Color Rendition. The "white" LED lamp simply does not accurately render colors. The blueish cast of these lights is not like daylight at all, as it's lacking the color spectrum of the incandescent lamp.
The incandescent lamp does not give a colour spectrum which would be representative of daylight either.
Spectral power distribution output from a Tungsten Halogen Bulb
Spectral power distribution output from a White LED
The light colour from a traditional Mag Light is a very yellow colour and a lot of the energy spectrum is in the infra red, hence the poor visable light emissive efficiency compared to a White LED. Trying to determining accurate colours using either a Tungsten halogen or White LED would be difficult in both cases when compared to natural daylight.
It could be that because the light from the Tungsten halogen bulb has a smoother less variable colour spectrum than the White LED spectrum it could be that interpreting colours by the human eye is less taxing and confusing.
Certainly an interesting observation though. Does everyone at the fire company have the same reservations about the new white LEDs? I suspect they would considering they have all passed the same colour blindness tests.
Previous Topic
Index
