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photoman12001
83
Jan 29, 2017
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I took a photo to try and give everyone an idea of the color tint difference you can expect between the Cree and Nichia LEDs. This photo was done with my iPhone and the white balance is not perfectly adjusted but it should give you an idea of the relative difference in color temperature. I wouldn't use it as a great gauge for relative brightness but you can see the Nichia isn't as bright as the Cree. The difference is more noticeable in person. The Lumintop Cree and Olight have very similar cool, bluish tints. The Malkoff M61W has a beautiful incandescent-like tint. The Lumintop Nichia falls somewhere in between the Lumintop Cree/Olight S2 and the Malkoff M61W. I'm just not sure that the slightly better tint offsets the reduced brightness for the Nichia. I'm happy to have both but if I had to choose one it would be the Cree. However, the Malkoff M61W's tint is good enough to justify the reduced brightness in my opinion. Malkoff's cooler tinted LEDs are very bright. His W LEDs, which stand for "warm", are still bright but they sacrifice maximum output for warmer tones. This seems to be the case for LEDs in general. Warmer (more yellow) color tone leads to less maximum output. The warmer tones are more pleasing to the eye and render colors better without washing them out.
Edit: By the way, the flashlight brightness settings in this photo were: Lumintop Tool Cree XP-G2 = Medium Malkoff M61W = High (I installed his retaining ring switch that allows for a high and low setting) Lumintop Tool Nichia = Medium Olight S2 = Medium
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The Lumintop Tool lights are just awesome for EDC use. Both LEDs are great and the lights offer great functionality for their size regardless of which LED you choose.
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Jan 29, 2017
B.man
124
Jan 29, 2017
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photoman12001I hear that a lot Cree is brighter than Nichia HCRI. The thing is they could've drive Nichia's Led a bit harder to get there. I don't think people care about runtime as much. If you use rechargeable a 20min hit it's not gonna be a deal breaker. I have 4 aaa and I have a hard time depleting those.
Jan 29, 2017
photoman12001
83
Jan 29, 2017
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B.manI agree; if they can do it I would sacrifice some run time to get both max (comparable to the cooler toned LEDs) output and a nice, warm color tone. All of the lights I used above are run on rechargeables (18650 for the Olight S2 and Malkoff, NiMH AAA for the Lumintop Tools). If I weren't using rechargeables I might not think that way though. I don't know anything about the actual technology and engineering that goes into producing the warmer toned LEDs. Maybe it's just not currently possible to make them as bright as the cooler toned versions or maybe the battery life is drastically reduced. I'm sure the smart folks will continue to make improvements on these fronts. When LED flashlights first came out they had terrible blue tints and weren't very bright. We've come a long way since then.
Jan 29, 2017
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