Why do so many like yellow tints?

I can't understand why so many like yellow or incadesant type tints?

i don't know either.
why don't they just buy an incan
an be done with it
they claim the grass and leaves look better under the yellow.
WHO goes out at night to see green grass and leaves.
just wait till dawn.

I don't think many desire a yellow tint per se; it's that they want to avoid an obvious blue one that is too high in color temp. Cold tint, high temp, blue-ish beams wash out colors, most especially those containing red. It's very noticeable, especially outdoors where "earth tones" prevail. Browns and greens are more vivid and lifelike (as when viewed in sunlight).

There are umpteen threads on this if you look around.

Also a incan type tint is just nicer to my eyes. People don't use incans in small lights because their efficency is generally half of dual phospher warm tint leds and one third of single phospher ones.

:huh2::thinking:





N/M!

It could be that since everyone started out with having flashlights with warm light...everyone is used to them and prefers them.

Ryanrpm said:

It could be that since everyone started out with having flashlights with warm light...everyone is used to them and prefers them.

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And before that, we had a source of light called the sun, which doesn't have a huge blue spike in its spectrum.

There're also those of us who go places at night, rural or urban that require better colour rendition. Not just a case of wanting to look at greenery, but night hikes (rogaining comes to mind), tasks that involve colour differentiation (ever had to find a green object in a whole lot of green?) and so on.

I also seem to remember something about yellow light being absorbed less by air, dust, rain and so on due to the longer wavelength, but I'm not sure about that.

JLEGG said:

i don't know either.
why don't they just buy an incan
an be done with it
they claim the grass and leaves look better under the yellow.
WHO goes out at night to see green grass and leaves.
just wait till dawn.

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I suspect a lot of people don't just buy incans because LED's have their own advantages, like emitter life and runtime. An LED with decent colour rendition is a good compromise.

If you need to look for something among the grass and leaves at night, it's helpful to be able to distinguish between colours easily. A lot of people have cause to use flashlights outdoors at night, it's one of the reasons they exist.

At the beginning I had the same opinion. Then I ordered 2 Cree XR-E Q3-5A. When I modded mz EX-10 with it and turned it on for the first time, I wasn't really convinced. But after some time I really like the tint now.

rayman

JLEGG said:

WHO goes out at night to see green grass and leaves.
just wait till dawn.

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LOL. Why even have a flashlight at all? Just wait until morning.

Zatoichi said:

A lot of people have cause to use flashlights outdoors at night, it's one of the reasons they exist.

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+1

When I walk my dog at night, there are sections where I need to illuminate some natural enironment (trees, grass, etc). Cool tints wash everything out and appear to my eyes like an overexposed picture. It seems like the light bounces back at me. I can see much greater depth and detail with warmer tints.

I actually don't have any "warm" tint LED's, but I did perform a little experiment recently. A friend of mine started a fire, it was really smoky. So, I borrowed my dad's 2D Mag lite (which has the three watt Nite-Ize upgrade)and tried to light up a tree through the smoke (tree was about 50 feet away). Then I pulled out the LED bulb, and put the spare incan. bulb (a backup teehee) in it. Even though there was a loss of output, the tree was clearly illuminated thru the smoke, as compared to the very blue LED.
Even going from a River Rock 1/2 watt light (with a very cold white emmitter) to the neutral LED in my Mag-LED, cutting through the smoke was easier, and more light got thru.

I realize that this isn't exactly an apples-to-apples comparion, but I was able to show (to myself at least) that warmer tints do cut thru smoke, fog, etc. better. Also color rendition is important. Following your logic, you might as well say that the best idea is to use a Red LED, because they are more battery efficient. Try finding a trail on a topo map (that's marked in red) with a red light, it's impossible.

I think that the "blue" LED is a bit of a red herring, if you'll excuse the mixed metaphor. Even the cooler tint Crees are white, not blue.

OK, the Nichia in the E01 has a very purple beam, but that's not really what we're talking about. I don't know what the LED is in the Nite-Ize but it's probably an older type (Luxeon ?). It's important to compare like with like.

None of my Q5 or R2 lights with WC or WH tints look particularly blue to me - just a nice crisp, clean white. The Gladius is an older light, but again I'd describe it as a pure ice-white rather than blue. Much better than a sickly yellow beam any day.

And I can see leaves and shrubbery just fine with them.

Moonshadow said:

I think that the "blue" LED is a bit of a red herring, if you'll excuse the mixed metaphor. Even the cooler tint Crees are white, not blue.

OK, the Nichia in the E01 has a very purple beam, but that's not really what we're talking about. I don't know what the LED is in the Nite-Ize but it's probably an older type (Luxeon ?). It's important to compare like with like.

None of my Q5 or R2 lights with WC or WH tints look particularly blue to me - just a nice crisp, clean white. The Gladius is an older light, but again I'd describe it as a pure ice-white rather than blue. Much better than a sickly yellow beam any day.

And I can see leaves and shrubbery just fine with them.

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I suppose we have different eyes then. Got a couple of WCs sitting here, and even without shining them on a white wall I can easily pick out a bluish tint. Maybe I've just gotten the blue end of the bin, but even with that variation taken into account, there's still a noticeable blue tint to it. Only way I see pure white is by staring into the emitter. That said, I've never seen a perfect white light source unless it was from the brightness overloading my eyes.

Regarding seeing leaves and so on, I can see them too with a WC, but distinguishing things is the tricky bit. Everything outside seems dimmer with the WC/WDs as well.

I don't like the sickly yellow tint from any flashlight, I like the cold cathode color temp you get from hospitals, the bright white sterile looking temperature, but not so high as to reach blue, my P1D has a sickly yellow.

Only way I see pure white is by staring into the emitter.

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oo: That way you get to keep seeing it even after you've switched it off !!

Seriously, I agree: I've mentioned on an earlier thread that I'm sure there are personal differences in colour perception at work here as well - what looks blue or yellow to one person looks white to another . . . which is why choice is so important - the current trend to warmer emitters is all well and good, but there needs to be choice left for those who don't want them.

My eyes start getting tired and watery after I use a cool tint for more than a couple of hours. The cooler light somehow strains my eyes.

I don't know why but the warmer tints are fine. A 5000K WH R2 looks good to me as does a Q3 5A.

Th232 said:

And before that, we had a source of light called the sun, which doesn't have a huge blue spike in its spectrum.

There're also those of us who go places at night, rural or urban that require better colour rendition. Not just a case of wanting to look at greenery, but night hikes (rogaining comes to mind), tasks that involve colour differentiation (ever had to find a green object in a whole lot of green?) and so on.

I also seem to remember something about yellow light being absorbed less by air, dust, rain and so on due to the longer wavelength, but I'm not sure about that.

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For rogaining or Adventure Raceing you can't beat a warm tint. It gives a much better depth of field. Hard to explain but blue makes the ground seem flat, where as the yellow tends to define bumps and such. Very important stuff when running through the woods at night for hours. So while a bluish light might look bright you see less. When on a mountain bike it is helpful to be able to discern between tree root and soil, bump and hole. Warm lights just work better. :huh:

So is it only me who finds the yellow tint actually quite sickly and I mean really sickly if i stick the low mode of the P1D on (200ma or so) I honestly feel like i'm going to throw up it does not look anything like sunlight to me as even sunset has a more orange / redish (including sunrise) and in pure light of day the sun seems fairly white, white buildings look white not yellow, yellow physically makes me feel sick i can only use the P1D on high mode to make the phosphorus more intense white.

Sgt. LED said:

My eyes start getting tired and watery after I use a cool tint for more than a couple of hours. The cooler light somehow strains my eyes.

I don't know why but the warmer tints are fine. A 5000K WH R2 looks good to me as does a Q3 5A.

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It's the same with my eyes. I remember reading somewhere that the eyes have problem focusing in blue light.

Sounds like you have the opposite end of what's wrong with my eyes!

fenixmad said:

So is it only me who finds the yellow tint actually quite sickly and I mean really sickly if i stick the low mode of the P1D on (200ma or so) I honestly feel like i'm going to throw up it does not look anything like sunlight to me as even sunset has a more orange / redish (including sunrise) and in pure light of day the sun seems fairly white, white buildings look white not yellow, yellow physically makes me feel sick i can only use the P1D on high mode to make the phosphorus more intense white.

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Most LED flashlights use emitters with colour temperature of 6500K or higher which is akin to an overcast day or shade. This can can appear quite harsh with night adapted vision. Direct sunlight tends to vary between 4000K and 5500K depending on the position of the sun and gets even lower during sunrise and sunset. This corresponds roughly to Cree 5A to 3A colour bins. Colour rendering is not the same as sunlight though as LEDs cannot currently reproduce the same spectrum.

I do agree that the yellow-green tint is undesirable though and prefer warm tints to be on the orange side.