JoakimFlorence
Newly Enlightened
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2016
- Messages
- 167
I'd like to talk to you about light mixing - selecting two different color temperature bulbs to try to making the lighting conditions in an area optimal.
(Forewarning: This post will mostly be a long personal rant, obsessing over subtle details, so many of you may prefer not to read this)
I recently got some Dicuno LED bulbs. Although they use blue-based LED emitters, they may actually be 97-98 CRI. They put out great light, great tint and very rich coloring rending and warm feeling, much better than any LED light you have likely seen.
There's only one problem.
Although they say 3000K (and in fact 3000K is clearly printed in the small print on the bulb), they are really more like 2800K, in actuality.
Now this could be a great option for someone looking for the rare option of a color temperature just a little higher than 2700K but lower than 3000K. But for me, in some areas, it's just too close to 2700K and "dull orange".
But I have come up with an improved solution.
Right now I am using these 2800K super high CRI Dicuno bulbs together with 90 CRI 3500K bulbs.
By itself, the 90 CRI seems acceptable but a little subpar, still feels like the vibrancy and color is sucked out of the room a little bit. But combined with the Dicuno bulbs, everything seems fine. The light from the Dicuno bulbs is adding plenty of rich deeper red wavelengths. (And especially since the Dicuno is a low color temperature, that means it has a larger percentage of red light, so this effect can stretch much further. I do not think it would work as well if I was combining 3500K 98CRI light with 2800K 90CRI light)
In the living room area I have the 2800K in the downlights, because the lower color temperature has less direct glare on the eye. And then I have 3500K in a floor lamp, directed up at the ceiling (making the light more diffuse).
The dining room area is a bit of a story. The home was built in the mid 90s, when those twisty CFL bulbs were all the rage, the big fad. But as we all know, those CFL bulbs put out horrid glaring light. What I noticed (kind of comical) is that the manufacturers of ceiling light diffuser covers, in an attempt to try to make the light less harsh (and so I guess make it look more appealing to the consumer) added a yellow tinted cast to the glass. This of course has the effect of significantly reducing the color temperature. (But that's what's going to happen when you're trying to eliminate the violet mercury emission line from CFL light) Maybe they rationalised to themselves that this made the light more "warm and cozy". (Since at that time, due to politics and social pressure, no one would dare openly criticise the light quality shortcomings of CFLs, which were the icon of "saving the environment")
Well, anyway, this left me with a bit of a problem. The Dicuno bulbs might have been acceptable by themselves in the ceiling fixture, but not when covered by that yellow-amber tinted diffusion cover. The light that came out was just far too orange.
I also tried 90 CRI 3500K LED filament bulbs in the fixture. After being filtered, the resulting color of the light was acceptably good, might be around 3200K I would guess, but there was a problem. The color rendering of these 90 CRI bulbs wasn't so great to begin with. Just barely "acceptable" (to my standards). But passing through this slightly yellow tinted glass seems to have made it worse. I'm guessing that glass is not only filtering out blue light, but also appears to be filtering out a little of the green and red light as well. It's mainly yellow and orange light that are not being diminished. This is not so good in combination with the spectrum of LED light.
Now the light coming out of the lamp wasn't terrible, but it was just really feeling subpar. This is a place I'm going to eat, and there is some wood furniture in the room, so I want the red and brown wood color tones to feel warm and it least a little vibrant. It wasn't really happening.
So I finally settled on combining one of each bulbs in the lamp (2800K + 3500K), and that mostly seems to have addressed the problem.
The resulting combined light coming out of the diffuser seems to be around 2800K, still a little lower than I would prefer, but the light quality is beautiful now, very rich.
related threads:
Review of 3 higher CRI 3500K - 4000K LED bulbs (Sept 24, 2024)
Review of light quality from 98 CRI Chinese brand (Nov 20, 2023 in the 'Fixed Lighting' section)
(Forewarning: This post will mostly be a long personal rant, obsessing over subtle details, so many of you may prefer not to read this)
I recently got some Dicuno LED bulbs. Although they use blue-based LED emitters, they may actually be 97-98 CRI. They put out great light, great tint and very rich coloring rending and warm feeling, much better than any LED light you have likely seen.
There's only one problem.
Although they say 3000K (and in fact 3000K is clearly printed in the small print on the bulb), they are really more like 2800K, in actuality.
Now this could be a great option for someone looking for the rare option of a color temperature just a little higher than 2700K but lower than 3000K. But for me, in some areas, it's just too close to 2700K and "dull orange".
But I have come up with an improved solution.
Right now I am using these 2800K super high CRI Dicuno bulbs together with 90 CRI 3500K bulbs.
By itself, the 90 CRI seems acceptable but a little subpar, still feels like the vibrancy and color is sucked out of the room a little bit. But combined with the Dicuno bulbs, everything seems fine. The light from the Dicuno bulbs is adding plenty of rich deeper red wavelengths. (And especially since the Dicuno is a low color temperature, that means it has a larger percentage of red light, so this effect can stretch much further. I do not think it would work as well if I was combining 3500K 98CRI light with 2800K 90CRI light)
In the living room area I have the 2800K in the downlights, because the lower color temperature has less direct glare on the eye. And then I have 3500K in a floor lamp, directed up at the ceiling (making the light more diffuse).
The dining room area is a bit of a story. The home was built in the mid 90s, when those twisty CFL bulbs were all the rage, the big fad. But as we all know, those CFL bulbs put out horrid glaring light. What I noticed (kind of comical) is that the manufacturers of ceiling light diffuser covers, in an attempt to try to make the light less harsh (and so I guess make it look more appealing to the consumer) added a yellow tinted cast to the glass. This of course has the effect of significantly reducing the color temperature. (But that's what's going to happen when you're trying to eliminate the violet mercury emission line from CFL light) Maybe they rationalised to themselves that this made the light more "warm and cozy". (Since at that time, due to politics and social pressure, no one would dare openly criticise the light quality shortcomings of CFLs, which were the icon of "saving the environment")
Well, anyway, this left me with a bit of a problem. The Dicuno bulbs might have been acceptable by themselves in the ceiling fixture, but not when covered by that yellow-amber tinted diffusion cover. The light that came out was just far too orange.
I also tried 90 CRI 3500K LED filament bulbs in the fixture. After being filtered, the resulting color of the light was acceptably good, might be around 3200K I would guess, but there was a problem. The color rendering of these 90 CRI bulbs wasn't so great to begin with. Just barely "acceptable" (to my standards). But passing through this slightly yellow tinted glass seems to have made it worse. I'm guessing that glass is not only filtering out blue light, but also appears to be filtering out a little of the green and red light as well. It's mainly yellow and orange light that are not being diminished. This is not so good in combination with the spectrum of LED light.
Now the light coming out of the lamp wasn't terrible, but it was just really feeling subpar. This is a place I'm going to eat, and there is some wood furniture in the room, so I want the red and brown wood color tones to feel warm and it least a little vibrant. It wasn't really happening.
So I finally settled on combining one of each bulbs in the lamp (2800K + 3500K), and that mostly seems to have addressed the problem.
The resulting combined light coming out of the diffuser seems to be around 2800K, still a little lower than I would prefer, but the light quality is beautiful now, very rich.
related threads:
Review of 3 higher CRI 3500K - 4000K LED bulbs (Sept 24, 2024)
Review of light quality from 98 CRI Chinese brand (Nov 20, 2023 in the 'Fixed Lighting' section)
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