Not Gonna Buy Cool White Again! [Join Club Here]

uplite said:

So I looked at Cree's XM-L datasheets. Hmmm. They define "neutral" as 3700k-5000k, and they make 5000k emitters (with 3A-3D tints) in the T6 flux bin.

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Indeed they do. :devil:

Craig

This one is simple.

I'm grilling outside and it gets dark. I grab a cool white light and try to see how things are cooking, but can't tell because the color is not conducive to showing a nice browning, no matter how bright it may be (all the food has a sickly greyish color).

Neutral white and warmer lets me see things properly and get the job done.

No cool white lights for me from now on if I can help it.

Let me join the club too! I'm going to mod my only cool white flashlight to neutral white, but I absolutely love warm tints too! I'm having warm and floody XM-L xeno E03 soon, can't wait to feed those a 14500 and have a piece of sun in my hand! Cool tints are just un-natural and disappointing, and the dimmer the light the uglier they get! My personal choice for "neutral" neutral white is 4300k.

I like neutral white(4000K). :kiss:

My Hi-CRI Ra Twisty arrived today, Magnificent light, amazing colour rendition and with the lovely warm tint it's light that I just enjoy using...!

EngrPaul said:

Not Gonna Buy Cool White Again!

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What few cool white lights and LED modules that I had acquired have mostly been sold off, leaving me with warm/neutral varieties as the bulk of my small collection: Malkoff M61W, VanIsleDSM Quad XP-G R3, a relatively soft Quark 123 Tactical R5. My preference is definitely for softer, warmer output in the 3500-4000K range, 5B-6B tint. If HCRI 3000-3500K LED's were capable of resulting in 130-150+ L/W, then that would be all I'd have. I'm hoping we'll double or triple the output in the next 5-10yrs, while solving the problem of "warmth" leading to low output.

Oh, for a 2000 max lumen (OTF) SF 6P sized flashlight in the HCRI 3500K 6B range that lasted 10hrs on a single 18650 charge.

uplite said:

You're welcome.

FYI, an 85C filter will kill about 1/3 stop of the light (~25% of lumens). Works for me. If you want it even warmer, you could use an 85 or 85B filter (and lose maybe 2/3 stop or 33% of the lumens).

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actually I like the tint as it is (as I mentioned the light has got neutral LEDs already), but some cheap color filters could be nice

Another nice thing about photo filters is that they're threaded on both sides, so you can still attach the Eagletac bezel or diffuser. :thumbsup:

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or you could attach the bezel ring to your lens:



or the flashlight to the camera:



wanna sell your light on ebay for a good price? claim it's compatible to canon, it even has a red ring, must be L series

I'll go against the flow and say that I've always liked cool white. It's one of the basic reasons why I got hooked to LED flashlights in the beginning - I really hated the yellowish light of incandescents (that and efficiency).
I still like cool white more, and the fact that warm white makes you lose a small amount of efficiency goes against my mentality as an efficiency junkie, so I have no plans to switch.

But then, I'm a hardcore night owl, so it's not surprising that I like moon-like bluish light more than sun-like yellow.

Edit: whoops... I hadn't noticed the opposite thread... sorry!

pjandyho said:

I was worried I may not like the high CRI XP-G too since I am quite used to the HDS high CRI but I decided to give it a try and get the Malkoff high CRI M61. I am happy that I did. It is warm no doubt but it is definitely a very pleasing tint. In fact I love it so much I just can't have enough of it.

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That's good news coming from you. If I remember correctly you posted many pictures in the HDS thread comparing your high cri to a cooler HDS light, and it highlighted the superiority of that led well.

I actually keep a stock magglite around to show people how far leds have gone. The other night I compared a modified light that has the high cri p4 in it to the magglite. I makes the P4 look cool and it makes me want an even warmer color.

Personally, the less light in my eyes the better. Not only do wamer tints and high cri work better on colors for me, they also seem to reflect a lot less light and are easier to look at.

DHart said:

Jeff... could it be that the regular cool white Thrunight XM-L is the T6 and the neutral tint XM-L models have a T4 flux bin?

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This seems likely. The product descriptions say "T6", but they also say that the lumens will be lower than normal. Probably they just forgot to update the flux bin in the description for the neutral-white products.

Helmut.G said:

actually I like the tint as it is (as I mentioned the light has got neutral LEDs already), but some cheap color filters could be nice

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Helmut, I love your pictures and the red-ring L-series idea. LOL.

fwiw here is a picture of my cool-white M3C4-XML with an 85C filter stacked behind the bezel. This makes the tint very similar to my 5A-tint Zebralights:



Also fyi...EagleTac sells a pack of very nice red, green, blue, and amber filters, as an option for the M3C4, at the very low price of $20. Hard to beat that price. The green, blue, and amber filters are all glass dichroic filters. The red one seems to be red plastic. Also there's the neutral glass diffuser that shipped with the light.

Here is a picture of all the filters from Eagletac:



-Jeff

I've always been using cool, untill 1 year ago when I got my first neutral.

I have the M61W (neutral one) and I have yet to try the M61HCri... if I decide to buy one. I'm afraid it'll be too warm for my tastes.

One thing that's sure, never again I'll go cool.

I just made an interesting choice. I bought some XM-L T6's at the cool end of the neutral band (4900-5000K) for upgrading some XR-E lights. I think they are a good compromise for flux vs. tint.

I was thinking of my ability to re-sell some of the lights I upgrade. It seems by the comments people don't want to go too deep toward warm if it sacrifices output.

So no, I didn't fall off the bandwagon. But I did consider some of the comments I've been reading.

The main reason for going XM-L is that most of the XR-E lights I have throw a spot and don't have enough spill.

I won't promise to never buy a cool white again, but I'll never buy one for any important use. They're crap. Green tint (4Sevens S2)? Reminds me of 2005...

I'll go a step further though-- I'll never buy another light that requires 123 batteries. AA or 18650 for small; D's for large. Nothing else. And with a strong preference for AAs over 18650.

Pertinax

I like warm colors, but I'll remain neutral in this matter!

Even though I prefer neutral tints, tonight I was in a situation where a cool tint was better. It got dark while we were putting up vynl siding on my out-building and needed to get a few more peices up to finish the side we were working on. I went and got my instant daylight maker. It is a extended 2x18500 6p host with a Malkoff M91 inside. The huge flood beam and extra lumens offered by the cool tint was nice to have in a situation where color rendering was not important. The beam lit up the whole side of the building and was plenty bright for us to get the job done. Most of my purchases these days are in neutral/warm tints, but I do keep some really "cool" lights around.

I'll not likely be buying anything cooler than neutral again. Sure glad our options are increasing. I'd really like to find a warm 1AAA.

Geoff

Due to the lack of choice of tints I only buy edc lights that are easy to swap to neutral (5a/c) or warm.. Nitecores and quarks are great for that !

Have to admit I've been switching to 4500k for each of my new lights. Have 3 so far and am planning on upgrading my cool keepers to warm or neutral. Color rendition is so much better. Just a matter of time before the public catches on as well.

I've been trying a 90+ CRI xpg as my EDC for the last few days. The warmth is nice. Looks just like an incandescent. But I feel like I can actually see stuff better with cool and neutral white. I think the 90 CRI is just too warm for my tastes. I prefer neutral tint, but cool white as long as it's not too cold works well.

I'm having the emitter in my Ti Quark AA upgraded to the 90 CRI XP-G. I can't wait! I'm pretty sure it'll be a while before anything replaces it as my EDC after that.