Warm white in thrower lights ?

ank

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Am I the only one who doesn't see the utility of having warm colors in a thrower light?A thrower is supposed to be used to spot things far away, but a warm color would make it harder to distinguish the thing your are looking for from the surroundings.My understanding is that high CRI warm white is best for floody lights and cold white best for thrower lights.What are your thoughts on this?
 

Swedpat

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I think it may be correct that the tint is not so important for the purpose to detect objects at very long distance where you can't see details anyway. Still I prefer warm white tint even for throwers. At distance where you can see details it's better with the better color rendition, as well for the hotspot and the spill. Just to have the foreground illuminated with warm tint is enough for me to choose warm white even for a thrower.
 

TCY

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IMHO the only reason for going with cool white emitters in throwy lights is because of the slightly higher output hence better throw, many manufacturers only offer cool white lights to make brightness figure sound impressive, especially for larger thrower lights. Neutral tint & high CRI emitter produce roughly 20% less lumens than its cool white variant given the same current. For colour rendering higher CRI and neutral tint is always better. 6000K + CCT cool white tint with low CRI washes out colour pretty severely thus somewhat works against identifying objects at a distance. That said, (extreme) distance does mitigate this effect since no one can capture that much detail from afar.
 

Cerealand

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Some dont use thrower to its full potential. I have a few throwers and I mainly use it to look across a yard.
 

ma tumba

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I specifically went for a dedomed 4000k xpg so that I have that pleasant incand beam. I just dont like anything cooler than that, at night
 

Connor

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My understanding is that high CRI warm white is best for floody lights and cold white best for thrower lights.What are your thoughts on this?

High CRI is always better to distinguish things quickly because colour and contrast are the most natural, i.e. what your brain is used to. You're giving up a little bit (~20%ish) of total brightness for that. Your choice.
 
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holygeez03

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I think we are forgetting that the the terms CRI, tint, and color temperature are not the same thing... again.
 

Swedpat

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I think we are forgetting that the the terms CRI, tint, and color temperature are not the same thing... again.

That's true. Same color temperature can be of different tints. But I find warm tints practically always more natural looking and better CRI than cool tints. In my eyes warm white and high CRI are close to each other and cool white is distinctly separated from these. 4000K or less, whether it's CRI 80 or 90+ gives an incandescent feeling.
 

holygeez03

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With typically available LED's maybe... but there are plenty of light sources that are on the cool end of the spectrum and provide high CRI... and I have seen warm light sources with poor CRI... all three things are not directly linked.

A camera flash/strobe is typically "cool", but have a very high CRI (or they wouldn't be very useful for photography).
 
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Keitho

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In terms of warm vs cool in thrower vs flooder lights, I tend to use or have a combination of lights with me (for example, a flood with a spot/flood; or, a flood headlamp with a thrower flashlight). My preference is to have relatively close color temps between the lights that I'm using; my preferences also tend towards warm, and higher CRI. So, I tend to buy and use warm, higher-CRI lights for both flood and throw. Of course, I've managed to justify exceptions to myself (for example, HDS high noon is on the way, hopefully soon--justified to myself because the cooler color temp and high CRI will be more pleasant to me at work during the daytime, in a factory environment with cool facility lighting).
 

Hugh Johnson

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There's a discussion on the other forum right now about how a NW emitter is getting longer throw and clarity on the GT project.
 

holygeez03

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I think that's along the same lines as "5 is always greater than 4"... I believe it's the mathematical property of "duh".

I can't imagine a scenario in which less CRI is desirable... but I guess someone could come up with something.

Again, this has nothing to do with whether the light is "cool" or "warm"... or greenish or reddish, etc.
 

Modernflame

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High CRI is always better to distinguish things quickly because colour and contrast are the most natural, i.e. what your brain is used to. You're giving up a little bit (~20%ish) of total brightness for that. Your choice.

I too prefer neutrals or warm white in any light, but the typical ~70 CRI from a 6000K CW emitter is sufficient to identify most anything.
 

Tachead

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I too prefer neutrals or warm white in any light, but the typical ~70 CRI from a 6000K CW emitter is sufficient to identify most anything.

Except accurate colours. Many electricians, engineers, and mechanics can't use low CRI cool white lights as they can't correctly identify colours in wiring harnesses etc.
 

Connor

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Citation needed.

Millions of years of evolution made our eyes best adapted to the ever present light source: sunlight.
Low CRI lights are missing rather large parts of the visible spectrum so things which reflect these particular frequencies are less visible and less contrasty.
Since there are a lot of red/brown/earthen tones in nature the difference is pretty huge.
 
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