The color white comes in many different shapes and sizes. Think about daylight white – it starts real warm and yellowish, turns very cool (in degrees Kelvin, not centigrade) , and then warms up again during sunset. What about paint – have you ever tried to pick out the perfect white for the new bathroom? Eggshell, semi gloss…you name it!
Lighting isn’t all that different. ‘White’ can vary from a yellowish to bluish hue. Before LEDs you were stuck with the color temperature of your everyday light bulb. Incandescent & halogen bulbs are a yellow, soft white. Many residents prefer a soft white and don’t like the pure or cool white CFL lights.
LED MR16 Light Color Temperature Comparison
Finally, we have a choice. LEDs come in warm white, pure white or cool white. Check out this photo of four different MR16s from Green Lighting LED. On the left hand side is a very warm, soft white matching an incandescent bulb (2700K). Second from the left is another warm white option matching a halogen light (3200K). The third bulb over is close to a fluorescent tube at 4500K and finally our cool white bulb shines a cool, bluish-white (6000K).
That doesn’t mean LEDs are perfect, either. Each diode has a slight variation on the color temperature. With a high quality diode, this isn’t noticeable, but ‘cheapies’ or even quality 5mm (DIP) diodes have wide color temperature ranges. Warm white could be 3000-3500K. Pretty wide difference in color temperature there. SMD diodes from a quality manufacturer like Cree have a much tighter range (150 or so degrees). It’s important to understand about the variations in diodes because this directly affects pricing of products. This is one of the many reasons we strongly recommend Cree SMD diodes and use the XP-E as a standard chip for many products.
In the photos here, we used our standard Cree diode to make a color temperature comparison. We used our 9 watt MR16 LED for the photo.
- LED Lighting Color Temperatures Using MR16 LEDs
Which color white do you prefer? Do you go for the warm, fuzzy feeling of a warm white or the clear, crisp illumination of daylight white? Take a look at the photos and let us know what you like!
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Great article. Loving how much led lighting saves you.
For my car I prefer to have the cooler white for the interior just so I can find something easily if I need to. For my home though, I actually prefer the warmer color. It makes it feel a lot more comfortable and not so much like a hospital.
Dear Car LED Light:
I think lots of people would agree with you (warm white inside a home, cool white in other applications). There are some unique applications like the interior of a car where a cooler color temperature white really looks sharp:
We recently provided LED lights for a jewelry store which looked at PAR30 lights in 3200K, 4100K and 6000K. In the end, they went with 4100K. It really makes the diamonds sparkle!
Thanks for the post,
Josh
You got great points there, that’s why I always love checking out your blog.
Depends on which room at home. Warmer in bedrooms and living areas. Coller in bath and kitchen. Visitors are always struck by the “cool feel” and higher visibility no matter which color choice.
Correction: “cooler”
Hi, First off, thanks a lot admin with this great placing in such a awesome site (greenlightingled.com). Thank you.
I have read the article and was looking for the produced illumination that was closest to natural light. My girlfriend recently ran into a big problem because we have flourescent lights throughout the house. She was taking an art class and had to produce a number of colour wheels. Everytime she took it back to class it was wrong, because the flourescents did not produce illumination in the ‘natural’ range. In the end she had to buy an incandescent in order to achieve what was required for the course. If there are options that art students could use, it would be appreciated. Keep in mind that the instructors are looking for “true” colours and don’t really have any acceptance of anything less than that.
Richard,
If I understand correctly, you are looking for a light that makes reds look red, blues look blue and in general makes the colors naturally look vibrant? This is rated by a color rating index or CRI.
Incandescent and halogen lights have a CRI of 100 (the best). LEDs are somewhere in the 80s, but some high CRI lights exist in the low 90s. The highest rated LED I have personally held was rated >95 and was a PAR38. Typically, the price goes up with the increase in CRI and the light output goes down. Strangely, with many manufacturers of LEDs CRI also goes down as the color temperature goes up. This depends on the chip being used in the bulb. LM-80 data should have this info on the individual chip.
Fluorescent lamps have 60-70 CRI. HPS bulbs have very poor CRI (in the 20s) and create the streetlight or tunnel light orange glow where telling between colors becomes much more difficult.
So for vibrant colors, nothing beats a cloudy day or an incandescent light bulb yet, but LEDs are getting closer with new manufacturing technology in the diodes.
I feel good, I’m interested in
Isn’t 6500K supposed to be “perfect” white? That’s what I found references to. ( e.g.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminant_D65 )
But on this picture it looks totally blue. Why?
Hi Zsolt,
First, thanks for the comment. It’s all relative.
6500K is a very ‘bluish’ white to our eyes (and especially our camera’s). The camera probably makes it look extra blue because of the direct comparison to other shades of white in the photo. A room full of 6500K would not look blue by itself, but if you compared photos to a room with 3000K, the 3K would look yellow and the 6500K would look blue. 6500K is like a cloudy day.
Thanks,
Josh
OK. Thanks for the info!
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I generally prefer the daylight first, and the cool white second. I have never liked warm white or soft white, in fluorescents or LEDs.
What I really want is an LED that fills in the spectral gaps. Often objects in the green, cyan, or violet areas show a strong color change under LED, compared to sunlight or incandescent.
Twitter: christian.norgaardmac.com
says:
Hi,
Nice article!
I intend to totally revamp my offices, replacing the 12 & 220v halogen 50w spotlights with LED’s. I work in a medical center so lighting is important (both for working purposes and to greet patients in a possibly cosy environment..
My questions before ordering are:
1) What would the lumen equivalent of a 50w halogen spotlight be? I have found leds in the 400-500 Lm range that seem to fit the bill according to the website
2) Regarding colour temperature: I was thinking a warm white (3000K) in the waiting room for a cosy greeting, and a cooler white (6000K) in the offices for better vision + I read somewhere that for a working light, the cooler the better…?
Any insights?
Thanks!
Christian