What's the use of throwing blue light?

[EngrPaul]

Any light that throws needs to be used outdoors. Outdoors is where color rendition and low levels of spill bounce-back is important. Any object lit at distance needs to be focused on with the eyes. Due to the response of our eyes to blue light, focusing can be very difficult when lots of blue light is present. Cold white LED's have tons of blue light. :ironic:

I've had some experience with throwers, and I've determined that cool white torches are fun for a few moments of showing off, but nearly useless otherwise. Going from a Q5 or R2 to a 5A Q3 makes the light much more useful. It pierces through the humid air and allows me to recognize the object at a distance, especially with the increased red region of the spectrum. :thumbsup:

I just converted my old Lumapower MRV to a neutral LED, and I have a new love for the light. My Jetbeam Jet-III-M and Dereelight DBS V2 are both neutral, and finally have some competition. I have a Raidfire Spear that's next on the modding schedule.... :whistle:

 

[Jarl]

I agree completely. White/blue light "look, I'm putting photon's on that object!", warmer light "look, that object is a tree". Which is more useful? ;)

 

[OceanView]

Going from a Q5 or R2 to a 5A Q3 makes the light much more useful.

I agree. I just got an MC-E 5A tint build from Nailbender in the mail yesterday. The first time I turned it on, which was outside, I was a little startled. I couldn't quite put my finger on why. Obviously, the tint wasn't the typical relatively cool LED tint but it was something else. When I played with it some more, I realized that things actually looked a lot more three dimensional.

As a test, I switched back and forth between a very white Cree and the MC-E and it was obvious how "flat" everything looked with the Cree. It was much more natural and easy on the eyes to look at objects with the 5A light and to differentiate the distance between things. And I felt like I could recognize objects better. Not sure if that is a color recognition issue or perhaps something else. I don't know if I can buy another LED light that doesn't have a neutral white emitter now!

I'm pretty much exclusively an LED guy except for one light in my arsenal--my bedside, bump-in-the-night light. That's a Wolf-Eyes Raider incandescent. It's not my brightest light but when visual identification is critical, whether inside or outside, I go with the incandescent. This 5A MC-E might change my views about that.

 

[FlashCrazy]

I agree also. The 5A tint is becoming a popular choice, and I think it'll be even more popular in time. I think many people shy away from it because it's only available in the Q3 bin, not the Q5/R2 (for the regular LED's). There may be a little less brightness, but it's not that noticeable (if at all), and the improvement in color rendition definitely makes up for it. The WH tint is also really nice, not quite as warm but nowhere near the slightly blue tint of the WC. I've been using the 5A tint in my CL1H and C2H, I'll have to try it in the DBS as well (I did indoors, but didn't test it much outdoors). I have the R2 WH in that right now which is fantastic, so it'll be hard for me to even think about swapping it. :grin2:

 

[greenlight]

I have to agree. I was using my inova x1.v1 blue LED flashlight last night. It's low power, but throws a significant distance. If you look right into the lens it is blinding you, but the beam and resulting spot are not very convincing.

If your tree is made up of GID tape, the blue light will work great!!

 

[bigfoot]

Another agree here. I would much rather have a warm green/yellow tint than a cold ice blue/purple tint. Color rendition is just soooo much better.

 

[ZMZ67]

I agree as well.There are a few companies producing lights aimed at long throw yet they continue to use cool white LEDs(I realize there are a few exceptions like Dereelight).Even using lights with modest throw I would rather have a warmer tint.My SF G2L sat unused until I replaced the lamp with a Malkoff M60WL.

 

[Axion]

Another agree here. I would much rather have a warm green/yellow tint than a cold ice blue/purple tint. Color rendition is just soooo much better.

I kind of agree. To my eyes a warm (5A) tint is clearly superior most rendering most colors and for making things actually look 3D. All cool LED's seem to make things look flat. But IMO the worst is greenish tinted cool LED's. Not only do these make things look flat, but they are terrible for color rendition. My slightly violet WC R2 emittered DBS and C2H are much, much better for reds, yellows, and even greens then my greenish WC Q5 EX-10.

 

[Mjolnir]

The Malkoff maglite dropins have a warmer tinted LED than what they used to have. Inside it looks pretty horrible, but outside it really does throw more natural light than a neutral LED.

 

[phantom23]

I don't agree with a few things here. There's no simple white/blue (ugly) and warm (nice) classification. You can choose tints every 500K. So there's a chioce between blueish and too yellow light. Very cold white ruins perspective while warm incandescent light makes everything yellow (false colours from 3,7V incan with freshly charged Li-Ion). But there's something between - like this.
Other tint comparison here. I don't like 5A because it's too yellow for me. And it makes everything yellow - grass, trees, snow, soil etc. Good colour rendition does NOT equal good colour perception. So bins 3A, WH/WJ, WD (SUN, SVO, SWO) are much closer to natural daylight than 5A and lower. And much more efficient. Why many of us like incandescent? Habit we're just got used to it.

Manufacturers give cooler tints because of better avability, price and efficiency. Because of high demand some of them offer 5A tint or chosse warmer cool tints (new Eagle-Tacs are closer to WD than WC).

PS. WC without any blue/purple hue is also quite nice.

 

[Norm]

I have to agree all the LEDs I have that used to look OK are now far too blue much prefer 5A Q3 I have three lights now with 5A Q3.

There is no going back.
Norm

 

[darknessemitter]

I don't agree with a few things here. There's no simple white/blue (ugly) and warm (nice) classification. You can choose tints every 500K. So there's a chioce between blueish and too yellow light. Very cold white ruins perspective while warm incandescent light makes everything yellow (false colours from 3,7V incan with freshly charged Li-Ion). But there's something between - like this.
Other tint comparison here. I don't like 5A because it's too yellow for me. And it makes everything yellow - grass, trees, snow, soil etc. Good colour rendition does NOT equal good colour perception. So bins 3A, WH/WJ, WD (SUN, SVO, SWO) are much closer to natural daylight than 5A and lower. And much more efficient. Why many of us like incandescent? Habit we're just got used to it.

Manufacturers give cooler tints because of better avability, price and efficiency. Because of high demand some of them offer 5A tint or chosse warmer cool tints (new Eagle-Tacs are closer to WD than WC).

PS. WC without any blue/purple hue is also quite nice.

One thing I'm curious about is if part of the color rendition issues with cool white LED's is not just the general difficulties for human eyes viewing blue, but the fact that the blue portion of a white LED is a sharp spike. There's a wide range of wavelengths around yellow, but the blue end is still a monochromatic blue LED.

I mean, I wouldn't expect drastically improved results from a white LED with a wider "phosphor blue" region (more like the wide phosphor yellow area), if that were even possible to make, but it would be interesting to compare.

 

[richardcpf]

This is the use:

 

[EngrPaul]

Neutral white LED's have a better balance of the entire spectrum of light. It's not so much the tint color, it's the full spectrum of light that gives the advantage. At some point along the warm emitter scale, the spectrum becomes unbalanced again and less useful for rendering. Almost like turning a stereo from left to right. Somewhere right on center the sound is most vibrant.

So basically, my argument is that cool white LED's aren't spectrally balanced, and furthermore produce most of their light intensity in the less useful blue spectrum.

 

[phantom23]

Neutral white LED's have a better balance of the entire spectrum of light. It's not so much the tint color, it's the full spectrum of light that gives the advantage. At some point along the warm emitter scale, the spectrum becomes unbalanced again and less useful for rendering. Almost like turning a stereo from left to right. Somewhere right on center the sound is most vibrant.

So basically, my argument is that cool white LED's aren't spectrally balanced, and furthermore produce most of their light intensity in the less useful blue spectrum.

Neutral (4X, 3X, warmer WH/WJ) are best balanced because they're closest to daylight. 5X, 6X are the same unbalanced as WC, just in the other way...

 

[greenlight]

This is the use:

That's why I like my blue X1.

 

[Sub_Umbra]

Any light that throws needs to be used outdoors...

That would seem to be somewhat od a generalization to me. What would you call a light with a tight 2°, 0.3 lumen beam that had no spill at all? It wouldn't be called floody. Dim as it is it would still be called THROW. And yes, there are uses for lights like that and people do actually use them -- and some of them are blue.

More to your question, I have a cyan thrower (which by definition has a great deal of blue in it) which I use outside all the time (I'll be using it again within the next ten minutes). It has enough blue that it cuts through rain like nothing else I've ever used.

Blue LEDs are very bright. That's one reason. You probably know that white LEDs are really blue LEDs that have the dies doped with a phosphor so they put out a whitish light. Ma for ma more light will come out of the blue one because of the conversion losses incurred to make white. Compare the brightness of an old CMG Infinity with a blue LED (NOT the Ultra) to a CMG Infinity Ultra equipped with a white LED. The blue Infinity will be very close to the brightness of the white IU -- but it will have four times the runtime on a cell.

Blue light has traditionally been used in technical theatre because it is far, far easier to see with than red and yet it is a very easy color to mask from an audience. Often theatre techies with years of experience using low levels of blue light may routinely accomplish complex tasks that would be unimaginable to the uninitiated. Using any monochromatic light is a learned experience. There truly is such a thing as a trained eye.

It is often reported that blue light does not focus correctly on the normal retina -- which is true enough. It is also true that many with abnormal vision (glasses) may focus blue light on their retina's better than white light. I'm one who can read more easily with blue light than white light. The print looks sharper under blue light to my tired, old eyes because they are not normal eyes. There have been threads that have covered this.

Finally, Icebreak has posted on a few threads about hunting humans in the woods with Royal Blue lights. ...

Anyway, there are many uses for blue light although it's kinda like spill guys fighting with throw guys -- if you don't need it and haven't worked with it, it's easy to say it's useless.

Although I've spent years and years working with blue lights professionally, I'm really into blue/green for my everyday use. (see avatar)

 

[jenskh]

I do not agree with most people here. I have done a lot of experimentation on this, measuring lux, distances and observing different objects. I have swapped WC and A5 pill between my CL1H and DBS in doing this. My conclusion is that for discovering and identifying objects, the WC light is at least as efficient as the A5 light. This is for naturally colored objects gray/ green at maximum throw distance (around 1 lux).

But still I use the A5 most, because the nature looks nicer, and it is a more cozy tint.

 

[OceanView]

What would you call a light with a tight 2°, 0.3 lumen beam that had no spill at all? It wouldn't be called floody. Dim as it is it would still be called THROW.

Well, I guess we're getting into semantics here. At least to me, the distance to be illuminated is also part of the generally understood meaning of "throw". If, by saying that you want a light that "throws", you want a light that can illuminate an object, say, 150 meters away, then the 0.3 lumen light wouldn't really be considered a "throw light". I'd call it something else, like a dim light with a very collimated beam, and not a throw light.

...I have a cyan thrower (which by definition has a great deal of blue in it) which I use outside all the time (I'll be using it again within the next ten minutes). It has enough blue that it cuts through rain like nothing else I've ever used.

How far a beam reaches is only half of the equation of "seeing" unless those photons get bounced back to our eyes and our brains can use that information. Yes, blue pierces water well. Blue is the color of light that filters its way to the ocean depths.

However, at least in natural settings, there aren't many blue (or cyan) colored objects, or parts of objects, to reflect back a big chunk of that monochromatic blue (or cyan) beam. And even when the photons get back to your eyes, blue light isn't the optimal color for our eyes to focus sharply (not sure if the human eye focuses cyan light appreciably better than blue light). "Seeing" an object lit up in the distance is also not the same thing, at least in my experience, as recognizing what it is, and I generally find that I recognize unfamiliar, distant objects better with incan than LED light, although I may be able to "see" objects quite a distance away using LED.

In all fairness, I haven't actually used a cyan light (come to think of it, I've seen anyone do a cyan mod since we progressed beyond Lux III's) but since in my own experience I don't think that I can recognize and really "see" unfamiliar objects at distance with my LED lights as well as with incan light (jury's still out on my new 5A, although aesthetically, I certainly favor it over cooler tints despite my still early experience with it), then I suspect that a cyan beam wouldn't be any better for me than my white LED's.

 

[PhantomPhoton]

EngrPaul I also agree completely. After you hit around 200 lumens beam profile and color are way more important than a few extra lumens for spotting things in the distance... especially when looking at green stuff. And even more so still when there is a lot of moisture present.
I walk home in the dark every night and pass some nice open and mostly dark fields. SO I always take the opportunity to test a light or three. The warmer tint lights give much better depth perception and make it more easy to spot fine detail form a distance.