The package of lights from Vinh arrived the other day and I have shot some preliminary indoor comparisons. I will be posting some (hopefully) better shots over the next few days. Sadly, the weather here is supposed to suck this long weekend, so outdoor beam-shots may have to wait another week. :sigh: Still crossing my fingers for decent weather either Saturday or Sunday night!
For now, I just photographed the beams against a somewhat blotchy painted white wall at work. Over the weekend I am planning on reshooting these against a matte white, 12 foot wide paper target which should help reduce the specular glare and allow me to capture the brightest part of the beams with better fidelity. The SR52vn lights were all on level 2. Explanation and comments below each photo...
I did not have enough space on the wall to position these side by side, so they are arranged as you see. My own SR52vn PDTn is at the bottom. Dynamic range has been compressed in post to show the corona and spill tints, but the hotspots are throughly blown out here. When I redo the beam-shots against a matte surface, I will also have some darker exposures and should be able to capture the hotspot tint as well. White balance was set on the PDTn beam, just at the transition from corona to spill.
While the PDTw light is dead obvious, even to the naked eye, one thing I want to note is that initially I was convinced that either Vinh had sent me a PDTn instead of a PDTc by accident or I had received a PDTc by accident when I bought my SR52vn. Visually, I virtually am unable to tell the difference between the PDTn and the PDTc versions! Even on camera, the spill tint is essentially identical although the corona shows a slight greenish tint on the PDTc. I have spent a fair bit of time looking at these two visually, and I'll be damned if I can tell a difference! It is possible that the bright hotspot just overwhelms and prevents me from identifying the corona tint? On the other hand, the PDTw is visually more pronounced in its warmth relative to the other two, than it appears to be in the photo here. What I am unsure about still, is whether or not the coronal tint variation in the PDTn and PDTc versions might just be natural variation from LED to LED? Maybe they are indeed from the same colour temperature bin?
In any case, I can see why Vinh was having troubles portraying the tints accurately on camera since even with good equipment and good software, it is a challenge! Here is an animation of the three tints from different shots...
Also, when compared to clean daylight [EDIT: compared photographically, not visually], all these lights are quite green, as are the majority of LED lights, even those with 5000K MT-G2 LEDs. De-doming does tend to shift the tint even further towards green it seems. The image that follows is the same one as the first one above, but with daylight white-balance set. You can see why the tint-snob in me dislikes de-doming :green:, although I certainly cannot argue with the tremendous increase in focus and throw that de-doming brings! :thumbsup: Also, none of these lights, when seen in isolation, look anywhere near as green as the following daylight-balanced photo depicts them...
On to the MT-G2 light comparison. Vinh also sent me a K40Mvn with a de-domed MT-G2 to compare to my regular, dome-on K40Mvn. Both were set to level 5 output, one down from max. Here is the side-by-side comparison...
In the above shot, the difference in beam focus is hard to see, but in the following animation, it is more obvious. It's quite likely that outdoor beam-shots at more distant targets will make the focus and throw differences between the two far more obvious...
Note that there is almost an "XM-L2-like" tint differential in the regular MT-G2 beam and indeed this is visible to the naked eye as well. On the other hand, my EagleTac MX25L3 with its lightly textured ("orange-peel") reflector, shows this tint differential far less, likely due to this texture causing the tints from the different parts of the beam to be scattered and mixed together.
As you can see, the de-domed MT-G2 really has a tremendous tint-shift towards warm, yellowish light... however de-doming also seems to substantially reduce the colour-shift across the corona and spill. Indeed, the de-domed XM-L2 LEDs of the SR52vn lights also show a much improved uniformity of tint, with virtually none of the dramatic shift towards blue that regular, dome-on XM-L2 lights too often exhibit in their spill! So, while I don't really like the visual greenish tint shift of a de-domed XM-L2 flashlight, when its beam is viewed in isolation and not compared to a different, more neutral light, the brain tends to "white-balance" things quite nicely and all seems quite pleasing and uniform! For photographic purposes though, the green tint might prove more problematic if one is trying to mix it with other light sources, but as I demonstrated in a previous posting on the Beam Shots / Photo thread (the "normalized tints" animation), a fairly simple white balance adjustment to a raw file can make even a scene illuminated with a greenish de-domed XM-L2, look just as nice as when an MT-G2 or neutral (dome-on) XM-L2 is used.
That said, despite its uniformity, I cannot say that I'm fond of the overly warm tint of the de-domed MT-G2. It has a distinctly "incandescent" look to me in comparison to the dome-on version, and while there are some that would probably really like it, I do not. :shrug: Even when seen in isolation, I find it too warm for my liking...
Also, if anyone has more than one PTD tint of a particular light, it would be interesting if they would comment on the differences that they see themselves and how that compares to the photos that I posted?
Anyway, I hope that was of interest to those trying to decide on tint! I will post some better versions of these beam-shots over the next few days hopefully. Weather and luck permitting, outdoor beam-shots as well!
Lastly, Vinh had generously said I could keep either the PDTw or PDTc SR52vn and send back my own PDTn, if I decided I liked one of the other ones better, but at the moment I am quite certain I'll be sticking with my PDTn... and I'll definitely be keeping the dome-on K40Mvn! 🙂 I suppose there is still a chance I'll change my mind on PDT tint when I use them outside... we shall see...
As a final note, keep in mind also that when you view these images on your monitor, you may not be seeing the colours accurately. I am using an expensive, wide-gamut hardware calibrated NEC SpectraView PA-271 display and the photos I view on it do, generally speaking, very closely match what I see visually... at least apart from that darned PDTn / PDTc coronal tint which seems far more subtle in real life! Most monitors (from the factory) are rather too cool, having a bluish tinge to neutral colours and often they display images with too much contrast as well. But that is all for a completely different topic...
For now, I just photographed the beams against a somewhat blotchy painted white wall at work. Over the weekend I am planning on reshooting these against a matte white, 12 foot wide paper target which should help reduce the specular glare and allow me to capture the brightest part of the beams with better fidelity. The SR52vn lights were all on level 2. Explanation and comments below each photo...
I did not have enough space on the wall to position these side by side, so they are arranged as you see. My own SR52vn PDTn is at the bottom. Dynamic range has been compressed in post to show the corona and spill tints, but the hotspots are throughly blown out here. When I redo the beam-shots against a matte surface, I will also have some darker exposures and should be able to capture the hotspot tint as well. White balance was set on the PDTn beam, just at the transition from corona to spill.
While the PDTw light is dead obvious, even to the naked eye, one thing I want to note is that initially I was convinced that either Vinh had sent me a PDTn instead of a PDTc by accident or I had received a PDTc by accident when I bought my SR52vn. Visually, I virtually am unable to tell the difference between the PDTn and the PDTc versions! Even on camera, the spill tint is essentially identical although the corona shows a slight greenish tint on the PDTc. I have spent a fair bit of time looking at these two visually, and I'll be damned if I can tell a difference! It is possible that the bright hotspot just overwhelms and prevents me from identifying the corona tint? On the other hand, the PDTw is visually more pronounced in its warmth relative to the other two, than it appears to be in the photo here. What I am unsure about still, is whether or not the coronal tint variation in the PDTn and PDTc versions might just be natural variation from LED to LED? Maybe they are indeed from the same colour temperature bin?
In any case, I can see why Vinh was having troubles portraying the tints accurately on camera since even with good equipment and good software, it is a challenge! Here is an animation of the three tints from different shots...
Also, when compared to clean daylight [EDIT: compared photographically, not visually], all these lights are quite green, as are the majority of LED lights, even those with 5000K MT-G2 LEDs. De-doming does tend to shift the tint even further towards green it seems. The image that follows is the same one as the first one above, but with daylight white-balance set. You can see why the tint-snob in me dislikes de-doming :green:, although I certainly cannot argue with the tremendous increase in focus and throw that de-doming brings! :thumbsup: Also, none of these lights, when seen in isolation, look anywhere near as green as the following daylight-balanced photo depicts them...
On to the MT-G2 light comparison. Vinh also sent me a K40Mvn with a de-domed MT-G2 to compare to my regular, dome-on K40Mvn. Both were set to level 5 output, one down from max. Here is the side-by-side comparison...
In the above shot, the difference in beam focus is hard to see, but in the following animation, it is more obvious. It's quite likely that outdoor beam-shots at more distant targets will make the focus and throw differences between the two far more obvious...
Note that there is almost an "XM-L2-like" tint differential in the regular MT-G2 beam and indeed this is visible to the naked eye as well. On the other hand, my EagleTac MX25L3 with its lightly textured ("orange-peel") reflector, shows this tint differential far less, likely due to this texture causing the tints from the different parts of the beam to be scattered and mixed together.
As you can see, the de-domed MT-G2 really has a tremendous tint-shift towards warm, yellowish light... however de-doming also seems to substantially reduce the colour-shift across the corona and spill. Indeed, the de-domed XM-L2 LEDs of the SR52vn lights also show a much improved uniformity of tint, with virtually none of the dramatic shift towards blue that regular, dome-on XM-L2 lights too often exhibit in their spill! So, while I don't really like the visual greenish tint shift of a de-domed XM-L2 flashlight, when its beam is viewed in isolation and not compared to a different, more neutral light, the brain tends to "white-balance" things quite nicely and all seems quite pleasing and uniform! For photographic purposes though, the green tint might prove more problematic if one is trying to mix it with other light sources, but as I demonstrated in a previous posting on the Beam Shots / Photo thread (the "normalized tints" animation), a fairly simple white balance adjustment to a raw file can make even a scene illuminated with a greenish de-domed XM-L2, look just as nice as when an MT-G2 or neutral (dome-on) XM-L2 is used.
That said, despite its uniformity, I cannot say that I'm fond of the overly warm tint of the de-domed MT-G2. It has a distinctly "incandescent" look to me in comparison to the dome-on version, and while there are some that would probably really like it, I do not. :shrug: Even when seen in isolation, I find it too warm for my liking...
Also, if anyone has more than one PTD tint of a particular light, it would be interesting if they would comment on the differences that they see themselves and how that compares to the photos that I posted?
Anyway, I hope that was of interest to those trying to decide on tint! I will post some better versions of these beam-shots over the next few days hopefully. Weather and luck permitting, outdoor beam-shots as well!
Lastly, Vinh had generously said I could keep either the PDTw or PDTc SR52vn and send back my own PDTn, if I decided I liked one of the other ones better, but at the moment I am quite certain I'll be sticking with my PDTn... and I'll definitely be keeping the dome-on K40Mvn! 🙂 I suppose there is still a chance I'll change my mind on PDT tint when I use them outside... we shall see...
As a final note, keep in mind also that when you view these images on your monitor, you may not be seeing the colours accurately. I am using an expensive, wide-gamut hardware calibrated NEC SpectraView PA-271 display and the photos I view on it do, generally speaking, very closely match what I see visually... at least apart from that darned PDTn / PDTc coronal tint which seems far more subtle in real life! Most monitors (from the factory) are rather too cool, having a bluish tinge to neutral colours and often they display images with too much contrast as well. But that is all for a completely different topic...
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