SureFire T1A Titan tint beamshot

So all this talk about the T1A Titan having an angry blue tint got me wondering. I know when first announced, it was reported to have the angry blue, which I remember posting my disappointment at.

However, once I received my light, I did not know what all fuss about the T1A Titan having an angry blue business was all about.

Here are some pics I shot of the T1A Titan compared to some of my other LEDs that give a range of tints.

Corner of dirty basement at about 4 feet from the camera with lights held just a few inches above the setup. Camera was locked in on manual at ISO 100 shutter set to 0.6 and aperture at F 5.6 on a 50mm F- 1.4 standard lens on my tripod mounted Canon 30D set to daylight white balance. You may be able to pull the EXIF data from the images to verify. Only thing I did was resize the images in CS4.




SureFire T1A Titan. - Slightly cool, but not the angry blue I've
heard about or seen in some other members beamshots.
To the naked eye the beam tint looks more neutral.



Arc-P. - Now that's angry. Some describe their T1A Titan as
having this tint. I still use and love this little bombproof light.



Fenix LOD CE - on 10440 in medium setting. One of my favorite
pocket floody lights running on a AAA sized battery. If you
haven't tried this combo, you're missing out.



SureFire E1B Backup with F04 diffuser. Cleanest white beam
I've seen thus far.



Princeton Tec EOS II headlamp with the Rebel with a floody beam.
Kinda greenish, but still usable. I kinda like the first version better
for some reason.



Zebralight H501W headlamp using the Q3 5A. Nice even warm
beam from this AA powered light.



The Dereelight CL1H using Q4 5B diffused with F04 diffuser
held over the front. Nice color for an LED.

SureFire E2E with MN03 60 lumen LA with F04 diffuser.
I still love my incans.


I must have lucked out in not getting an "angry" T1A Titan. Sure, its
a little on the cool side compared to other LEDs, but not as bad
as many would have you believe. And I'm pretty picky about color
since I'm still an incan guy at heart.

The color cast on ALL these lights appear more exaggerated in
images than they do to the naked eye.

Assuming that the Fenix uses a WC tint emitter, I would consider the T1A you have to be pretty darn blue...

I too don't understand what all the fuss are for. T1A was not manufactured to be an outdoors light. It was not even made for throw in the first place. T1A was made more as a floody EDC light for use in the house or confined spaces whereby warm tint is not really a necessity. Personally, I do think that the tint produced by the T1A to be quite nice and acceptable considering what it was made for.

The images seem to exxaggerate the colors a bit. To the naked eye all the LEDs show less saturation.

The tint is slightly cool compared to some. But I would not call it angry blue.

The smooth ramping up light levels is the reason I chose this light. Of course a high CRI LED in it would make it the ultimate EDC. Heck I'd even settle for a Q4 5B.

Very interesting comparison. Your T1A really doesn't look that bad at all. Certainly better than many other beamshots I've seen, and better than the sample I was able to handle in the store (that one had a definite blue, even purplish tint; not quite "angry" blue, but not quite a pleasing white, either).

Personally, I'm curious as to SureFire's design goals in choosing this cool emitter. Does their target market for the T1A really not care that much about tint (i.e., are flashlight geeks truly not a significant portion of the intended market)? Or was this emitter chosen because a warmer one wouldn't have performed well enough by their standards? Would a warm emitter been too much of a sacrifice in either output or runtime? (After all, neither 70 lumens nor one hour is particularly outstanding.) And regardless of the tint/CCT of the emitter here, how does it perform in terms of color rendering (even the "angrier" samples)?

On the one hand, my P60L has a fairly blue tint, much like the T1A, and in actual use I find it to be a very satisfying, bright, white light. On the other hand, for a light that costs as much as the T1A does, and for the very high "gadget factor" that it has, I would have expected a much better tint, and am not quite willing to commit to the cost.

you must be llucky, i have 2 t1a's and both are blue compared to my other cree lights especialy bad when comparing with my l1 which has a warmish color. i also have a complain about the detent at off position. one of my t1a has a more noticeable bump thatn the other which i think could easily be activated without notice.

I think the general population is not aware or care too much about tint as much as some of us CPFers do. If you ask the general public which they like better, a warm tint or cool one, they seem to always choose the cool one since they equate that with it being brighter and more high tech looking.

Even angry blue or green LEDs get chosen over the yellow incan lights in my unscientific tests I subject those around me that stay still long enough for me to engage them in.

Only a few non flashaholics I've shown "see the light" to the warmer tints rendering colors found in nature better than the ice cool ones.

I'm sure SF had their reasons for choosing this bin.

I don't think the general public even knows about SureFire. And when I answered the question of how much that T1A cost, they nearly dropped it. LOL Now I make sure I have my lights back in my hands prior to letting them know the price.

EV_007 said:

I think the general population is not aware or care too much about tint as much as some of us CPFers do. If you ask the general public which they like better, a warm tint or cool one, they seem to always choose the cool one since they equate that with it being brighter and more high tech looking.

Even angry blue or green LEDs get chosen over the yellow incan lights in my unscientific tests I subject those around me that stay still long enough for me to engage them in.

Click to expand...

I hadn't thought about that, but I think I may have seen the same thing. One of my friends has a thing for small, bright lights, and swears by those 3xAAA monstrosities. You know, the ones with about sixteen 5mm LEDs and awful tint. I've thought about getting him a quality 1xAA light of some sort, maybe a D10 or P2D or something. But I've always been hesitant, and with what you just said, I think I now realize why: the quality 1xAA may have a better tint, beam quality, throw, battery life, reliability, etc., but the cool blue tint of those 3xAAA lights make him think they're high tech and crazy bright.

Of course, this still leaves me wondering exactly who is buying the T1A. I mean, it's clearly not a "tactical" model intended for the military. And it seems like most of the people out there who are impressed by the small, bright lights with cool tints (like my friend) are the ones who would never shell out the money for a T1A. Are there really enough people out there willing to spend the money on the T1A but aren't geeky enough about their lights to get past the cool tint=high tech thing?

The more I think about it, the more I realize that tint isn't THAT important to me (at least, so long as it's not REALLY far off from white). A good UI is much more important to me than a perfect or pleasing tint. So maybe one of these T1A's wouldn't bother me much after all...

In another thread about favorite UIs, the T1A and other rotary knob lights were listed as some of the most favorite UIs out there.

I got my T1A a couple of weeks ago and must say that it has the best UI I have every seen. My T1A is slightly cool (the way I like it), perfect beam, and quite bright. The aspect of quality just oozes out of it. Yes, it was pricey but I feel it has high value. It reminds me that fine tools have a worth beyond the initial utilitarian value.

Regards

Thanks for the beam shots. It looks like the T1A is getting warmer.

No problem. Now I wish I got in on the original Titanium version.

Cool shots!

When I eventually get a T1A... I hope that I get a nice tint... that doesn't seem like the right thing to be saying :thinking: