Neutral White (Warm Tinted) - Quark AA2 Neutral White Comparison Review

[4sevens]

From an off-line conversation - it was suggested that the hotspots from the stairway beamshots were not identically centered - this could make a difference to the perception of one being brighter than the other.

If you have an LCD screen, look at the two beam shots at an extreme angle and you will see that they are not centered. The outer corona is very defined and you can see "circles." It's hard to describe. If I wasn't in the airport I'd plug them into photoshop to do some magic to demonstrate what I mean.

[Badbeams3]

If you have an LCD screen, look at the two beam shots at an extreme angle and you will see that they are not centered. The outer corona is very defined and you can see "circles." It's hard to describe. If I wasn't in the airport I'd plug them into photoshop to do some magic to demonstrate what I mean.

Ok...got it, the Neutral white angle is diff...so the charts are more toward the center. But still...


BTW...called to order a neutral white head...no go...how soon can I order one?

[Vox Clamatis in Deserto]

Are these new emitters neutral white or warm white? Cree defines neutral white as 3700K to 5000K and warm white as 2600K to 3700K.

I'd say my light is definitely warm white from the appearance.

[UnknownVT]

Are these new emitters neutral white or warm white? Cree defines neutral white as 3700K to 5000K and warm white as 2600K to 3700K.
I'd say my light is definitely warm white from the appearance.

Thanks for that.

These are neutral white in fact they are Cree XP-E Q3 5A -

This is why I tried to clarify that in my edit of the opening post #1, the change in thread heading, and in post #7.

EDIT to ADD -

The reason why the beamshots seem "more yellow/warm" is because I use fixed daylight white balance on my digital camera to show deviation from "daylight" - and the beams are in direct side-by-side comparison with a cool-white beam so the difference is really emphasized.

However our eyes do not work the same way as a camera - they adapt to the lighting conditions (please see Kruithof curve and The Color of White for an explanation).

In real-life although one can see these as quite "yellow" especially when compared side-by-side with a standard cool-white LED - most of the time in normal use (therefore in isolation) although I am still aware that the beam is "yellow" - it looks quite "natural" to me - whereas using a standard cool-white LED seems to be quite grayish and the colors are not quite as contrasty as under the neutral white.

This holds true even going the other way of viewing with cool-white first and getting use to its colors - then turning on the neutral white - colors seem to be "warmer" more "natural" to me -
of course YMMV - and some people may not like a yellow tint and think these may be "horrible".

Personally I am liking the neutral white more and more.

[benhar]

OK, so one thing I am taking from this is that I can't totally go by the pictures, it is a real-life application personal preference thing. Which causes obvious problems if I can only order one

So, I'm going to ask this question and see if it helps... when it comes to light bulbs, I don't like the new fluorescent, and I don't like the standard incandescent with the clear or white glass. I like the incandescent with the blue tint (think they are called GE Reveal?). If you happen to have one of those bulbs, which of the two Quarks most closely matches that?

[UnknownVT]

when it comes to light bulbs, I don't like the new fluorescent, and I don't like the standard incandescent with the clear or white glass. I like the incandescent with the blue tint (think they are called GE Reveal?). If you happen to have one of those bulbs, which of the two Quarks most closely matches that?

GE makes two types of Reveal - one is halogen based the other is a true tungsten incandescent with blue tinted glass (links to GE web page on the products)

For reference the standard Soft-White and the Soft-White Compact Fluorescent

From your description it sounds like the latter that you have/like?

Unfortunately GE do not seem to give the color temperature of those bulbs - but generally a incandescent bulbs are in the range of 2700–3300 K (see Wikipedia on Color temperature) -
I would think -
GE Soft-White would probably be around the 2700-2800 degK mark?
A typical halogen light can only reach about 3,200 degK
The blue tinted incandescent Reveal - my guess may be somewhere between the standard Soft-White and the Halogen? So 2,700-3,200 degK?

Either way these are much lower color temperatures than any of the
Cree Neutral Whites (3,700-5,000 degK)
they fall into
Cree Warm Whites (2,700-3,500 degK)
- please see the Cree XP-E Binning & Labeling pdf

However for a flashlight one may find that the warm whites are much too warm/yellow looking more like incandescent flashlights - eg: the Xenon bulb SureFire 6P, G2, or Streamlight Scorpion which are about 3,200 degK.

If you actually like those incandescent lights then aim for a Cree "Warm White" at around 3,200 degK -eg: Q2 bin 7A.

Otherwise I would say the in between Neutral White as in this Q3 5A is actually very well chosen - any cool-white looks blue in comparison as shown in the beamshots.....

[benhar]

Yes, I have the latter.

That helps, I didn't realize that even with the blue tint it's still that much warmer than the neutral LED. Please understand this is my first time getting into the details of flashlight color temperature

I'm thinking the Neutral will be a good fit. Thanks for the help!

[kwkarth]

To my eyes, the famous and most, most, most excellent "Standardized Stairway" photos posted by Unknownvt very accurately depict what you'll see with the Neutral White Quark compared to other sources of illumination.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/...1&postcount=25

[UnknownVT]

To my eyes, the famous and most, most, most excellent "Standardized Stairway" photos posted by Unknownvt very accurately depict what you'll see with the Neutral White Quark compared to other sources of illumination.
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/...1&postcount=25

Thank you very much for the kind words.

Not meaning to be contrary - but our eye/brain combination shift in the way they see.

To give a fairly common example - most of us see the light in our homes as "white" - and mostly those are incandescent bulbs or perhaps the compact fluorescent - once a photo is taken with fixed daylight white balance those are shown as quite yellow/red.

Now if we turn on a xenon bulb CR123 flashlight like the SureFire 6P, G2 - we tend to think those are "whiter" than the typical room lighting.....

Again a daylight white balanced photo shows how yellow/red those still are - and that was going from about 2,700degK to about 3,200degK (max).

Museums and art galleries have done extensive research to find the optimum lighting to exhibit/view paintings/images - which are very dependent on lighting/color temperature and accuracy of color rendition is paramount. As can be seen in the paper The Color of White published by Western Association for Art Conservation - and posted by Stanford University it appears that 3,700degK is the optimal color temperature for an illumination level of 20 foot-candles for critical viewing of art/paintings.
(please also see Kruithof curve)

Of course flashlights are different because the distance of illumination can vary depending on the situation and we can't always be illuminating at 20 foot-candles (excuse me deer - can you please stay still while I measure the distance and convert my flashlight lumens to candle-power and calculate if I am illuminating you at 20 foot-candles?) whereas an art gallery has fixed lighting at predetermined distances and angles - but nonetheless what they have found is very valuable to our understanding of what and why we see the way we do.

For me the neutral white LEDs seem a very good choice of color temperature encompassing the range of light levels likely to be found using a flashlight - they also contain enough blue part of the spectrum to eliminate the typical difficulty of incandescent lights in seeing blue and picking out yellow on white.

As a flashaholic I like these neutral white LEDs, and am very glad 4Sevens decided to make these on a special limited run.

[NoFair]

Great review

If I could change something on my Quark AA it would be getting a lower riding clip and HA Natural anodizing.

The current clip is great with the 2AA body and 2cr123 body.

Sverre

PS! A 17500 body would be awesome since I could then use 17500/14500/any other AA

[benhar]

Well, my Neutral White Quark AA2 Tactical came in, and I have to agree that the color of the beam is just about perfect. Side by side with my Scorpion, it didn't look blue at all, but at the same time made the Scorpion look a little yellow. At the risk of sounding redundant, the Quark is the closest to plain white, and very pleasant to use.

[kevinbh]

Looks like the Neutral would be better for my hunting use, but will a green lens negate the Cool vs. Neutral difference? Thanks for the info!

[UnknownVT]

Looks like the Neutral would be better for my hunting use, but will a green lens negate the Cool vs. Neutral difference? Thanks for the info!

Sorry for the lateness of reply.

Although photos give a good idea of how a light might look compared to daylight -
our eyes sometimes behave very differently.

You really should compare for yourself -
and it does not matter if there is personal bias -
after all it is you that's doing the looking.

I personally prefer neutral white even outdoors -
but there are very good reasons why a warm white of between 2700-3200K works well.

Cool white despite being much closer to the "ideal" daylight -
just does not seem to work well in the dark outdoors -
as many others will attest.

However placing a green filter over the light probably negates any perceived advantage.

But again you should see for yourself.