Best color for night vision

Lightdoctor

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First of all let me introduce myself to this forum. I'm an specialty electrician working with comercial lighting, so I'm not clueless...

My question is about automotive lighting, due to the fact I'm wanting to learn more. I've been to Daniel stern's site and have read everything there. OK, now to the point. From the research I've done, our eyes don't work well with blue light, so I went the other way and bought Narva Azzurro H4's for my truck. (Been using Philips extreme power H4's, but the back dazzle from light colored surfaces tweaks my eyes where there's no street lights.) I like the Azzurros but, it seems like I can't see as good with them, especially on roads coated with deicer. Is this just an illusion?
Please enlighten, 'cause I'm still Unenlightened!
 

-Virgil-

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Welcome to the board. Your question isn't quite as simple as it might seem; light color is generally secondary to pure photometry (how much light you have and how it's focused, i.e., where it's sent), though blue light can really screw up your ability to see. Basics first, please...what kind of vehicle are you driving, and what kind of headlamps is it equipped with?
 

Lightdoctor

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Welcome to the board. Your question isn't quite as simple as it might seem; light color is generally secondary to pure photometry (how much light you have and how it's focused, i.e., where it's sent), though blue light can really screw up your ability to see. Basics first, please...what kind of vehicle are you driving, and what kind of headlamps is it equipped with?

2004 Toyota Tacoma with factory free form clear optics.
 

-Virgil-

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Don't mess with bulb color in either direction (blue or yellow). If you're sticking with unmodified factory wiring, put in these bulbs. Check your voltage drop in the headlamp circuit (remember to check it with the headlamps connected and turned on, not by just probing the pulled-off socket). If it's substantial (above about 0.5v across the whole circuit) put in relays and better wiring then put in these bulbs. If the headlamps are hazed, polish them and reapply hardcoat. Make sure they are aimed correctly.
 

Wok

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Lightdoctor

I believe the Tacoma is similar to the HiLux in Australia...if you intend to improve your wiring with relays, please check the supply to your bulbs. The Hilux switches the ground return & DS circuit won't work [active switching].
If you need the circuit for negative switching I will post it.

eng hoe
 

-Virgil-

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Yeah, you do need to set up the circuit correctly; Toyota's headlamp circuit is different from any others I'm aware of (though I'm not sure where Wok's term "active switching" comes from). Looks like DS has relay kits specifically for Toyotas and some mention of different kinds of circuits on his relay page, but I don't see a diagram for the Toyota circuit. Wok, why not post your diagram here? I'd be interested to see how you get around the high beam indicator light problem.
 

Lightdoctor

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I'm already using the Philips Xtreme Power H4 lamps...best H4 out there. I won't use an overwatt lamp...don't trust them. Lenses are clear and like new...vehicle already has a relay system, so the line loss would be minimal. (Relay box near headlamps.)
 

-Virgil-

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Not sure what you don't trust about any/all higher-wattage bulbs. Sure, there's a ton of junk on the market and yes, you can't just throw in giant big-watt bulbs, but the 70/65w Osram is a terrific upgrade over Xtreme Power and is compatible with most stock wiring, particularly that equipped with relays -- and without a dangerous level of glare in headlights like yours, as long as they're aimed correctly.

This advice does not apply across all headlamps, but specifically to certain types, including large well-focused H4s like yours. The H4 system has very good inherent glare control because of the low beam filament shield, but that same shield means you only get to use 55% of your total lens and reflector area to gather and focus light. The tradeoff is sharp beam focus, but low flux within the beam. On the other end of the scale you have something like an HB1 (9004), HB5 (9007) or H13 bulb, which has no filament shield, and while virtually 100% of the reflector and lens area is used to collect and direct light for low beam (so there's more light within the beam than with H4), that same 100% of the reflector and lens is also used for high beam, so focus is always a compromise and there's no inherent glare control in the system.

An ordinary H4 60/55w bulb produces 1000 lumens on low beam at 13.2v. The 70/65w H4 produces 1350 lumens on low beam at 13.2v. An HB5 or H13 produces about 1200 lumens on low beam at 13.2v. So if you put a 70/65w H4 in place of a 60/55w H4, you have 35% more light, or 1.35 times the baseline value. We still have the efficiency disadvantage of using only 55% of the reflector/lens to collect light, so multiply the 1.35 times 0.55 and you get 0.7425. Multiply that times the output of the new bulb and get 1002 lumens. Now you're within a parking lamp intensity's worth of range of the available light of an HB5 or H13. So what you have done is kept the inherently sharp focus and good glare control of your lamps, while boosting the light level within the beam to that available from more efficient but less well focused systems.

It is worth noting that this is essentially what the Brits did at one point before just adopting the European standard (in which the 60/55w power of the H4 was and is standardized). The Brits had some of the same objections at that time back in the '70s that US regulators still presently have to the European headlamp standard. The British headlight industry for a time produced sealed-beam halogen headlamps with 70/65w H4-type internal bulbs and the English optical prescription that was a questionably-modified European beam pattern, flopped horizontally for British left-side traffic. England's reputation for mediocre vehicle electrics aside, those were not bad headlamps. Eventually the Brits just went ahead and adopted the European standard altogether, unmodified, and those nonstandard-wattage lights went away. But even if their optical philosophy was kind of screwy and leading them down a blind alley, so to speak, the idea/principle was completely sound.
 
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Wok

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This is the generic method used locally for Toyota 4WDs, it has been around for yonks. I used it in 1985 in a FJ60.I made up connecters to mimic the lamp end so that I could return to OEM if the relay failed in the field.

eng hoe
 

Lightdoctor

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The information that has been posted so far is all good, but my original question was about what color was best for overall vision. I personally like the Narva Azzurro halogen lamp. I find the yellowish light easier on the eyes especially in inclement weather. (From personal experience, I find to much foreground light to be detrimental to night vision, especially if the light source has a high amount of blue in the output spectrum, hence why I like yellowish light. I have no science for this, just personal experience and on-line research.)

Thanks for all the input so far.
 

-Virgil-

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Well, OK, if you're bound and determined to focus on light color, and you like the selective yellow, then put in the Philips Xtreme Power 60/55w H4 bulb with a reusable clip-on selective yellow balloon. This way you get the improved output and beam focus of the XP bulb (the Azurro, which is no longer made, is a standard-output, standard-focus design) and you get the selective-yellow light color you like.
 

jtr1962

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The information that has been posted so far is all good, but my original question was about what color was best for overall vision.
If you want to look at from a safety standpoint, peripheral vision is almost entirely based on rods which have near-zero response to light of wavelengths longer than about 620 nm. Also, at lower light levels sensitivity of forward vision shifts from the photopic to the mesopic ( i.e. in between phototopic and scotopic ). For all of these reasons then, light heavy in longer wavelengths is less than optimal for night vision. HPS and LPS sodium street lights represent an extreme, but even "white light" in lower CCTs isn't as optimal as higher CCTs.

It also isn't that simple. Higher CCTs taken to an extreme increase glare and don't improve vision ( actually quite the opposite ). The optimal range seems to be ~4500K but 1000K on either side isn't that much worse. So to answer your question, white light of 3500K to 5500K works best for night vision, with ~4500K being optimal for most people. Some might prefer it a little lower, others a little higher. I'm not sure the selective yellow you seem to lean towards would be a good choice from a safety standpoint. You can pretty much kiss your peripheral vision goodeye. Then again, that's usually the case on roads lit with sodium lights anyway, so you're probably not making things any worse with selective yellow, at least on lighted roads. The street lights overpower whatever color the car's headlights are, with the end result being "tunnel vision".
 
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Lightdoctor

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Thanks for the information guys. This clears up some confusion on my part. I've heard that yellow was best, and my eyes seemed to agree with that. I went back to the Philips Xtreme Power due to not seeing as well with the Azzurros. I didn't know the Narvas were not as focused as the Philips. Thanks again, I'll keep the XP H4's.

BTW, I've heard that the Kelvin ratting for the XP's is 3400; is this correct?
 

robinson

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These references posted by jtr1962 are very interesting indeed. Reading them implies that the intensity of the light on the task affects the optimal lamp CCT for that task. This is an interesting aspect to the constant debates in this forum as to which color LED is the "best".
It would seem that as LED's are getting brighter, the optimal color temp would be heading toward the green. This is what seems to be the movement here. Previously, when the light output was lower, people loved the bright white (6500K) of the LED versus the incandescent lamps. Now people are wanting a little lower temp LED's possibly because the outputs have gotten much brighter in the past few years.

A question for you jtr1962 is how does CRI enter into all this stuff?
 
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-Virgil-

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Thanks for the information guys. This clears up some confusion on my part. I've heard that yellow was best

Can't imagine where you might've heard that. There are certain situations in which yellow works better (namely: foul weather -- the linked page contains links to studies and experiments on the matter), but for ordinary dry-weather seeing, there's no advantage to yellow.

BTW, I've heard that the Kelvin ratting for the XP's is 3400; is this correct?

No. It's about 3200K.
 

-Virgil-

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how does CRI enter into all this stuff?

It doesn't, really. Automotive HIDs have relatively poor CRI (in the 72 to 75 range), but the color rendition is still adequately safe; drivers don't mistake colors for one another in any way that would pose a safety hazard. The CRI has to get really rotten before there's a safety problem; low-pressure sodium streetlights, for example, reduce the visible world to monochrome (black-and-orange); it's impossible to discern one fluid from another. Oil, coolant, gasoline, blood? All look very similar under LPS streetlights.

LED headlamps, even today's early ones, have considerably better CRI than HIDs, and as a result are qualitatively/subjectively nicer to drive with at night; colors look more lifelike.

Properly-fed halogen headlamps with uncolored bulbs have a CRI of nearly 100.
 

Hamilton Felix

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I can't help wondering if, given the same luminosity, I'll see any better with 3,200K halogen or 4,200K HID -- or if I'll notice any difference.

On my way home, I see two big lights on a tall pole at the mill; one is orange HPS and one is blue MV. I wonder if the yard they illuminate looks weird, if the two cancel out each other's faults and allow decent color rendition.
 
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