Why do LED lights still suck and why do I still use incans or HIDs, your opinions or disagreements please.

[defloyd77]

Who wants halogen bulbs back into ones car headlights?
😉

We just got our first car with LED headlights last month and I'm honestly amazed by them. Never before have I experienced such a flawless beam from car's headlight. No weird artifacts like halogens. We were curious as to how the cooler color temperature would look when driving, but honestly it doesn't look as bad as we were afraid of. Other vehicles' LED headlights also don't look as harsh either, not sure if it's because of our eyes being adjusted to that color temperature or if it's the increased brightness of our's.

The high beams are really strange, the intensity doesn't appear to change, it just seems to add light above the high beam cutoff. Most of our driving so far has been in town or on highways, so haven't had any experience in more densely wooded areas to see how their color rendering is, especially with regards to animals blending in. That's definitely a problem I've experienced with my dedicated bike headlight.

It'll be interesting to see how they'll look in the winter with snow, but as of now, I have no desire to return to halogens.

 

[LuxLuthor]

Wrong on both fronts. An incan will have 100 CRI regardless of its quality. That Mini Mag I found, 100 CRI. Candles, 100 CRI. Regardless though, no incandescent will ever replicate the light of daylight because the actual wavelengths they produce are completely different. CRI is meant to be compared at the same color temperature, so just because incans have the same CRI number as daylight, does not mean they are the same.

Here's a good article for those who care to read it

CRI Explained

The term CRI tends to cause a fair amount of confusion among everyday consumers when it comes to choosing the best light source for their needs we will do the best that we can to explain the term so it can be easily understood and used appropriately.

www.fullspectrumsolutions.com

Here's the part worth pointing out for the thread:

"Incandescent bulbs have a CRI rating of 100, yet are far from ideal for color rendering and matching. Why? With a color temperature of only 2700k they are far too weak at the blue end of the spectrum making it next to impossible to distiguish between various shades of blue. The CRI rating of 100 simply means that the 8 samples look exactly the same as they would under a black body radiator at 2700k."

Useful feedback. Thanks. My memory is the quality halogen bulbs have a 3200 Kelvin. The thing for me when looking for example at roasting coffee beans inside of the Behmor roaster....none of the 12-15 quality LED lights I have gave anywhere near an acceptable color appearance. Using my Welch Allyn 1185 Maglight has the appearance of the beans look perfect, and comparable to when taken out of roaster. That's my basic argument. Are LED's great for a multitude of reasons also, yes. But certain scenarios, I find the incand color illumination is more realistic by far.

 

[LuxLuthor]

We just got our first car with LED headlights last month and I'm honestly amazed by them. Never before have I experienced such a flawless beam from car's headlight. No weird artifacts like halogens. We were curious as to how the cooler color temperature would look when driving, but honestly it doesn't look as bad as we were afraid of. Other vehicles' LED headlights also don't look as harsh either, not sure if it's because of our eyes being adjusted to that color temperature or if it's the increased brightness of our's.

The high beams are really strange, the intensity doesn't appear to change, it just seems to add light above the high beam cutoff. Most of our driving so far has been in town or on highways, so haven't had any experience in more densely wooded areas to see how their color rendering is, especially with regards to animals blending in. That's definitely a problem I've experienced with my dedicated bike headlight.

It'll be interesting to see how they'll look in the winter with snow, but as of now, I have no desire to return to halogens.

I would imagine this would be a great application of LED lighting in the right Kelvin temp'

 

[idleprocess]

Useful feedback. Thanks. My memory is the quality halogen bulbs have a 3200 Kelvin. The thing for me when looking for example at roasting coffee beans inside of the Behmor roaster....none of the 12-15 quality LED lights I have gave anywhere near an acceptable color appearance. Using my Welch Allyn 1185 Maglight has the appearance of the beans look perfect, and comparable to when taken out of roaster. That's my basic argument. Are LED's great for a multitude of reasons also, yes. But certain scenarios, I find the incand color illumination is more realistic by far.

Preference goes a long way in these matters. And while one could possibly learn to use a different method in such situations, that juice may not be worth the squeeze.

 

[Stress_Test]

Preference goes a long way in these matters. ....................................

Agree with this. Visual perception seems like such a varied and nebulous thing from person to person, I don't think it's possible to objectively state "This is the best" for everyone and everything.

EDIT: and if you really want to see people going nuts arguing about color science and color tones, go check out a digital photography site or forum and look at the Sony vs. Canon vs. Nikon vs. Fuji topics. Holy guacamole Batman!

 

[bykfixer]

This thread has a classic CPF feel to it. Some of the posts have that way back in time theme going.
Love it.
I still use incan lights from time to time. Warts and all. But with certain bulbs becoming rare as an honest politician, I use them sparingly. Yet my ROP still causes me to giggle like a 2nd grader who just got away with looking up the hot new teacher's skirt.

 

[letschat7]

I use everything. That said happyness is a warm bulb.

 

[idleprocess]

Agree with this. Visual perception seems like such a varied and nebulous thing from person to person, I don't think it's possible to objectively state "This is the best" for everyone and everything.

Got new eyeglasses and Rx sunglasses recently. When asked for a shade on the sunglasses I looked at the three available flavours (green/brown/gray) and opted for gray. More than a week later and I'm still having to adjust to the blue shift relative to the brown tint on the prior set. Going from sunglasses to regular glasses everything is so much more brown for a few seconds - but the sense of visual perception does what it does and things adjust.

 

[orbital]

...Yet my ROP still causes me to giggle like a 2nd grader who just got away with looking up the hot new teacher's skirt.

+

More reasons the 80s' rocked

 

[LuxLuthor]

+

More reasons the 80s' rocked

70's 80's and even 90's

 

[Stress_Test]

I wanted to take some comparison photos of various lights and see what light looked best for (digital) photographs. Especially wanted to see how my Acebeam E70mini looks with the hi-cri emitters.

I thought about posting the photos in this thread but since it'd be buried way down, I figure I'll start a new thread once I get everything ready.

The disclaimer, though, is that it's hard to make such comparisons when the lights are different color temp (Kelvin) values, and also vastly different beam profiles. Some of the lights are throwers so I had to do the light-painting thing to try to hit the subject evenly.

It does make it harder to compare different lights if the target in the photo isn't being lit the same way, but I don't know any way around that other than just using the bare emitter with no reflector/optic. And no lens either, since the AR coating can introduce tints as well. And even THEN, some lighting relies on the optics to mix out the color gradient of the LED (to avoid a yellowish corona for example), so... yeah. Any comparo like this has to be taken with a grain of salt.

This does let me find out if there's a particular light that I definitely do NOT want to use for photos; some of mine have pretty strong tints, mainly green. That can be corrected in post-processing but it adds more work.

Anyway, I'll put it up in a new thread once I get everything ready.

 

[jross20]

We just got our first car with LED headlights last month and I'm honestly amazed by them. Never before have I experienced such a flawless beam from car's headlight. No weird artifacts like halogens. We were curious as to how the cooler color temperature would look when driving, but honestly it doesn't look as bad as we were afraid of. Other vehicles' LED headlights also don't look as harsh either, not sure if it's because of our eyes being adjusted to that color temperature or if it's the increased brightness of our's.

The high beams are really strange, the intensity doesn't appear to change, it just seems to add light above the high beam cutoff. Most of our driving so far has been in town or on highways, so haven't had any experience in more densely wooded areas to see how their color rendering is, especially with regards to animals blending in. That's definitely a problem I've experienced with my dedicated bike headlight.

It'll be interesting to see how they'll look in the winter with snow, but as of now, I have no desire to return to halogens.

The cooler temps might "look" easier to see, but in reality it makes it harder to see in the dark and blinds the rest of us. Honestly all headlights need to be legally required to be no more than 3000-3500k

 

[defloyd77]

The cooler temps might "look" easier to see, but in reality it makes it harder to see in the dark and blinds the rest of us. Honestly all headlights need to be legally required to be no more than 3000-3500k

Studies say otherwise with the results showing color temperatures closer to that of the sun (in other words cool white) enabled drivers to see more and gave more time to react. This should be of no surprise, humans are diurnal by nature and our vision has evolved to use the sun optimally, not fire and definitely not incandescents, which are really a quite recent thing in the grand scheme of things.

They ain't gonna pass a law banning the use of light deemed to provide the most useable and safe output.

 

[IMA SOL MAN]

Studies say otherwise with the results showing color temperatures closer to that of the sun (in other words cool white) enabled drivers to see more and gave more time to react. This should be of no surprise, humans are diurnal by nature and our vision has evolved to use the sun optimally, not fire and definitely not incandescents, which are really a quite recent thing in the grand scheme of things.

They ain't gonna pass a law banning the use of light deemed to provide the most useable and safe output.

"They" pass asinine laws all the time! Wake up!

 

[defloyd77]

🥱

 

[defloyd77]

70's 80's and even 90's

No love for the 60s? Actually come to think of it, the 50s and 00s deserve some love too for being the first and arguably the last generations respectively of rock (at least in the mainstream).

 

[LuxLuthor]

No love for the 60s? Actually come to think of it, the 50s and 00s deserve some love too for being the first and arguably the last generations respectively of rock (at least in the mainstream).

Oh for sure there are great 50's & 60's, but given current aging population...

 

[IMA SOL MAN]

Oh for sure there are great 50's & 60's, but given current aging population...

You would probably be surprised at how many of the "younger generations" like our oldies. I mean the music, not us old curmudgeons!

 

[ampdude]

The cooler temps might "look" easier to see, but in reality it makes it harder to see in the dark and blinds the rest of us. Honestly all headlights need to be legally required to be no more than 3000-3500k

With all the DOT regulations out there, it has always amazed me that they continue to allow blue headlights.

 

[ampdude]

humans are diurnal by nature and our vision has evolved to use the sun optimally, not fire and definitely not incandescents

We're most sensitive to green light. That doesn't mean green LED's are the best for navigation.

There are certain LED's that mimic the color temperature of the sun, that doesn't mean they have the same overall spectral output as the sun or that of a highly driven incan. That's where LED's fall flat. And make the world look flat.