I don't know what white is anymore

It started with 1 LED. The costco luxeon. I played the beam on a white wall and it looked white... till the arrival of my SL PP 4AA Lux. That quickly became my new standard in white and the Costco LED seemed green. Now I have 2 fenix L1P's with VERY different beam colors and the SL seems blue. Each L1P on its own looks white, but both look off if shone at the same time. Plus their colors change slightly with different batteries.

The situation now is thus:
I have 2 Fenix L1Ps. I'm giving 1 to a non-discriminating friend who needs a small light. Being a budding flashaholic, I'm somewhat obessive about tint and the uncertainty in luxeons is driving me crazy. With the L1Ps, I expected to see some discrepancy, but certainly not this much. Comparing lights is getting me nowhere, so I turn to you forumites for some guidance. Which would you keep?

First L1P on its own:


Second:


Comparison:

I'm almost sure the left one is a X1 tint, the right one X0 or W0 I guess. Which one to take? Depends on what you like... I would prefer the right one since the tint looks more pure white.

Where did you buy the one on the left? I would much prefer the one on the left.

A very good discussion on Luxeon bin differences going on at Mcgizmo's forum:
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/115348

They both came from fenix-store.com bought about 3-4 weeks apart.

The blue tinted one is a little bit brighter than the other one which seems a little greenish. However, the greener one has a better shaped (perfectly round) and more consistent (no variation in color) beam. The blue tint has a little purple and a little green in different areas (may be hard to see in the picture).

For what it's worth, I've seen larger variance within the same bin-that's why we call it the Luxeon Lottery. If those are L1Ps then they should both be XOs which would be a prime example of what I'm talking about, though I've seen four lined up side by side, and three were identical in tint with the other having a bit of red/pink tint compared to the others, IIRC.
Look at the chart I posted in the thread Macaw posted a link to--borrowed from dat2zip's Sandwich Shoppe. Notice how any one bin might border several others, and how several cover a lot of area/color variation.
XO and WO have the smallest room for variance, due to their size(they're also closest to "white" which is why they're popular and considered premium bins), but they still border several other bins.
I say shine those lights around on stuff and in places you typically use the flashlight, and keep the one you like best. We can talk all day about which one is better, which is our favorite, and the reasons why...but they're your flashlights, and you are the one that's going to be using one or the other.

The greener one will work better outside.

wwglen

it would be hard to judge the tints on the computer. You would have to make sure that when you take your pictures that your camera is calibrated to a reference standard such as a grey card. Even then, when you upload the images to the web, each of us will be seeing a different tint because most of us will not have a monitor that is calibrated to a reference standard (mine is... :naughty: )

The only thing we CAN do is to compare the RELATIVE tints of each shot..... but we can't judge if the tint is X1, W0, X0......etc...

For what its worth, for me....the ideal tint is X0. This is probably the purest of white. Y0 is slightly tinted towards blue and is also a very good white and is my second preference. W0 is a warm white....my third preference. And X1 is an ever-so-slight tint towards green....very slight.

As for other tints, I cannot comment because I don't have lights at other tints. But in general, the most sought after tints are W0, X0 and Y0 (in no particular order of preference).

WP

I don't know about you guys but everytime I turn on a different luxeon to do side by side comparisons, the original luxeon changes color, then if I add a third or a fourth for comparison you see very different colors, I am starting to think that it's not only the tint of the light but something in our eyes that saturates the optical nerve endings with one color and when we turn on the next luxeon other optical nerve endings start to pick up a the small variation of color while the original saturated color keeps constant, making you see very small variations in white.

Did I make any sense???? LOL!:huh2: :thinking: :shrug:

AlexGT

AlexGT,

Our eyes and our brains are good at adjusting to different conditions. When you look at a specific tint of white, your eyes would adjust to that tint. A good example of this is those blue/red 3-D glasses that we all are familar with. You wear one of these glasses long enough, you will find that, when you take them off, your eyes have "adjusted" to each color. One of your eyes will be seeing a blue tint, while the other eye is seeing a red tint. It's kinda funny the way are eyes/brains work.

To make it even more confusing, under normal conditions, the left eye is seeing a slightly different tint than our right eye. For me, my right eye is seeing a warmer tint than my left eye (which is slightly shifted to a cooler tint). Wierd, huh?

WP

AlexGT said:

I don't know about you guys but everytime I turn on a different luxeon to do side by side comparisons, the original luxeon changes color, then if I add a third or a fourth for comparison you see very different colors, I am starting to think that it's not only the tint of the light but something in our eyes that saturates the optical nerve endings with one color and when we turn on the next luxeon other optical nerve endings start to pick up a the small variation of color while the original saturated color keeps constant, making you see very small variations in white.

Did I make any sense???? LOL!:huh2: :thinking: :shrug:

AlexGT

Click to expand...

Just going by your beam shots (good ones, btw), aside from discerning that one beam is warmer than the other, it is difficult to tell what bin color the respective Luxeons are.

Because of the minty-gold tone of the first beam on the White Wall, it may be X1 binned. The bin of the Luxeon from second beam seems to be more difficult to identify because of the way neutral and cooler toned LEDs render "white", from white to gray, to blue to, even, a touch purple, particularly, from a beam shot. So that, really, can be from just about any neutral or cooler bin - W0, WA, Y0, YA and the like. Even your, presumably, X1 binned Luxeon has a different tone in each of the two beam shots that it's in. Different "white balance" adjustments of the camera is likely the reason.

Because Luxeons produce a fairly narrow bandwidth of light, I don't know that it is possible to get that "perfect" light. So, every Luxeon and LED is really a compromise.

It is my contention that, generally, a warmer toned light is better at rendering, particularly, organic colors, reds, greens, yellows, etc., and that a cooler toned light is better at highlighting the contrast between items, sometimes, making objects stand out more. Aside from adding a little "oomph" to blues and purples, cooler binned Luxeon such as a YA tend to mute color, sometimes, almost to the point of monochrome - similar to the effect of turning down the color on a monitor. And while I think that cooler toned lights can give the illusion of rendering "white" a bit "whiter" than its warmer counterpart, the world is not a White Wall.

While everyone has different tastes and perceptions, WO binned Luxeons are often desired for their neutrality. Some like the touch of pink that the V1 bin offers in their light because it adds a little character to the, sometimes, perceived coldness of an LED. I like a touch of yellow as I think that it's natural looking.

Short of winning the Luxeon Lottery and getting that hypnotizing tint, then, given the choice, it's up to the user to decide what's best for him or her. What environment will the flashlight be used? Indoors? Outdoors? Urban? Rural? Long periods? Short bursts? Will the flashlight be used for strolls amongst the trees and foliage or to light up stone and steel?

As mint turns to gold with acclimated eyes, a flashlight with a warmer tone can create a very nice ambiance in ceiling bounce that's easy on the eyes but may (or may not) appear comparatively murky to a cooler tone when taking a quick peek a something.

Which do you prefer, outofgum? What do you need and/or want - the character and color rendition of a warmer bin or the dispassionate contrast and "whiter whites" of a cooler toned Luxeon?

73
dim

I've tried a pair of Triton P1's they both have RX0H LED's in them and their tints were still quite different. The X0 tint bin is the smallest one Lumileds uses, and even so there are a lot of color variations within it.

The Fenix lights dont use a specific tint bin, so it opens up the range of tints a lot more. Lumileds binning sucks compared to, say, Cree.

Put both lights behind your back and have your friend choose a hand. Both of you will go away and believe you each have the whitest tint.