H51c Headlamp AA 85 CRI v.s. H51w Headlamp AA Neutral White

Cataract

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85 CRI has better color rendition, but at the cost of some output. To be honest, I'd like to see some beamshot comparisons between the two...
 

B0wz3r

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Somewhere over in the LED flashlights forum there's a thread about comparisons between the SC51w and the SC51c, which will be an identical comparison, since the headlamp models use the same reflector and light engine, just in a different body.
 

B0wz3r

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The bottom line is that 85 CRI isn't all that high anyway is it?

CRI by itself is a misleading number... GaAslamp has posted extensively here about that. You can't really compare CRI's between different emitters, only those within the same black-body space, or something like that... I don't remember exactly what he said.

But, he did say that power spectrum of the Rebel emitter in the 51 has a much better balance of light across the spectrum than any other "High CRI" emitter currently available. So in that sense, it's actually better than other supposedly 'higher' CRI lights. And the 85 rating is a minimum for the emitter, not a fixed number. Even if it 'only' 85, that's still 10% higher than any neutral white emitter currently available.
 

hazna

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having a h51c and some other neutral lights, I'd prefer the extra lumens of the normal neutral lights (for my usage). The h51c does render colours better and some colours do seem to 'pop' more. Other neutral lights seem to cast a slight yellow tint to those same colours. My personal feeling is these differences are very slight, and it would be difficult to notice unless looking at them one after another.

Unless colour rendition is particularly important for your task, I'd suggest going for just a neutral.
 
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B0wz3r

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Unless colour rendition is particularly important for your task, I'd suggest going for just a neutral.

The closer a light is to a full spectrum, the easier it will be on your eyes; you'll experience less fatigue and eye strain. I personally don't see the need for a ton of lumens in a headlamp, or a pocket EDC light for that matter. It's not all about sheer output, tint, beam profile, and color rendition are more important to me than sheer output.
 

hazna

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The closer a light is to a full spectrum, the easier it will be on your eyes; you'll experience less fatigue and eye strain. I personally don't see the need for a ton of lumens in a headlamp, or a pocket EDC light for that matter. It's not all about sheer output, tint, beam profile, and color rendition are more important to me than sheer output.

Personally I've never notice any eye strain or eye fatigue from using a neutral light. Perhaps so when comparing a cool white vs neutral white. While I agree a lot with your last sentence, another important aspect for me is runtime. If you can have the neutral light driven at a lower setting that provides a similar amount of lumens, you can get extra run time.

e.g. comparing the h51c and h51w
h51w 120 lumen (1.7 hours) vs h51c 130 lumen (0.9 hours)
h51w 86 lumen (2.4 hours) vs h51c 80 lumen (1.7 hours)

I don't regret buying my h51c, though. There are certain applications for me, where I feel I can benefit from the higher CRI.
 
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