SST-50 4500K Tint Comparison Beamshots

[RichS]

I just received an SST-50 4500K module from Nailbender. This is a very nice module, and I love the beam pattern of this emitter.

Nailbender was very clear to me that the neutral tint SSTs are much different than Cree emitters, however it's amazing to see the difference in real life. To my eyes, the SST neutral 4500K is the coldest emitter I have. It was hard to believe that something with a 4500K tint would be colder than a 6500K Cree R2. I always liked my Sniper P7, but it was almost blue it was so cold. However, it actually looks slightly warm in comparison to this 4500K SST-50.

For those of you with an SST-50 4500K light, is this your experience?? Mac uses these in his EDC lights, and he even mentioned that the SST-50 4500K is the perfect neutral tint emitter, so I'm shocked at what I see. I wouldn't call it the slightest bit neutral.

I took some beamshots to capture what I saw compared to some other cool and warm tint lights, and they actually turned out pretty well. These are very close to what I see with my eyes. I used manual mode with white balance locked to "daylight" and a 1/2 second exposure.

Your thoughts??

SST-50 4500K


Sniper P7 (cold tint)


Milky Q4 5B XRE (x4)


XRE R2 Cold (left) / SST-50 4500K (right)


Sniper P7 (left) / SST-50 4500K (right)


Milky Q4 5B (left) / SST-50 4500K (right)


UPDATE - 4/19:

Well, I thought I'd report back in on my dilema. Nailbender was kind enough to let me return the 4500K SST-50 module since I thought it shouldn't be that cold, and I had him send me a warm XP-G instead.

But I still really wanted a true warm SST-50, so when I saw that supasizefries was making his own and selling on CPFMP, I pulled the trigger on one. It was pretty much the same as the Nailbender's - 2.5A max, 4500K, 3-mode regulated. But there was a bonus - it had a true neutral tint! So I did some more beamshots with the exact same settings as last time - 1/2 sec exposure, white balance daylight, ISO 100.

Besides the beautiful warm tint this time, the SST-50 was noticeably brighter (looked to be 40-50% brighter) than the Nailbender SST-50 module as well as the Sniper P7. Whereas the P7 was brighter than my previous SST-50 module. I'm not sure if it has something to do with the bin or something else, since they are both supposed to be running at 2.5A regulated. But I do know that supasizefries said that this was the highest flux bin in the 4500K SST-50. I guess it is!!

Nice work on a great product supasizefries!!

Nailbender 4500K SST-50


supasizefries SST-50 4500K



Sniper P7 (6500K)


supasizefries vs. P7 Sniper ani gif


P7 Sniper vs Nailbender SST-50 4500K


P7 Sniper vs supasizefries SST-50 4500K

[Henk_Lu]

Weird!!!

I have one of Mac's EDC and I can confirm what he said, it's the best neutral white tint emitter I have, it's not "colored", but pure white in the hotspot with a warmer spill & corona, difficult to explain. Crees are colored, the horspot is yellowish or reddish, as well as the spill & the corona.

Your first picture looks really cold, I would say 7.500° Kelvin or more, difficult to judge on a picture, but that's in no way a neutral white emitter! As it is blue (not blueish...) in the corona, it looks like it gets a voltage-overdose...

[was.lost.but.now.found]

It doesn't seem to put off as much light as the P7 either. Is that correct?

[icaruz]

I got one of Nailbender SST-50 5700K. Mine look warmer and yellowish than your beamshot.

[ma_sha1]

I use only 57K SST/SSR, they all look warmer than yours.

[Aircraft800]

Emitter Mix-Up, that's not a warm bin at all compared to your Cree XR-E.

[SCEMan]

I got one of Nailbender SST-50 5700K. Mine look warmer and yellowish than your beamshot.

Ditto here.

[Fulgeo]

It doesn't seem to put off as much light as the P7 either. Is that correct?

I have found that a good C or D bin SSC P7 at 2.8 amps puts out noticeably more lumens than the SST-50 at 2.8amps. I guesstimate it takes about 3.5+ amps for a SST-50 to start walking away from a SSC P7. At 4.0 amps or more the SST-50 starts to rock.

[kengps]

gotta be a mix up. I just sold my Mac SST 50 4500K because I thought it looked orange. I hated it.

[IMSabbel]

This must be a misplaced part.
There is no way this is a 4500k, maybe it was switched at the dealer?

[MichaelW]

That isn't 4500K, either mislabeled or counterfeit product.

[Fulgeo]

I have one 5700K SST-50 and three 6500K. The 5700K is sort of a creamy tint with a touch of vanilla. The three 6500Ks have a pure white snowy tint. The 6500K SST-50 compare tint wise with similar tint Crees and SSC P7 that I have. The three 6500K SST-50 emitters do not have any tint of blue. Some of my Crees and one SSC P7 do have a tint of blue. A hint of blue does not bother me. The only tint that does bother me is when I get a slight "cat piss green" emitter. Here is a strange thing I have noticed about the SST-50 emitters I have. The 5700K seem brighter than the 6500K emitters at the same amperage. This is by eye since I do not have a light meter. It is noticeably brighter. This seems counter intuitive to me since the colder tints have up to this point have always seemed brighter in sort of a stark way. As a general rule all the spec sheets on emitters I have read show output dropping as the emitters become warmer. Has anyone else out there compared a 5700K and 6500K SST-50 emitter side by side and noticed that the 5700K seems brighter?

[psychbeat]

yeah, same here my regular NB sst50 is way more yellow than that.
its really nice actually..not cold at all.

[RichS]

Thanks for confirming guys - I didn't think I was going crazy. It must have been mis-labeled from the factory. Sending this one back to Nailbender.. with neutral tint emitters so readily available now, no more cold tints for me!

[RichS]

UPDATE added to first post - I recevied a different SST-50 4500K from supasizefries with some very different results.

[psychbeat]

looks nice!

tho, the comparison to the Nailbender isnt quite fair if
there was a mix up with the emitter.

my NB SST 50 isnt blueish/green at all - more lemon vanilla- ish.

maybe supa should send one in to BIG C for a showdown?!?

[taschenlampe]

Tint judgments and tint comparisons always should be done on a WHITE wall.

tl

[RichS]

looks nice!

tho, the comparison to the Nailbender isnt quite fair if
there was a mix up with the emitter.

my NB SST 50 isnt blueish/green at all - more lemon vanilla- ish.

maybe supa should send one in to BIG C for a showdown?!?

Nailbender can stand on his own two feet. The only reason I posed the question to my fellow CPF'rs is Nailbender assurred me the one I received from him was a neutral tint, and that there was not a mix-up with the tints. This is after I sent him the above comparison pics.

So I sent it back very dissappointed, because I've heard good things about the neutral tint SST-50's. Before I spent the cash on another one of these 4500K SST-50 dropin's, I wanted to be sure I wasn't going to get another of the same. The feedback I got was that it was surely an emitter mix-up, and my second purchased confirms that fact.

Regarding the showdown - I agree! The locked exposure tells the tale that this one is brighter, but it would be great to see by how many lumens. What is surprising about this is it seems much brighter than the much colder version. Aren't you supposed to lose some lumens with the warm tint?? Come on supa - send BigC one to test!

Tint judgments and tint comparisons always should be done on a WHITE wall.

tl

You being serious? You mean between the white ceiling, trim and lamps, in addition to all the other colors in the room to render, not to mention the warm wall color, you can't tell the difference between the warm and cold tints used here? hmmmm...

[mudman cj]

Very nice Rich! I have been waiting for the 'ideal' LED to put into a KL6 build (if I can ever get the custom heat sink made ) and I think the neutral tint SST-50 is it. Your pictures are putting me over the edge.

Would you also be able to show the Q4 5B side by side with your neutral tint SST-50? That would serve as a great reference for me. Thanks!

[RichS]

Very nice Rich! I have been waiting for the 'ideal' LED to put into a KL6 build (if I can ever get the custom heat sink made ) and I think the neutral tint SST-50 is it. Your pictures are putting me over the edge.

Would you also be able to show the Q4 5B side by side with your neutral tint SST-50? That would serve as a great reference for me. Thanks!

Sure thing CJ. The Milky M3 mod in the above pic above has 4 x Q4 5Bs in it, and you can see it's quite a bit warmer than the 4500K SST-50, but I consider the SST a neutral, not warm emitter. I'll put a side-by-side comparison pic up tonight with my Q4 5B modded SF L1 (thanks to you - still one of my all-time favorites ).

I do see why others are saying the SST-50 4500K is the perfect warm emitter. It just looks very neutral, but does a great job of rendering colors without the beam looking too pink or yellow. I haven't done much testing outside yet though, so I am wondering how it will hold up outdoors compared to the warmer 5A/5B Cree tints. We'll find out soon....

[supasizefries]

Hey Rich, thanks for the detailed review! I'm lovin the beam shots you took. It's interesting to see the comparison with other lights. I was able to obtain the brightest bin in the 4500k range. The sst-50's in that color range really have a nice tint to them. I think I prefer them over the warm MC-E's.

I'm curious too, as to what the actual output is, but presently, I have no more 4500k sst-50 drop-ins to send out to BigC. They were all sold. I did acquire some top bin 5700k sst-50's though...

[Fulgeo]

Hey supasizefries just wanted to pipe in again and say the 5700K rock. It does have a noticeable tint of vanilla and is very pleasing. For myself I would not want any warmer of a tint than 5700K. Not saying warmer tints are worse or anything. Tint preference is so much in the eye of the beholder. I found this out when I gave away 9 flashlights I modded with P7 as gifts. I gave away 3 different "tints" and it was surprising what people's tint preferences where. I would be real interested if you could compair 4500K and 5700K SST-50 side by side and if you notice any difference in light output. Happy Mods!

[supasizefries]

Hi Fulgeo, yeah I just got the 5700k's in and I have to say, they have a really nice tint to them. I just built a few drop-ins with the 5700k's and I had to keep one for myself. So far I'm really liking the 4500 and 5700's from Luminus. I'm currently waiting on more 4500k's. When I get them in I'll see if I can get some beam shots.

[RichS]

As requested, here are some comparisons of the supasizefries SST-50 4500K compared to a Q4 5B and a XP-G R2 4000K. What is amazing to me is how much warmer the Cree 5B and XP-G 4000K look compared to the 4500K SST-50, but they both render colors equally both indoors and out. It doesn't seem like this white-looking of a beam would do as well as the warmer looking Cree LEDs, but as you can see it most definitely does. I'm starting to see why many are calling the SST-50 their new favorite emitter.

SureFire L1 modded w/ Q4 5B (Left) / SST-50 4500K (Right)


McGizmo Haiku XP-G R2 4000K (Left) / SST-50 4500K (Right)


SureFire L1 modded w/ Q4 5B (1 sec/daylight WB/ISO 100)


supasizefries SST-50 4500K (1 sec/daylight WB/ISO 100)

[turboBB]

RichS, thx a lot for this post. I've reached out to SSF to meet up soon to get a pill from him.

I'm still a lumens freak so will take a look at his 5700K as well and then I can have the 4500K for outdoors use.

Cheers,
Tim

[mudman cj]

Sweet pics, thanks Rich! It's hard to believe that such a white emitter renders as well as the Q4 5B. Although I trust your word on it, that's one I have to see for myself, at least that's the excuse I'm going with to justify building a light that uses one...

[Brian321]

I think there was a mix up with your NB drop in because mine has a very warm tint.

On the left is the Malkoff M61 in a SF 6P host, and on the right is the NB 4500K in a SF Z2 host.



Take it for what its worth.

Brian

[RichS]

I think there was a mix up with your NB drop in because mine has a very warm tint.

On the left is the Malkoff M61 in a SF 6P host, and on the right is the NB 4500K in a SF Z2 host.

Take it for what its worth.

Brian

Yep - I completely agree with you that there was a mix-up and I got a cold tint version. But NB let me return it, so we're good. I picked up a 4500K from supasizefries and it looks nice and warm like yours compared to a cold tint LED (see above).

Thanks for the beamshot!

[supasizefries]

As some people requested, here are some comparative beamshots of the 4500k, 5700k, 6500k sst-50's. I hope RichS doesn't mind me posting these in his thread
All pics were taken with same shutter speed and aperture.

[RichS]

As some people requested, here are some comparative beamshots of the 4500k, 5700k, 6500k sst-50's. I hope RichS doesn't mind me posting these in his thread
All pics were taken with same shutter speed and aperture.

Not at all - nice shots! This is a helpful tint comparison for those that are trying to decide between these three versions to put in the host of SST-50 custom products that are being offered right now. As for me, it's 4500K all the way!