Streamlight Color-Rite series

[rwolfenstein]

I saw that Streamlight is starting to offer their lights in a High CRI Warm LED series with a lower lumen output to give proper color identification. They now have two models out, the stinger and the dualie hazlo light. I find the idea interesting, I know it would be interesting for me as the blue tints throw off colors of cars when I am calling out identification. I know I recently got some warm LED drop ins because it was nice for my handheld lights. Any thoughts?

 

[aznsx]

I saw that Streamlight is starting to offer their lights in a High CRI Warm LED series with a lower lumen output to give proper color identification. They now have two models out, the stinger and the dualie hazlo light. I find the idea interesting, I know it would be interesting for me as the blue tints throw off colors of cars when I am calling out identification. I know I recently got some warm LED drop ins because it was nice for my handheld lights. Any thoughts?

I've recently found decent CRI (say, something 90+) pays some significant dividends. I see CRI as being a bit like money. Why would I choose to have less of either if there's an option? Not all the lights I use feature it, but I'm finding in some situations the ones that do are now often the ones I grab. There's a bit of a power penalty, so they won't replace all my lights, but are great when that's not a limiting factor. For example, I wouldn't even consider using anything without decent CRI out in my local terrain at night now, so it has changed things for me.

 

[bykfixer]

My thoughts:
I see it as a marketing gimmick. A 3000 kelvin beam is going to add color bias to what the eye sees. And a 3000 kelvin LED is a mighty fine educated guess at tricking the eyeball into thinking it's more pleasant to observe so it's better, right?

Some computer says add R this and less R that to fill some void but in the end it's still like a pill versus cabbage juice to heal an ulcer. They are still chasing the virtues of the incan bulb without success.

Streamlights earlier versions of the "C4" LED had a good thing going but then they too jumped on the lumen wars train and screwed it up by making the C4 too dawg gone bright. The eyeball says "yikes turn off that d*m thing".

The CRI gimmick is to cause consumers to think "oh this is 90% correct" but in reality it's 90% good at making yellow tinted objects look correct. There was a point most won't remember that the 90 CRI was based off objects tinted pink were to look correct. Now it's yellow.

We all know blue tinted objects are really awful at identifying, that goes without saying. But to call this new thing "color rite" is another Streamlight gimmick to place the box of 96 crayolas in your minds eye like C4 made you think "kapow this is bright".

 

[chillinn]

My thoughts:
I see it as a marketing gimmick. A 3000 kelvin beam is going to add color bias to what the eye sees. And a 3000 kelvin LED is a mighty fine educated guess at tricking the eyeball into thinking it's more pleasant to observe so it's better, right?

I know you know this: the brain corrects the white balance, not instantly, but reasonably quickly, as it doesn't take long after donning yellow colored glasses to begin seeing colors normally again. And that adjustment can be seen after taking the shades off while the brain again adjusts the white balance. I think it's kind of neat after sitting in 2000K awhile how bright and white 3000K appears in comparison. When I do this, I'm always double checking the light to make sure it isn't 4000K, I mean it's a dramatic difference compared to how 3000K appears after using 4000K awhile.

 

[bykfixer]

I believe there's some practicality to the 3000 kelvin tint, but to call it "color rite" is a marketing ploy. And I've always thought CRI numbers are over rated. If it can get flesh tone to look correct, then it's onto something real. To me the more they tout the high CRI thing the less it seems real to my eyes.
At one point it was all about mid-day sun correct tints but again, the computer couldn't get it done. So now it's all about the more pleasing tints since that's what the market wants. Yet those pleasing tints from an LED were once awful at color rendition. And now they've managed to tweak those to produce better results same as a 322 bit rate mp3 sounds closer to cd quality than a 128. Yet neither can duplicate the virtues of analog and to this day the LED is still chasing the light bulb like digital is still chasing analog.

But that's just one persons opinion. And with yellow glasses on everything looks yellow to me. Yeah, I get used to it, especially in low light but the world still looks yellow to me.