Help me decide between green light and High CRI

[Shock&Awe]

I'm looking at buying the AceBeam H30 headlamp. It has a 4000 lumens, 5000k main LED and two small LED's.
With the two small LED's, you can choose one of the following combinations:
- A Red LED and a Green (70 lumens)
- A Red LED and a CRI 90 (120 lumens)
- A Red LED and a UV LED

My dilemma is choosing between the Red/Green OR the Red/CRI LED's

I don't hunt, I only go camping. I've heard that green light is good for general multi purpose tasks around the campsite without affecting your night vision.
I've also heard that a high CRI light is good too for showing the 'true' colors of things.

Which should I get?

 

[Monocrom]

There was a discussion on these boards a couple of years back, maybe longer, regarding whether or not green LEDs are harmful in the long-run to one's eyes. Personally I don't take chances with mine. Have had two surgeries in my Life so far. One on each eye a few years apart. People aren't cars. We don't get replacement body parts if an original wears out. Well, okay; we do. But not eyes. So yeah, not worth the risk going for the green LED version.

Also, Welcome to CPF.

 

[alpg88]

red and uv, green is useless, it does exact opposite to your night vision, it burns retina worse than white, I have few lights with green, no practical purpose, not that red has much to be honest, but you get it either way, uv makes things glow.

 

[scalpel_ninja]

I vote for red and high CRI. The red works well for preserving night vision; I use it when I go camping, especially in the wee hours of the morning. High CRI is also a favorite.

 

[F89]

There was a discussion on these boards a couple of years back, maybe longer, regarding whether or not green LEDs are harmful in the long-run to one's eyes. Personally I don't take chances with mine. Have had two surgeries in my Life so far. One on each eye a few years apart. People aren't cars. We don't get replacement body parts if an original wears out. Well, okay; we do. But not eyes. So yeah, not worth the risk going for the green LED version.

Also, Welcome to CPF.

I don't think there's much to green LED being harmful. All LEDs aren't great for our eyes, blue being the most harmful (including white LEDs that generally have a large blue spike in the spectrum).
Red and green are less harmful.

 

[F89]

red and uv, green is useless, it does exact opposite to your night vision, it burns retina worse than white, I have few lights with green, no practical purpose, not that red has much to be honest, but you get it either way, uv makes things glow.

Green has a practical purpose. Its contrast and general usability is much better than red.
I used to use a 660nm red LED light (generally at very low output) for retaining night vision. It does an excellent job in this role but I've found that (even at higher brightness levels) when using red I feel like a wide eyed zombie. Terrible contrast and general usability.
Recently I've been using a yellow/green 568nm LED. It's not quite green (and not quite yellow). At reasonable outputs it does a pretty good job of retaining night vision (not as good as 660nm red).
It excels over red for actually being able to see, judge, and differentiate while walking around.

 

[ampdude]

Red and HCRI White in general use will serve you a lot better than only having green or red. The argument for green is that you have to use a lot less of it therefore it preserves your night vision. Our eyes are more sensitive to green than any other color, it being in the middle of the color spectrum that the sun puts out. I don't buy into green though, because colors above red will excite the rods in your eyes leading to longer night blindness. For preserving night vision I use red LED's, really dim incans, or red filters on incans. I do have an old finned style Surefire KL1 head and Inova XO, both in green, but only for novelty purposes and collector reasons. I don't typically use them.

 

[Shock&Awe]

So how much of a difference would a CRI 90 light be to the main light, given that both are 5000k?
If i dim the main light down to the same 120 lumens as the CRI 90 light, would i see much difference in the objects that I'm looking at?
It seems like the CRI 90 light is redundant

 

[yellow]

When the main can be dimmed down that much, then yes, no use for the cri


As to that preserving...
there have been numerous Threads, backed up with scientufic papers, over the years.
In short: the infos (lets better type: impression) from above are WRONG

1st: Red or White makes no difference in preserving night vision, only
2nd: the light has to be DIM

as to green: the primary sole purpose WAS (active) illumination, back in time of the very 1st night vision devices,
because they were said not to be able to detect green.
(so total crap, because you run around to be shot, when that device does "see" green)


I would go for the UV
(for just having it; even when its real world use is questionable)

 

[PaladinNO]

I have been looking at that exact headlamp, with the exact same question. Personally, I ultimately decided on not getting the H30 because I already have several alternatives, but I would have wanted Green + CRI. I won't get into the argument of Red vs Green for night vision, but I find Green to be better for my needs (late night walks).

However, considering the available options, I would recommend Red + CRI.
Red also works at night, and a high CRI headlamp is highly versatile in general. UV is interesting, but sufficiently niche that I would not bother with that on a headlamp. Better to get a dedicated UV LED flashlight, if such a light is needed.

 

[F89]

When the main can be dimmed down that much, then yes, no use for the cri


As to that preserving...
there have been numerous Threads, backed up with scientufic papers, over the years.
In short: the infos (lets better type: impression) from above are WRONG

1st: Red or White makes no difference in preserving night vision, only
2nd: the light has to be DIM

as to green: the primary sole purpose WAS (active) illumination, back in time of the very 1st night vision devices,
because they were said not to be able to detect green.
(so total crap, because you run around to be shot, when that device does "see" green)


I would go for the UV
(for just having it; even when its real world use is questionable)

Red, and in my experience, particularly deep red does do a good job of preserving night vision. Even if you use it at surprisingly bright levels, it'll still preserve night vision well considering.
I'll agree to the part about dim being a key. Red is pretty terrible for operating under, but it does preserve night vision well. Overall I'd rather use white light at moonlight levels but if preservation is the highest consideration; red is best.

The 568nm yellow/green I've been using seems to preserve night vision better than white at similar levels. While it doesn't preserve as well as deep red, it has other benefits.

From my experience with NVG, any light stands out like dog's balls. It's very hard to hide from. A cigarette will look like a small bonfire, particularly while they take a drag. A phone in a pocket facing out with its little blinky sensors that you wouldn't even know were there with the naked eye are clearly visible.
I'm not sure about older generation gear but shining any light around where you could be shot is clearly a bad idea whether an enemy has NVG or not.

 

[letschat7]

Red and high CRI.

 

[alpg88]

Green has a practical purpose. Its contrast and general usability is much better than red.
I used to use a 660nm red LED light (generally at very low output) for retaining night vision. It does an excellent job in this role but I've found that (even at higher brightness levels) when using red I feel like a wide eyed zombie. Terrible contrast and general usability.
Recently I've been using a yellow/green 568nm LED. It's not quite green (and not quite yellow). At reasonable outputs it does a pretty good job of retaining night vision (not as good as 660nm red).
It excels over red for actually being able to see, judge, and differentiate while walking around.

Maybe on paper, but in real world during camping, it is useless, i have tried many times to find use for green leds, except for making meat look unappetizingly horrible on a grill, i did not find any. UV is more fun. you can tell right away which teeths a person has are real and which are not.

I do have a green acebeam e10, I give it to my kid on camping trips, this way I can see where he is.

 

[iacchus]

The old saw that green is great for tracking wounded game never held water w/ me. Yellow light worked far better making a blood trail stand out. Green, not so much. A decent 4500K High CRI was better than green for my uses there, head and shoulders.

I'd go w/ red/high CRI

 

[AstroTurf]

red and green for me...

 

[letschat7]

Green is good for pilots.

 

[alpg88]

I was told by an old pilot that green and red lights used have nothing to do with night vision, but everything with reading maps, some colors are barley visible under green, and some under red lights, as well as colors standing out in different color lights, so printing maps with that in mind, pilots can see different portions of maps and not be distracted by others, and switching lights will show them different aspects of maps clearer, it was mostly used in military maps. since no one uses such maps or paper maps at all, (all maps are on screens now, colors are no longer relevant.

 

[Monocrom]

I don't think there's much to green LED being harmful. All LEDs aren't great for our eyes, blue being the most harmful (including white LEDs that generally have a large blue spike in the spectrum).
Red and green are less harmful.

Red, yes.
But I can't agree with you regarding green.
Thing is, very few folks pick green as a main output light.
So we'll likely never know just how dangerous it can be in the long run.

 

[TPA]

High CRI gets my vote.

And from a pilot's perspective, I actually prefer dim orange/amber over any of the other colors at night. Come to think of it, most of the aircraft I fly only have white lights these days. Red definitely looks cooler though!

 

[F89]

Red, yes.
But I can't agree with you regarding green.
Thing is, very few folks pick green as a main output light.
So we'll likely never know just how dangerous it can be in the long run.

From what I've read green may be a little more damaging than red but much less than blue.
I think the biggest source of damage for myself from LEDs is coming from staring at my phone, like right now. I really should do less of it.
I'm not currently using green, as I mentioned I'm using 568nm (yellow/green, lime even?). It's a far superior colour for actually being able to see stuff (I'm not talking about brightness or sensitivity to frequency). I can differentiate colour much more easily, contrast is way better, and sometimes I don't really feel like I'm using a coloured light. Using red I feel very wide-eyed and everything is just so monochrome-like.