is it just me or do incandescents /super warm tints give poor color rendition?

I was just wondering if anyone else finds this to be true
I know that I will be burned for this but I think that I still prefer cooler (5000-6000) over warm tints. Don't get me wrong, I cant stand purple or blue LEDs but to me cool white if not to cool gives better color and contrast in the greens and blues than very warm lights.
I first noticed it when I got to try out my cousins incandescent streamlight, it was very bright but to my eyes many shades of green just did not look green, Most noticeable were their green apples which looked yellow under the streamlight.

I really like the look of "cool white" (imo the color temp of sunlight should be considered the ideal neutral white) in the day, when working on cars the light from my flashlight very closely matches daylight.

The two photos were taken with the same camera settings.
T10 CW

Maglite 2D incandescent

When you say "super warm" how warm are we talking here? [emoji41] I will definitely say that there is a perceived tint shift as a light source becomes warmer. Just shine on a white wall. That same "white" wall will look all different colors based on the light source. Is it just me, or does a Hi cri light source seem to minimize that tint shift on colored objects?

Just to put this out there: if you set the camera for the mag light, then use those settings to photograph the T10 CW, how will those photos appear?

Old people who probably grew up with incan flashlights would probably say "depends on remaining battery life" because as the batteries depleted the light grew warmer.
Remaining life span of the bulb as well.
Brightness also applies.

The answer is yes. When you shine a light with a gold tinge it's going to change the look. Same with blue or red...or green.

But each person based on their experiences will prefer one beam or another to gauge what they see as correct cri.

Example:
I'm used to incan lighting.
I have a neutral/high cri light in my closet yet some days I realize after going outside I'm wearing my faded green (almost tan) slacks and not the tan ones. Yet when I shine my golden beam mini mag incan onto pants on hangers the green ones are obvious.
(I get dressed in low light to not wake the wife at 5am).

But others may find the golden yellow incan beam causes similar colors to not be so obviously different.

According to studies at museums for various lighting scenarios, as a rule of thumb, most people prefer warmer tints when the lux levels are low, and cooler tints when the lux levels are higher.

This meshes well with the warmer tints being associated with traditionally lower lux levels, and the cooler tints being available in higher output lights.

The Maglite looks definitely yellow. Stock Mag bulbs take a bit of overdrive well and the colour temperature will change for the better. If you can, try it with two NiZn batteries in place of the alkaline and try again.

InvisibleFrodo said:

When you say "super warm" how warm are we talking here? [emoji41] I will definitely say that there is a perceived tint shift as a light source becomes warmer. Just shine on a white wall. That same "white" wall will look all different colors based on the light source. Is it just me, or does a Hi cri light source seem to minimize that tint shift on colored objects?

Click to expand...

I would love to try some super high cri LEDs and see what the difference in colors between 5600k and 3000k-4000k look like, I imagine not much.

My understanding of it is that a light can look like pure white by just mixing monochromatic red, blue, and green. It would look normal but there would only be three wavelengths of light so when you shine it on an object that has different colors it would look odd. On the other hand you could have a light source that has excess of a certain color but also includes a good ammount of all wavelengths, this light could look orange, pink, blue, purple, green, ect when comparing to the first light source on a white wall but when you shine it on colored objects the light with the whole spectrum wins.

I think this maglite is just a case of too much red and yellow and not enough blue in this picture. I will try adjusting my camera color balance to be more blue.

InvisibleFrodo said:

Just to put this out there: if you set the camera for the mag light, then use those settings to photograph the T10 CW, how will those photos appear?

Click to expand...

Here you go:

I turned down the ISO to 125, the f to 8, and the exposure time to 2 seconds to minimize beam artifacts (by moving the beam around during exposure).
White balance was manually set to make the maglite look as close to white as possible on top, neutral color balance on the bottom.

I thought the first two made your point just fine.

Your camera on AWB may change the white balance photo to photo.
Pic a setting that mimics surrounding lights.
Outside pic sunshine.
Inside you usually have an assortment of flourescent settings...or at least 2. One blue cast, one orange cast.

Or darken the joint except for a candle and use your candle setting.
That should at least ensure your camera doesn't decide to change white balance settings automatically.

no awb, it is a nikon coolpix on manual so I can set the white balance for red and blue.

I agree with OP, kind of. Incandescents have terrible color rendition. My ideal is neutral at 5000k. After you get used to that, everything else looks weird.

Warm loose too many lumens versus N. And don't look good either.

If you want the most lumens, go for cool blue. I can live with it also.

To paraphrase, color rendition isn't everything.

I have always found cool white to show colours more naturally.

With my old eyes, neutrals cast a yellow tint which makes everything, well, more yellow, un natural looking. Same with warm tints, with a orange / brown tint that dominates.

What impressed me most almost 5 years ago with my first led torch, was how a cw led projected such nice clean crisp white beam compared to warm/ neutral incandescent maglites. I have many different tinted lights which i have collected and modded and when i show them to newbies they always prefer the cw ones.

Just as an example I have a olight s1 in cw and s1 titanium nw and i find the cw shows individual colours in a more natural way and the nw ti casts a yellow tint which makes any white surface look kinda stained. But i do prefer a warm tint for the lounge room-jmo.

CPF member JFong and I recently compared the color rendering ability of two high-CRI Nichia 219B emitters to a bunch of popular Cree emitters. I had 6 or 8 lights with me. JFong had almost the same number. We used an embroidered place mat with a variety of reds, browns, tans, and magentas as our subject. We were not looking at output levels. All we looked at was the ability to accurately represent the colors of our test target.

We tested the 5000K Nichia 219B found in the BLF 348 and the 4500K Nichia 219B in the L3 Illumination L11C. It was easy to see that both Nichias outperformed all of the CW and NW Cree emitters that we compared. The results were not close. My ZebraLight SC62w, a neutral flashlight that uses a Cree XM-L2 emitter, did not do any better than other Crees. Neither did the 5000K Cree MT-G2 emitter in my Nitecore P36. The CW lights we tested were uniformly atrocious.

Comparing one low-CRI Cree emitter with another, and then announcing that XX (be it CW, NW, or WW) does the best job rendering colors, is like comparing the fare from a bunch of fast food restaurants. It does not matter which restaurant wins the comparison. They are all inferior.

If you have never tried a high-CRI Nichia emitter, I suggest getting in on the second round of the group buy for the BLF 348. It is currently underway at BudgetLightForum. The 348 uses a 5000K Nichia 219B emitter with a typical CRI of 90. The flashlight is a single-mode, floody, 1xAAA, stainless-steel tube light. Running on Eneloop, output from this light is a bit under 50 lumens. Price is $6.99! I mention this primarily because it is one of the cheapest ways I know of that you can try out high-CRI Nichia.

CRI doesn't reflect colour contrast. There are many issues with CRI, which is why we should look at CQS instead