A sad incandescent day today

[mesa232323]

@lux I totally agree with you on the color accuracy and fullness. To my eyes, Incandescent flashlights seem to throw a lot further. There must be some kind of science behind it. Maybe the high color temperature of LED lights seems to reflect off of surrounding surfaces including dust, blinding me. I see the same effect when shining an LED down the freeway and every reflective sign within 2 miles bounces light back.

I sure wish I would have been more serious in this hobby about 7 years ago when Fivemega was creating and selling all these masterpiece hotwire hosts that all say "CLOSED" "DO NOT PAY" those things look like Hotrods in a car show. If the battery cover were opened, I would expect to see a blown 454 fall out. I won't get 36mpg with a blown big block sticking out of my hood, but efficiency isn't always the winner.

 

[idleprocess]

@lux I totally agree with you on the color accuracy and fullness. To my eyes, Incandescent flashlights seem to throw a lot further. There must be some kind of science behind it. Maybe the high color temperature of LED lights seems to reflect off of surrounding surfaces including dust, blinding me. I see the same effect when shining an LED down the freeway and every reflective sign within 2 miles bounces light back.

In my experience, low color quality LED sources (pretty much anything reminiscent of Nichia "angry blue" from 5+ years ago) tend to "flatten" the scene to the point that depth perception is iffy and recognizing anything distant was difficult. I'm not sure if there was a perceptual-science angle to it, or just the fact that my brain couldn't get around the newness of that type of light source. I still have a flashlight like that which has the added bonus of putting some 95% of the light into a very uniform ~5 degree beam, likely aggravating the effect with the lack of spill and sharp beam cutoff ... it's not used often at all.

I've noticed that the reflection effect is highly pronounced with HID as well as LED. It may have something to do with the light color and reflectivity of dust and water vapor in the air. It's downright distracting whenever dust or humidity levels are high.

 

[kaichu dento]

I recently purchased an L10 with the high CRI nichia and on the lowest setting I feel like the tint is a waste of light. I'm not used to it and frankly I'd rather be creeping around the house with a cool tint if I'm using an LED.

LEDs have certainly come a long ways.

A couple years back I was planning on getting warm tints swapped into all my lights, but noticed that on very low levels and with a floody enough pattern that the cooler tints were actually preferable for me and it's on the higher levels where I really like the incan tints, and hence, incans themselves, the best.

Relating back to the discontinuation of incandescent bulbs as our primary artificial light sources, it's so nice to see so many of my friends holding out with their stashes of bulbs.

 

[SemiMan]

A couple years back I was planning on getting warm tints swapped into all my lights, but noticed that on very low levels and with a floody enough pattern that the cooler tints were actually preferable for me and it's on the higher levels where I really like the incan tints, and hence, incans themselves, the best.

Relating back to the discontinuation of incandescent bulbs as our primary artificial light sources, it's so nice to see so many of my friends holding out with their stashes of bulbs.

With cooler tints, especially "cool white", at high brightness levels, you are likely starting to experience glare. That may be why you like the warmer tint.

 

[SemiMan]

Your practical observations and "subconcious" preferences are not an accident. Incans do look better for all of the reasons that Incan Jockeys have always known. Yes there are pro's and con's to each lighting source, and we put up with lower efficiency in return for better color depth and accuracy.

Again, this is the only section in the forum where instead of staying in the LED Flashlights category, LED Jockeys repeatedly come out from under their LED rocks to try and trash incands. They seem to be like LED Moths wistfully drawn to the Incan Hotwire flame, but then are left spiralling to the dirt after their aeronautical incineration.

People pretend that Nichia and other LED emitters are equal substitutes, but other than a few like JTR who likely have a different genetic distribution of rods and cones, all the answers are in those links I gave in my earlier post #61. Despite their desparate struggle to achieve the Holy Grail of 100% CRI, LED Jockeys seem incapable of clicking on links and reading/understanding why even the CRI number alone does not even come close to explaining the visual shortcomings of LED's.

But no matter, we few, we happy few, we band of Incan Jockey brothers will keep the light on for ya as the battle continues.

There are no "answers" in your links to Wikipedia. Lighting people know that CRI is a unitless measurement as it is not a measure of absolute color quality, simply a measure of conformance to a blackbody radiator curve.

Now don't expect me to defend the "quality" of the average cool white LED for critical viewing, as that would be silly.

On the other hand, for a general purpose illumination tool, 90+ CRI neutral white provides both color fidelity and color gamut across a wide range of scenes that incan cannot duplicate, no more than a 6000K LED can duplicate the deep reds that an INCAN will bring out, or the dingy dirty color an incan will render a blue-green carpet compared to the vibrant color that will be rendered with an 80 CRI 5000K white LED.

For lower lighting levels (common with INCAN), we do have an affinity for warmer color temperatures.

For many outdoor scenes, i.e. rich in browns, an INCAN can provide much better color contrast versus a cool white LED.

There may be technical merit to higher perceived throw with INCAN with fully adapted night vision due to improved focus from lack of blue, as well as higher resolution in red. A fully charged incan does have fairly high surface brightness so it can throw fairly far if designed as such. A hotwire can achieve very high surface brightness for long throw.

That said, a high quality warm white LED will be similarly deficient of blue and would not have blue focus issue.

In a cave, a cool white LED makes everything flat ..... but then again an incan is not the holy grail either. 4000K high CRI is fabulous in this environment if there are a diversity of colored mineral formations.



In the end, who cares .... use what you like I can't say I use my incans much any more, but still have a bunch around. One spotlight does still get some use as I find the HID a bit too much in most situations. My high CRI 4000K tends to get the most usage followed closely by a relatively low cost single AA coolish light with a near perfect beam. It is just such a convenient light.

 

[LuxLuthor]

Yes, essentially we are pretty much on the same page, except that you only ascribed the "dingy dirty color" characterization to the incan. There are plenty of examples to have used that desparaging descriptor with many tints of LED's. The bottom line is people should use what they like--recognizing that various scenarios have optimal light sources. There are many settings where I prefer an LED, and others an incand/HID/candle/bonfire etc.

 

[SemiMan]

Yes, essentially we are pretty much on the same page, except that you only ascribed the "dingy dirty color" characterization to the incan. There are plenty of examples to have used that desparaging descriptor with many tints of LED's. The bottom line is people should use what they like--recognizing that various scenarios have optimal light sources. There are many settings where I prefer an LED, and others an incand/HID/candle/bonfire etc.

A warm white LED in the same situation would have looked dingy as well, but the point was as you stated ... optimal light for the scenario.

I often prefer the soft glow of a candle, though can't say I have started a bonfire for lighting before

Semiman

 

[kaichu dento]

With cooler tints, especially "cool white", at high brightness levels, you are likely starting to experience glare. That may be why you like the warmer tint.

Glare comes with the higher output levels, but being an incandescent fan I don't like the lifeless, flat and cold light coming from cooler emitters at high output levels, but on the other hand one of my favorite light sources is the moon and on low, floody ouput stages I like anything that resembles moonlight. Higher levels, and I want some depth and warmth.

Now I'm packing my E1e and E2E to go play with a bit tonight out in the woods. These make a great pairing with the diffusion film I have on the E1e and the unaltered throw of the E2E.

 

[scout24]

Slipped my E2e in my back pocket this morning next to my wallet. LF HO E1R w/ 17670 is plenty for what I need a light for during the day. Runtime is fantastic, too...

 

[mesa232323]

Glare comes with the higher output levels, but being an incandescent fan I don't like the lifeless, flat and cold light coming from cooler emitters at high output levels, but on the other hand one of my favorite light sources is the moon and on low, floody ouput stages I like anything that resembles moonlight. Higher levels, and I want some depth and warmth.

You bring up a great point about low output cool LEDs resembling moonlight. It's natural and what us humans have evolved to see at night . Now I understand why I don't like a high CRI light on low levels walking around the house.

 

[SemiMan]

You bring up a great point about low output cool LEDs resembling moonlight. It's natural and what us humans have evolved to see at night . Now I understand why I don't like a high CRI light on low levels walking around the house.

It is not the CRI that is the issue, it is the CCT as I am going to assume your light is warm in color? Night adapted vision (non color) is more efficient at shorter wavelengths ... those you don't typically have in an incan.

Semiman

 

[caleb]

Incans are pretty anachronistic at this point, but still a lot a fun in their own way. I actually spent an evening earlier this week trying to hunt down a surefire e1e online, as they seem to be getting hard to find, and I felt like playing with one again (sold the one I had a while ago )

 

[JCD]

Incans are pretty anachronistic at this point …

Not at all. There's still stuff that incans are better at than LEDs.