favorite LED color other than white?

Billmanweh

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all of my current LED flashlights are white and I'm thinking of adding a little variety. What are the most useful colors after white?
 

paulr

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dim red - least effect on night vision

cyan - good for outdoors at night. more efficient than white
so you get brighter light for the wattage.
 

cannon50

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I'll second that on cyan. I got my 1 watt one in a Madmax sandwich from Dat2zip a while back but not sure he has got more of the good ones now. Elektrolumens is supposed to have the true cyan color in a 5 watt. It seems to me that my Madmax cyan is at least twice as bright as my BB500 white and throws a much greater distance.
 

Smaug

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Cyan, etc...

Cyan is a cross between blue and green, but not as obnoxious as turquoise. I only know that from my time working in a photolab, as cyan is one of the three major colors used for color correction. (yellow, magenta, (a shade of purple) and cyan)

Based on what I've read only, I would have to choose amber as my second favorite. It has the good blend of being a color the eyes are sensitive to and not screwing up night vision as badly as other colors. That is only based on what I've read, mind you.

In my military experience, I've used green and red. It is true what they say about green affecting night vision and red not affecting it.

In the meantime though, I will stick to white. After all, why do you need night vision if you have a ton of flashlights? It can actually be an advantage to use a bright white that ruins night vision. If you are out or even at home and are accosted, you can blind the hell out of someone (MUCH more them than you, heheheh) and gain an element of surprise and a vision advantage. That would buy you enough time to administer a quick kick to the nuts and run like hell. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif Think about it, you don't often see cops with red lights, except maybe SWAT cops...

I suppose I've babbled long enough, hehehe.

-Jeremy
 

B@rt

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[ QUOTE ]
Billmanweh said:
hmmm...what does cyan look like?

[/ QUOTE ]

light09.gif
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/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 

JJHitt

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Green ... simply because it's more readily available than cyan. My brightest lights (perceived brightness) are a green PAL and a green Lightwave 2000.

The single green LED of the PAL actually appears to be brighter than the 5 LEDs in my Inova X5T.
 

Roy

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I believe it was Streamlight that was pushing the use on green light in hunting situations as a safety feature. It seems that humans are the only ones that generate green light...wild critter eyes don't reflect back green light.
 

Sigman

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Cyan, then green...I've got red, amber, UV, & blue also...red has it's place in my "toolbox" of torches (astronomy), amber isn't bad, can't really see a use for blue (older Inova)- though it does fluoresce some colors well and have a bit of "Wow Power", and UV is a nifty toy to see a lot of things the naked eye can't see..

Cyan & green though are sooo much easier on my eyes at night around the house and a GREAT "Wow Power" light as well! I've got several of these, only a couple reds, and only 1 each of the others...

Play with some inexpensive keychain lights first, then perhaps invest in a better color torch once you decide what you like. The PALights do come in colors, the InReTech drop ins aren't a bad way to go either...then all of the GREAT MODDERS here can really "custom fit" you!!
 

revolvergeek

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Green or Cyan for normal lighting. Red for very late night/low light situations.

I use a green L1 as my 'big' EDC light instead of an E2 now, and just got a 1W SE Cyan E1e mod from Don which is AWESOME /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/buttrock.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bowdown.gif. Both of these provide very nice brightness and throw, and will provide some useable light easily to 70-80 feet (to my eyes). My stumble downstairs at night light is a red CMG Infinity.
 

Beretta1526

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I like my Royal Blue MadMax, but it's almost disturbing to look at though. It puts out so much ultraviolet, that it's almost like a really bright blacklight. It's not usable in most situations though so my usable choice has to be red.
 

paulr

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Royal Blue is an even shorter wavelength than regular blue, right?
 

BentHeadTX

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Cyan,
My Elektrolumens 5W 5D Cyan with 30mm optics throws a beam out that is blinding. For "forest" use, I take out the optics and light up the landscape easily. I use it on occasion to attach to my bicycle, I get noticed and can see now matter how fast I am going.
Next color to get, red...for night vision.
 

UnknownVT

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OK, I do understand that green and cyan(blue-green) are often the brightest LEDs - also our eyes are most sensitive to those wavelengths so they appear brighter.

But I would have thought those colored lights would the least desirable for use among greenery - grass and trees - as there would be very little/low contrast between the abundance of green.

Am I wrong on this?

Color may be a personal choice - but I have found yellow/amber to be a good color - as I seem to be able to see well under low levels of yellow - which allows me to still see well for the areas unlit by the flashlight.

LED Colors and Vision (pics)
 

Quickbeam

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Red - as it's the only color capable of preserving human night adapted vision.

A correction:

[ QUOTE ]
cyan - good for outdoors at night. more efficient than white
so you get brighter light for the wattage.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually it's not more efficient. The "white" LED is a blue LED with a phosphorescent compound on the die that converts some of the higher frequency wavelengths to lower frequencies, thereby giving full spectrum lighting. So the light from a white LED is "dimmer" because it's energy is spread over a wider spectrum, while the single color LEDs focus all their energy into only a narrow band. Kind of like a hose set to stream (single color) or shower (white) - same volume (energy), different spread (spectrum), different pressure (brightness).

Caveats; before someone cries foul: the human non-night adaped eye is a bit more sensitive to cyan, making it appear brighter [correction: more sensitive to green, with cyan being close enough in the spectrum that it also appears brighter than most colors], and a small ammount of the energy of the white (blue) LED is lost in the conversion to the full spectrum light in the phosphor.
 

cmendoza

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Just a note on what I've picked elsewhere in the forum relating to night vision. It's the intensity of the light, not the color/wavelength, that denatures the rhodopsin and ruins nightvision. Also, in bright light(daylight) our eyes are most sensitive to green but when nightvision kicks in there's the "Purkinji Shift" and our eyes are most sensitive to cyan. The end result is a low intensity cyan will preserve nightvision and let you see more than a low intensity red. I haven't actually found "low intensity" defined.
FYI
 

Quickbeam

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You caught me - I was just about to correct my post - daylight adpated eyes are more sensitive to green, Rhodopsin is more sensitive to cyan, but even daylight adapted eyes are very sensitive to cyan due to its wavelength proximity to green.

However, this statement is incorrect:

"The end result is a low intensity cyan will preserve nightvision and let you see more than a low intensity red."

Any intensity of cyan will diminish your Rhodopsin levels in the rods (used for night vision), although at the extremely low intensity levels you are implying the rods should be able to produce enough rhodopsin on the fly to compensate. The Rhodopsin in the rods is completely insensitive to red light, blind to it - hence you can use a much brighter red light without bleaching any of the rhodopsin in the rods and thereby completely preserve your night vision. Your red cones kick in and are used to see with while the rods sit idle and unaffected. Cyan has to be so dim that it is almost completely useless for navigation and illumination at any distance. If you can see the color of the cyan light, it's too bright. It must only be perceived as "light" to prevent rapid bleaching of the rhodopsin and destruction of night adapted vision. Hence why red is better for night vision preservation. You can use it at intensity levels that are "useful" without destroying your night vision.

Observatories (where good night vision preservation is a must) have known this for many many years and this is why if you walk into an observatory at night it will be lit with dim red light (but at a much higher intensity level than that which would be required if using cyan light.)
 

The_LED_Museum

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If the white color pisses you off, then red (for night vision) and cyan (for "blow you out of the water" brightness and "wow" factor) would be the two colors I'd choose. I use the red LEDs in a Bonfire Blaze all the time; and I have a McLux Black Widow for when I need brighter red light.

But if I were stranded on a desert isle and I couldn't have white, I'd probably go for amber, because you can pick out more objects that way and the terrain would have a better contrast than with other monochromatic LEDs.
 
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