How LED's compare to incans in law enforcement

I have used Surefire lights for the past 10 years while working as a police officer. When the big trend towards LED lights began to appear I was not a huge fan. To me, lights always had the yellowish tint and that is what I was used to. The clean look of the brilliant white light just did not look natural to me and I stayed away from LED's for a long time...until...
Two different incidents changed my complete outlook on LED's.

1) Investigating a homicide. While in the room of a male that had been shot in the head by a point blank shot to the temple I used my Surefire 8AX commander to inspect the room. Everything appeared as you would expect...lots of blood spatter and spray. When a friend of mine, who was the lead detective, arrived he pulled out his Surefire which was an LED. The amount of detail between the two lights were amazing. You could literally see the spray on the walls and ceiling in vivid detail that couldn't be seen with my incan. I was truly impressed by the details missed by an incan and amplified by a high powered LED!

2) While investigating a single vehicle roll over accident, at approximately 0300 hrs, I began to examine the skids, yaw marks, and polish on the road. Again, my 8AX compared to a high quality Surefire LED picked up on numerous differences. While laying on the ground and inspecting the skids, the tire skids eventually disappeared after a certain distance. With the LED I was able to see approximately 20-25' of additional skid that was too light to be picked up by an incan. The same went for the yaw marks. At that point I was sold and convinced. The brilliant white light was able to see far more detail in things that may have been missed unless it had been daylight out.

I have since converted all of my lights to LED's and use Malkoff M60 in everything eligible. I still use the 8AX Commander but I'm looking for a suitable LED mod to continue using it! I also still use my Streamlight SL-60 (by JS) because it can out throw nearly everything out there!!

I realize this information maybe old news for some but for those who may still be on the fence about how well LED's work...trust me they do!

I agree with you.
LED's are the future,they're just getting better and better.
I never have to worry about a burnt out LED,a light that is dropped (most times) I dropped a mag once and the thing was toast.
Effiency,beutiful beams with different tints to suite ones taste...what's not to like?

Hey those are both real interesting stories. Thanks for sharing them. I'm a huge LED fan, although I do realize that their light spectrum is not as full as an incan, and that in the past their tint has not always been pleasing. However the new LEDs have much better tints in general than those of a few years ago.

Many stories people report praise the incans for better outdoor 'seeing'. It's great to hear one from the other perspective. I've always liked LEDs better because they are whiter, don't change tint with battery drainage, and run sooo much longer on a battery.

It is cool how that work's, I first noticed it with my L2 looking for something on the floor. Malkoff's, the best thing to ever happen to a 6P.

My problem now is I have too many malkoff's and not enough hosts.

Interesting observations - all my lights are LED due to the efficiency and emitter life so I can't do a legit comparison but I've always thought the incans were capable of much better color rendition. Maybe the eye is able to pick out detail better with the more neutral tint of LEDs?

I couldn't agree more! I think the true believers are those that actually witness the power that some of the newer LED's and LED drop-ins possess. Most guys on my tac team are truly amazed when we shoot in doors on either our 25 or 50 yard ranges. My Malkoff M60 will literally drown out every other light on the line. My entire team can shoot with just my light activated! Now that's bright! LED's now possess the ability to not only produce a pure white light but also have the throw to get it down range. That just wasn't possible a number of years ago. Brighter light, longer run times, and good throw / spill is an awesome advantage in the tactical world! I love'm!!!

Now this is odd, Ive always been told that Incan lights are SO much better for color rendering and depth perception....but I never really liked Incan light after the first 5 min, they get so yellow. I have nothing against them but stock Incan lights never have impressed me, when throughly overdriven their great IMO

I would love to do a comparison between the Malkoff M60 and the M60W. I'm curious if the same details would be observed or if the different tint would somehow effect how your eyes perceive the colors and details?

My 8AX Commander is powered by a custom battery by Silverfox and is very bright! I just have completely lost faith in the yellow tint! Another example: My city has the highest crime ratio in the state of Iowa so obviously there are a huge amount of narcotics on the street at any given moment! I have observed carpeted floor boards that had minute bits of marijuana and stems that were very difficult / almost impossible to see with my incan. With almost any of my LED's (M2 w/ Malkoff, G2L w/ Malkoff, or my TK10) that green is nearly impossible to miss! I can keep the examples coming but I am certain that the pure white light makes it easier for my eyes to see the subtle differences in colors that would have been completely missed with an incan bulb! Its pretty cool actually!

You could literally see the spray on the walls and ceiling in vivid detail that couldn't be seen with my incan. I was truly impressed by the details missed by an incan and amplified by a high powered LED!

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This is a matter of color contrast. In many situations, incandescents, or warm-white light sources in general enhance contrast. For example, if you were trying to look for say a brown animal amidst green foliage, an incandescent -- which is heavily biased toward the red (ie the red/green ratio is very high) -- will cause the target to "pop out" at you, and will make those colors appear more distinct from each other than they would under typical natural light.

In your situation, you are looking for red blood against probably a white or off-white wall. In this case, the incan which is biased toward the red end of the spcetrum will make the wall color and blood both appear reddish-brownish, or LESS distinct than they would under natural lighting. A cool-white LED will enhance the difference between the non-red wall, and the red blood.

This is a question of color temperature, or color contrast, more so than color rendering. Natural sunlight and incandescent light are both considered "ideal" color rendering sources, but still have very different properties from one another.

I would love to do a comparison between the Malkoff M60 and the M60W. I'm curious if the same details would be observed or if the different tint would somehow effect how your eyes perceive the colors and details?

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The M60W is a neutral white LED, Cree 5A bin. Its apparent color is basically right in between the surefire incans, and the surefire LEDs. Best of both worlds. It would probably work just as well or better as the cool white LEDs in the case of finding the blood spatter. It would defintiely work better than the cool white LEDs in just about any other scenario.

I was so impressed by the improvement I actually modifed all my LED lights to use these neutral emitters. The color quality improvement is more than worth the marginal drop in lumen output.

2xTrinity,

Thanks for the input! That's very interesting! I may have to test a Malkoff M60W and keep both with at work. I would love to see the differences between the two. The wall in question was white. The blood varied from blood drips, small drops, splatter, spray, and the then an even finer spray barely noticeable to the eye. The LED made that even stand out from a distance. Between the two different types of bulbs was the difference between night and day. Thanks for the information...great post!

My experience is quite the opposte. My incan. lights are far preferable to identifying pretty much anything better than any of my led's. And I've owned pretty much most of them. You mention power, Led are just lately getting into the lumen output of incan, and when you factor in rechargeable setups with ican-there is simply no comparison. The main drawback I see is still the spectrum Led does not cover. Incan. simply offer color rendition thats more accurate to daylight lighting. Its easy to miss/mis-identify objects when you cant distinguish them from their surroundings, this is the main problem with led. until Led get into the warmer 3-4k spectrum I wont depend on them for identifying anything when safety is an issue-especially in rain/snow/fog/bushes/grass. I do carry a Led backup, for the long run-time.

On the other hand my 3400 lumen 4xp7 has just enough to light up a scene, cant wait for my 15000 lumen 64657 colossus to arrive:devil:

Policetacteam:

Do you carry 2 kinds of lights on you due to the different results incand & LEDs produce?

In general, for those of you in LE, with the advances of LED technology, do you carry 2 different lights (specifically 1 LED & 1 incand)?


2xTrinity:

may you please explain the difference (in laywmens terms, of course) the difference between a 'cool' white & a 'warm/neutral' white?

so, how much of a difference in color rendition is there between the M60 & M60W? If you also want throw, how do they compare?

cool white lights are more blue in tint.

warm white are more yellow in tint.

household fluorescent bulbs gives 1 a rough idea of the difference.

Can't argue with what works for someone.

When I'm looking for people, I've noticed that brighter light is better than dimmer--even in lighted environments I've walked past persons only to light them up with my flashlight and see them. In two cases, I set my Liberator to "dim" and thought, "What is that?" I punched it up to "maximum" and could clearly see the suspects hiding.

Sometimes, my coworkers have walked right past suspects until I put a HID beam on them. Then, they are clearly visible.

I'm agnostic to LED, HID plasma, Xenon short arc, incandescent, fluoroescent, sunlight, sodium vapor, mercury vapor, moonlight, or infrared. I just know that more light is better than less. As my eyes get older, my night vision will deteriorate. I always appreciate suspects who wear white or bright red--it helps me out a lot and I should thank them, but I'm afraid they'd start wearing camouflage.

jbosman1013 said:

It is cool how that work's, I first noticed it with my L2 looking for something on the floor. Malkoff's, the best thing to ever happen to a 6P.

My problem now is I have too many malkoff's and not enough hosts.

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Aha! So you're the reason I can never find what I want in stock on the Malkoff website!

-Trevor

prof student said:

Policetacteam:

may you please explain the difference (in laywmens terms, of course) the difference between a 'cool' white & a 'warm/neutral' white?

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"warm" will be yellowish-white (like incandescent). "Cool" will be bluish-white (eg, most LEDs to date) Neutral is in between.

A picture says a thousand words in this case:

Here's beamshots comparing a cool, neutral, and warm LED. The one in the middle (Cree 5A) is the LED used in the M60W.
Here's another thread with tons of beamshots, including some incans, and daylight reference.

so, how much of a difference in color rendition is there between the M60 & M60W? If you also want throw, how do they compare?

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Beam profile is the same, which is the most important property for throw. All else equal, go with the M60W for throw -- particularly outdoors. The glare from backscatter in fog won't be quite as bad. The neutral color is also better outdoors in particular, since the prevalent blue light in the cool white emitters doesn't contribute much when looking at things like trees etc. that reflect no blue.

2xTrinity said:

Beam profile is the same, which is the most important property for throw. All else equal, go with the M60W for throw -- particularly outdoors. The glare from backscatter in fog won't be quite as bad. The neutral color is also better outdoors in particular, since the prevalent blue light in the cool white emitters doesn't contribute much when looking at things like trees etc. that reflect no blue.

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Ok....I am on the fence between ordering the M60 or M60W. Right now it is for general use. I hope/plan to be in LE maybe as early as next year. But for now.... SO, the M60W offers the best color rendition. But between the 2, do you see any difference in matter of throw? I mean, the M60 is 235 lumens, while the M60W is decreased to 170. I would assume then, that there is still a considerable much greater throw with the M60. OR, am I wrong? Sorry if it seems like the same question, but just trying to be, I guess overly informed, rather than uninformed before I make a purchase, lol.

I know that LED lights make it 100 times easier for me to see latent finger prints on surfaces then older incans.

I find the brightness of a high powered LED much more "extreme" when lighting up a dark area outside compared to an incan.
For example.When i light up my backyard with, say my E2DL and my P61 (in my G2L host) i notice i could see alot more detail overall with the LED especially at 70ft.
With the incan the greenery just seems easier to look at but i felt like i'm missing alot of detail with the yellowish/orange beam.
Not to get of topic but it's like being at a red light in your car and you notice the persons car next to you with xenon headlights and yours are reg.headlights.
The whiter beam from the Xenons seems closer to actual daylight.
I get the same effect when i use a LED flashlight and an incan. Don't like the incan.lights at all,just my opinion.