Colorblind guys. Do you benefit from warm tint/High CRI?

I'm among the 12% of the male population thats red-green colorblind. Ive got cool-tint lights as well as warm-tint and a High-CRI light. Im a big fan of the warm tints, as they make things look the most natural to me, even though I dont see colors like most people. One color i can see well is blue, and i agree with most people in that it makes for a very undesirable LED tint. If i use a dedicated red LED, I lose all depth perception.

Just wondering what other colorblind guys prefer as far as tint and CRI? I havent seen this subject discussed much anywhere else.

Interesting topic. I'm going to visit a friend tomorrow who is red colorblind.I talked to him on the phone and told him I have a red diffuser to give him for hunting. Then after I hung up the phone I thought it may not be a good idea because he may not be able to see using red light. I'll find out.

Wikipedia has a very good article on color blindness.
Look at the "blindness" as more of a color vision deficiency in shades of color,
rather than say telling the diffenence between lets say a red crayon and a green one.

I'm more into the 4000k - 4500k tint regardless of CRI. Too warm and it gives off an eerie feeling. Too cool and everything gets washed away in the cold. I'm not color blinded but my eyes are very sensitive to the cool white so I have to protect that investment any way I can.

I'm red-green color blind but don't have any high-CRI lights...yet. I do have a neutral tint Eagletac that I do like. I've been curious to see how I would perceive high-CRI tint vs. the others. I plan to get my 1st high-CRI light in the next few months....a Zebralight headlamp. Then I will be able to compare tints and see what best suits me. Part of me hopes the high-CRI doesn't do much for me so I wont have that nagging urge to get a high-CRI HDS to replace the 200 clicky I EDC!

I'm really glad this thread was created; I've been wondering about this myself. I am red-green colorblind, and for me the best solution has always been an incan.

As a way to gauge my color blindness against other people's; in a dimly lit room, i have to do a taste test between guacamole and salsa to identify them as such.

Cool white CFLs definitely hurt my eyes, but cool white leds are no problem. In use, i find that cool white leds make blues look vibrant, yellows are pretty accurate, but greens look muddy. It is also very difficult for me to identify something as red unless i already know that its red from previous experience.

I needed longer runtime, so i bought a Nichia 219 dropin from nailbender. For me, the quality of light the led produced left a bit to be desired. While it was able to better render the color red, it altered the hue of reds that were known to me. In other words, the same red color looked very different under incan light and the 219 light. Other colors were rendered pretty well, but i found the light itself to be kind of dull.

After taking some time to decide that i didn't particularly like the 219, i ordered a high cri xml dropin from Nailbender. That led pretty much hits the nail on the head. I was unable to distinguish a difference in color temperature between it and an LF E04 dropin. It also renders red the same way as an incan.

For me, the benefit of the high cri xml over incan is the efficiency and lumen increase. If i need to look for or find something, and it will take me awhile to do it, i grab the high cri xml. If i need to clear rooms, i grab my over driven xml cause it puts out a lot more light.

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i am color blind as well and I prefer pure whites , slight green or blue tints dont bother me, i do like warm tints as well as long as they are not to yellow

I am colourblind too. Just a little in the red/green area. It's more like being colour deficient as one earlier poster also mentioned. Personally for me it means the smaller an object is, the less pixels, the more difficult to distinguish colours. I have posted about colourblindness before. Slightly off-topic: the eyes of people who are colourblind adapt quicker to darkness than those who are not colourblind. According to a study done by a Dutch university.

I can distinguish more objects the warmer tint is used. But I have read a post on cpf a few years ago from a guy who was very colourblind and he prefered cold tints. I hope to be able to find that thread.

Found the thread. It's called 'Anyone else color blind and loving the bright cool tint LED's?'
Can't copy the link yet as I am using an iPad. Can't copy paste a link yet in this app.

The term colorblind is very misleading in most cases.
A deficiency is, as another poster stated, more of a resolution issue.
For instance, Christmas is red and green, Halloween is all about orange, but a bundle of 20 twisted pairs with solid and dashed colors is very difficult to pick out individual colors from a distance.
The closer you get, the easier it gets.
Of course there are different levels of deficiency, from minimal to complete color blindness.
That said, the most beautiful output from an emitter to my eyes is from the Nichia 219 4500k.
Put one in my Rotary tonight and I might as well slap on some thread lock. Absolutely perfect.
Ive often wondered if my red/green deficiency plays a part in my hatred of blue tints.
Warm tints are nice, but not what I want in a flashlight. I just want to see things the way they look in the daytime.
The 5C1 xp-G is very nice, but hard to find. The other neutrals look a little too yellow.
So yes, the hcri Nichia 219 4500k looks perfect to my red/green deficient eyes.
I think it would look great even if I had normal eyesight!

I've always wondered what a color blind person saw. I guess it's just shades of grey for whatever color you are blind to?

Green is my favorite color. I'm glad I can see it. I would think someone who was colorblind to reds and greens would prefer cool tints, as the warm tints bring out the reds and greens more, which you can't see anyway.

Interesting topic though. Considering that the colors most people who have this problem seeing is red's and greens, it sure would make more sense to change the color of traffic lights. At least maybe change the green to blue.

Brasso,
Speaking as someone who is considered Red/Green deficient I can see traffic lights fine. I've met plenty of people who are called "color blind" but it is just a deficiency. It may only manifest itself when you put a bunch of colored dots in a circle and try to pick out a number for many people with a deficiency.
If you've ever seen a jumble of telecommunications cables with mixed solids and dashed colors all mixed together, that, from a distance, is hard to differentiate. Get a little closer and the colors are easier to tell apart.
The ability to see these colors quickly from any distance is very important in many professions; pilots, engineers, electricians, Springfield Nuclear Reactor operator, etc.
I have met one person who couldn't see ANY colors at all. True color blindness. He was very limited in his career choices.
Refarding tints: I forgot to mention that I dont mind an occasional cool tint as it reminds me of moonlight.

Brasso said:

I've always wondered what a color blind person saw. I guess it's just shades of grey for whatever color you are blind to?

Green is my favorite color. I'm glad I can see it. I would think someone who was colorblind to reds and greens would prefer cool tints, as the warm tints bring out the reds and greens more, which you can't see anyway.

Interesting topic though. Considering that the colors most people who have this problem seeing is red's and greens, it sure would make more sense to change the color of traffic lights. At least maybe change the green to blue.

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As bansuri said, most colored blind people have a "deficiency" and have trouble determining differences between shades of colors, especially if they are close to the same shade. For me, it can be hard to tell the difference between purple and blue if both colors are not next to each other. I believe it is rare to find some who is truly "colorblind" and can only see in shades of gray.

Brasso said:

I've always wondered what a color blind person saw. I guess it's just shades of grey for whatever color you are blind to?

Green is my favorite color. I'm glad I can see it. I would think someone who was colorblind to reds and greens would prefer cool tints, as the warm tints bring out the reds and greens more, which you can't see anyway.

Interesting topic though. Considering that the colors most people who have this problem seeing is red's and greens, it sure would make more sense to change the color of traffic lights. At least maybe change the green to blue.

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Most people with a colour deficiency see what you see. It is so minimal. Green is green, red is red, etc. Just the same, really.
But full colour blindness, that's something different.

Coming back at the amount of pixels an object has: I can't tell if the fuel gauge(too small) on my UB3T is green or yellow or red. Therefore it is completely useless to me. Luckily te light starts getting dimmer too as te batteries lose power.

I'm color blind. I have trouble telling blue from purple, orange from red, and brown from green and red. In my job I need to distinguish these colors sometimes and I use to use amber color sunglasses and it use to help a lot. So it would make sense that a warmer LED would help for better color rendition imo.

As a side note I often use the "intensity" as I perceive it anyway to tell the difference sometimes. I have also heard that in WW2 that the Allies used colorblind people to find camouflaged artillery etc because they could distinguish it easier. I believe they can have better night vision sometimes also.

Thanks guys for that clarification. I suppose it's similar to the way most people have trouble seeing close shades of colors in low light.

OCD said:

I'm red-green color blind but don't have any high-CRI lights...yet. I do have a neutral tint Eagletac that I do like. I've been curious to see how I would perceive high-CRI tint vs. the others. I plan to get my 1st high-CRI light in the next few months....a Zebralight headlamp. Then I will be able to compare tints and see what best suits me. Part of me hopes the high-CRI doesn't do much for me so I wont have that nagging urge to get a high-CRI HDS to replace the 200 clicky I EDC!

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I just got the Zebralight H502c. Good news is that i love the tint. Bad news is that im obviously still colorblind. haha. the high CRI did nothing for me.

i think my eyes have a CRI of about 65 in broad daylight.

bansuri said:

The term colorblind is very misleading in most cases.
A deficiency is, as another poster stated, more of a resolution issue.
For instance, Christmas is red and green, Halloween is all about orange, but a bundle of 20 twisted pairs with solid and dashed colors is very difficult to pick out individual colors from a distance.
The closer you get, the easier it gets.
Of course there are different levels of deficiency, from minimal to complete color blindness.
That said, the most beautiful output from an emitter to my eyes is from the Nichia 219 4500k.
Put one in my Rotary tonight and I might as well slap on some thread lock. Absolutely perfect.
Ive often wondered if my red/green deficiency plays a part in my hatred of blue tints.
Warm tints are nice, but not what I want in a flashlight. I just want to see things the way they look in the daytime.
The 5C1 xp-G is very nice, but hard to find. The other neutrals look a little too yellow.
So yes, the hcri Nichia 219 4500k looks perfect to my red/green deficient eyes.
I think it would look great even if I had normal eyesight!

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Great Info! thanks. Any recommendations on a light with the 219 in it?

The comments about pixels/resolution vs seeing bigger zones of color more easily makes me wonder if people with "fabulous" color sense might have extra sensitivity, with the rest of us being relatively color deficient (normal) and not knowing the difference.

btw, I am so slightly color blind that I only failed one near the end of a pretty long color test, looked like shades of yellow/orange.
I am far happier with the 3700K and 4000K hcri leds than any other led lighting so far.

Brasso said:

Thanks guys for that clarification. I suppose it's similar to the way most people have trouble seeing close shades of colors in low light.

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No not really. I see difference between red and green. But sometimes it's hard to tell what is green and what is red. Depends on the size of the object, too (amount of pixels). The tests with the a figure in between dots exlains it well. And indeed, in some occasions colourblind people see more difference as one explained by giving that WW2 example (colourblind people seeing camouflaged objects better). Colourblind is not the right word for it. I remerber being tested and I could detect a figure that my sister (not colourblind/deficient) could not see.

iapyx said:

No not really. I see difference between red and green. But sometimes it's hard to tell what is green and what is red.

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That just doesn't make sense to me. I can't imagine how you could tell the difference between them, yet not be able to distinguish which was which.