENT color temperatures. It's ill concieved for that particular task. What it CAN tell you is how two lights of the SAME temperature compare to eachother, though.
tebore
Flashlight Enthusiast
That's why I'm saying to use a locked custom one if you want to show the difference. Otherwise you can manipulate it, it gets skewed or isn't a true representation. You need to lock it so you can actually see the difference. You're right about the CRI system. I'm just saying even for a quick and dirty compare you should lock a CWB. I'm talking about comparing color rendering.
And I'm gonna say the top is the high CRI based on the way some of the reds actually have different shades.
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SaturnNyne
Enlightened
This is a great analogy and one I've considered often. Audio and flashlights are two of my main hobbies, so I was amused when I realized they had both progressed in the same direction: towards high quality and accuracy, but just slightly to the warm side of neutral.
Just because you listen to music on an ipod doesn't mean you are stuck with inferior white earbuds. I know plenty of people who have upgraded to something that will provide quite nice sound (I'm one of them, my headphone collection is worth more than my flashlight collection; I've settled on the Shure SE530 for mobile use
).I agree with this completely and don't find it hard to imagine. However important the little details that make our expensive lights worthwhile might be to us, it's still pretty obvious that most people won't notice or care about quality once it gets past a certain level of acceptable decency. And that's fine, we can't all be connoisseurs of every delicacy. Somewhere there's an Atwood fanatic who thinks I'm very ignorant for not appreciating pocket prybars, nevermind that I just don't have sufficient use for one to care about it. In other words, I don't see this as a lamentable condition; it's the state of the world and I'm just glad there are higher quality options for those of us who want them.
Orcinus: Interesting experiment... And I'll play your game too, is the second one the 083? Even if I'm wrong, at least now you have a runner in both lanes.
BabyDoc
Flashlight Enthusiast
Just because you listen to music on an ipod doesn't mean you are stuck with inferior white earbuds.
Perhaps you missed my point. Even an IPOD with the best earphones, is a comprise, because the very compressed sound files used in an IPOD are missing a lot of sonic information present in a real live performance, if you are lucky enough to hear one. You only have to compare the sound reproduction of an IPOD to that of a a Super AUDIO CD recording played back on a quality sound system to hear what is sonically missing. Sure better earphones, like better speakers, make some difference, but they will never replace the weakest link in the chain, which in the case of IPODS is the compressed recorded file. (Garbage in, garbage out may be a bit of an exaggeration for you, but for a real audiophile, it isn't. Audiophiles spend a fortune to have as close to a live sound experience in their living rooms as they can get. The trouble is there is so little REAL live music with which to compare. A lot of the sound we hear is synthesized, distorted, and poorly amplified even before it is recorded. So that's where the garbage reallly starts, and why it often difficult to distinguish mp3 files from less compressed sound formats. The only real live music left in abundance is classical music or jazz, by which you can judge the qualitfy of sound recording and reproduction.) Perhaps, in some way it is a good thing we don't have real live performances. It is a lot easier and lot cheaper when we don't know what we are missing with our IPODS.
The same can be said of the average flashaholic. Until he actually uses a light like a SunDrop, he doesn't know what he is missing. He thinks he has it all with what he has. If he is happy, who is such a snob that he should should say he shouldn't be?
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mudman cj
Flashlight Enthusiast
I also think the second shot is the 083 because the first shot has bluer eyes. But the difference between these shots is negligible IMO. To me, this proves just how well computer software is now able to manipulate color information and correct for an imbalance in the spectrum relative to some standard such as the sun. I don't agree that the photos tell you nothing about color reproduction.
If color balance is set to 'daylight', then doesn't it stand to reason that the shots can reveal deficiencies or differences in a light source relative to the spectrum of the sun? And the great feature of the high CRI 083 that is being celebrated here is the fact that it is more like sunlight than any other LED spectrum to date. Setting the camera's color balance to favor the cool white light would not portray the way it looks to the observer that is taking the picture. Using sunlight balance with the high CRI 083 makes the photo look as close as possible, by my eyes anyway, to the actual scene: it also portrays the difference between it and other LEDs. Photos taken with sunlight color balance and equal saturation can go a long way towards giving someone an understanding of the difference between LEDs IMO.
Will it be the same as though they had them in their hands? Of course not. That has been well established due to factors like different monitors, monitor settings, inherent monitor phosphor limitations, etc. so I think we can move past that. Still, to say that nill value denies that it can show that two light sources are different. And if a poster puts up two shots taken with equal color balance then I can get some information about how different the two light sources are and I appreciate them taking the time to share the information.
If color balance is set to 'daylight', then doesn't it stand to reason that the shots can reveal deficiencies or differences in a light source relative to the spectrum of the sun? And the great feature of the high CRI 083 that is being celebrated here is the fact that it is more like sunlight than any other LED spectrum to date. Setting the camera's color balance to favor the cool white light would not portray the way it looks to the observer that is taking the picture. Using sunlight balance with the high CRI 083 makes the photo look as close as possible, by my eyes anyway, to the actual scene: it also portrays the difference between it and other LEDs. Photos taken with sunlight color balance and equal saturation can go a long way towards giving someone an understanding of the difference between LEDs IMO.
Will it be the same as though they had them in their hands? Of course not. That has been well established due to factors like different monitors, monitor settings, inherent monitor phosphor limitations, etc. so I think we can move past that. Still, to say that nill value denies that it can show that two light sources are different. And if a poster puts up two shots taken with equal color balance then I can get some information about how different the two light sources are and I appreciate them taking the time to share the information.
So by now seeing this GOOD light source, it begs the question about availability and use. Are they so new that McGizmo really is the only person to lay his hands on some? Are they so new that there is no wide distribution yet? And of course, what about this LED in a much much cheaper host?
I hope this thread keeps getting updated about this new source.
wacbzz,
I don't think the 083 High CRI would be considered "new" relative to the LED changes and advancements we are aware of here on CPF. I purchased these 11 months ago. The Nichia rep who I consider a friend at this point, told me that he had some customers who were quite pleased with the High CRI 083 LED's they were using. That puts these into play last year.
I don't know who the customers are that the rep was commenting on but I'm willing to bet that they aren't flashlight manufacturers!
Flood has always been important to me because my primary need and use of artificial light sources is in applications where I want an even field of illumination, in relatively close. Flood beams are a small niche in flashlights, IMHO. For generations, we have been exposed to flashlights with tight collimation and tiny spots of light that could reach out some distance. I think SF made some serious headway for users familiar with their offerings by providing very intense lights that had larger spot beams and less collimation because the flux was great enough to allow this. But the Mag light was still the industry standard and given the limited flux, you had a highly polished reflector throwing out a tiny spot and this was the standard, if not only option for many of us. And many of us do need to illuminate objects in the far field so all is good.
In many situations, a portable light source is applied to situations no different than fixed lighting. In fixed lighting a very small niche is that of a real tight and collimated beam. In most applications, flood and even distribution of light is desired and used accordingly. A goofy thought just came to mind. Consider a football or baseball stadium. Think of the energy savings and reduced ticket prices if the stadium had computer controlled spot lights assigned to each player and could effectively track them across the field. The ball could be tracked as well. I visualize a bunch of white circles of intensity at the ends of visible beam shafts in a dark field of shadow. The beam shafts cross and spots move around and everyone would demand their money back!
The Mule was a revisit to the original McLux and all about clean flood. With the higher flux LED's a flood beam now can reach that much further and indeed benefit from variable and reduced output levels even. When I played with some samples of the High CRI 083, I realized that given a reduction in flux relative to the Cree and Seoul, one could enjoy a quality of light in terms of color rendition that was an obvious improvement over the others. Some users like Baby Doc don't just want better color rendition, they need it. This is a niche though.
I think the SunDrop is a small niche light and I think it will take the industry a long time, if ever, to address such a niche for the casual flashlight user. I would anticipate higher CRI LED's showing up in higher end portable light sources and probably in lanterns and headlamps and other portable devices designed for near field, flood type illumination. There are presently premiums involved in getting high CRI LED's and from talking to some LED reps and manufacturers, the perception is that the market is not willing to pay such premiums. It seems that much of the industry is not concerned beyond color temperature. Flux and tighter tint or CCT control are the primary focus I believe. Quantity and consistancy are the target for improvement and advancements for the most part, it seems.
Even here in our community of flashaholics, color rendition is not a high priority and I am not saying that it should be. It is a niche though that I think has its place and one where I could be active without being trampled by big guys and economies of scale well beyond my scope. :shrug:
Will the flashlight market demand excellence to the point that color rendition is a parameter that needs to be addressed? The cynic in me says that most markets demand cheap and "loud" and quantity over quality and I don't see the flashlight market being any special case.
I happened to be exposed to the Zebra Light here on CPF and after seeing some pictures of it, I bought one. I don't need it or use it for that matter but only because I have my own lights that serve in similar fashion. I think it is a great light with wonderful utility. I know there are some here on CPF who would agree but would such a light ever enjoy mass appeal? I think it would be a good host for the High CRI 083 but will this ever happen? A reel of 083's consists of 1400 LED's. Would Zebra consider committing to a run of 1400 High CRI models that would have to compete with their existing light that enjoys much greater flux numbers? :thinking:
I only hope that the LED manufacturers see justification and some reason to address full and quality spectrum LED's and put some R&D into them. My dream is for a 6000k High CRI LED or better yet 6000k High EVS LED. I just made up the EVS which stands for Equivalent to Visible Sunlight. I have sampled some next generation LED's that I can't discuss and shouldn't even mention, but wanting it all, I asked if these LED's would be made with high color temperature and good color rendering phosphors and the answer was a disappointing maybe.
Demand driven markets suffer when those making the demands don't know the options or have a good understanding of what they are asking for! :green:
The bottom one is the high-CRI shot. You win a (virtual) cookie!
Believe it or not, there's an even better piece of software doing the very same thing, sitting behind your eyeballs.
Anyway, my point was this - if there were any significant differences to the way the individual colors were represented AFTER the white balance was tweaked, that would've said something (significant) about one lights color reproduction vs. the other (not i wrote "color reproduction" here, not CRI). Namely, that one light has significant "holes" in its spectrum compared to the other and can't reproduce some color patches, or reproduces them in a muted or tinted fashion (even after a WB correction).
There are a few caveats here... The first is the way human eyes detect color - the cones in our eyes aren't really "red", "green" and "blue" photodetectors, but "yellow-greenish", "cyanish" and "blue". The "true color" image gets reconstructed from that color space into what we see and percieve courtesy of the forementioned software (or rather wetware) between our ears. That fact (probably) means our eyes will natively have the highest dynamic range in the green parts of the spectrum (which they do), i.e. offer the greatest margin for corrections there without running out of headroom.
At the same time, we have a bias (naturally) toward the sunlight's spectrum, which contains a LOT more reds (along with a lot of greens) compared to most current LED lights. So we're inclined to see similar spectrums as "more natural". Even though they, perhaps, don't use our eye's dynamic range most effectively. (i don't have any scientific basis for this conclusion, but it sounds logical to assume the optimal spectrum for a light would be a mix of the sun's spectrum with the cold daylight spectrum)
In conclusion: yes, we're inclined to "like" warm light. No, we do not necesserily discern color under such lights the best. No, CRI won't necesserily tell you much about how one light compares to the other where colors are concerned IF they are light sources of different temperatures. And yes, you probably will find a high-CRI light "easier on the eyes" (if there is such a thing), especially when doing things like preparing food, walking through the woods or observing skin tones.
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mudman cj
Flashlight Enthusiast
While it is widely accepted that we adjust to the light spectrum, I know myself and many others feel that even after the adjustment period there is still a palpable difference that matters to us.
YES YES YES!!!
That's exactly what i want!
Better yet, make that a 6500K high CRI LED.
Based on something better defined than the CRI...
Yeah, and it works equally well with other colors too - (almost) regardless of whether they lie on the black body spectrum or outside it. Try it with purple and green, it's even eerier
js
Flashlight Enthusiast
This is all nice and well, and i really appreciate the high-CRI emitters that have started to spawn out lately, so please don't take this as bashing. Please read the whole post carefully before flaming...
The photos posted in this thread tell you absolutely NOTHING about the color reproduction. Nothing at all. You could've just as easily set the white balance to favor the colder light and get a Nichia high-CRI shot that lacks as much in the blue part of the spectrum as the "normal" shot in the first post lacks in the red part of the spectrum.
Here - look what happens when you neutralize the white balance for both shots (also fixed the contrast and brightness to show it better):
Can you tell which one was the high-CRI shot and which one wasn't?
Take a closer look at the color chart. Any differences in the saturation of any particular patch? Or its tint?
What does that tell you? It tells me the exact same amount of color information was "picked" off the scene by BOTH lights. The only difference was the color balance. And that's what's wrong with comparisons like this and the way CRI is defined.
It favours certain color temperatures and CAN'T really tell you much about the color reproduction of two lights with DIFFERENT color temperatures. It's ill concieved for that particular task. What it CAN tell you is how two lights of the SAME temperature compare to eachother, though.
orcinus,
The fact that you have been able to digitally adjust both of these pictures, by changing the white balance and brightness and contrast, so that they are nearly indistinguishable, does NOT say that the exact same amount of color information was picked off by both light sources (that's a fairly absolute statement, that is!). In my opinion, it says that both sources are full enough spectrum, with no holes and spikes present in the important areas, for this set of images that nearly the same amount of color information is present in both of the pictures I posted in the first post of this thread.
But, what if the images were of a painting with many different shades of red? And what if the observer were an artist or art critic? What then? Then, I would be willing to bet, this fancy digital footwork would not be enough. Or if there were colors near some of the spikes and rough parts of the Cree's spectrum (or 083's, for that matter)? Read back in this thread to BabyDoc's first post where he was able to see something with the 083 that he wasn't able to with a Cree. For most of us, the Cree may be more than good enough. Hell, I use a Golden Dragon or Nichia 3mm LED's for most of my daily flashlight tasks, and they are good enough for my purposes. Few people need more, as today's LED's are full enough spectrum that the information is there. I essentially agree with you, here, I think.
So, let me go further: let's say you're right. Let's say I concede the point that the full information is there in both images, and just needs to be processed.
What does that matter? I'm not an instant computer running Photoshop! My eye sees what my eye sees. And if that is an image that is yellowy due to a low CCT light source, or of an image that is cool bluish due to a very high CCT light source, then it matters!!! (And the fact that people prefer some form of sunlight isn't just arbitrary. We evolved seeing under that light source.)
This is EXACTLY the reason that so many people have been trashing incans all these years, wondering when they would die, and what was the point, and who would be stupid enough to want such **** yellow light! Despite the fact that the spectral curve was an almost perfect plankian black-body curve, people didn't like it. It was too low a CCT, too yellowy. And remember the binning of the Luxeon LED's, with the spot in the four letter code that was expressly for deviations from the PBBL (Plankian Black Body Locus)?
The fact that "the information is there" doesn't mean that it's just as good as any other light source where the "information is there" also.
Not good enough. CCT is important. And once you have that, deviations too far away from a black body spectral curve--holes or spikes--are also important. Our brains adjust to things, it is true, but it still matters.
To say that the white balance of the light is unimportant for color reproduction is a bit crazy. Of course it's important, which is why we have all these tools to keep track of it and adjust for it, so that all images come out looking as if they had been photographed with natural light.
So you made the Cree image look almost indistinguishable from the 083? So? I didn't have to do ANY processing to make the 083 image look like a daylight image.
And THAT is the point.
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