PbnJdams
Junior Member
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2021
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- Location
- Great White North
- Ram Year
- 2015
- Engine
- Pentastar 3.6
I've seen a ton of people posting about upgrading headlights. What should I get? Projectors, LED's, HID's, Color Temp Etc? I am also sick of having my corneas burned out by overpowered cool blues on the backroads. So in the interest of having the most useable headlight here are a few things everyone should know.
1. Lumens vs Lux
More lumens do not necessarily mean more useable light. Lumens are a measure of output, Lux is a measure of useable light per square meter. In photometry, Lux is specifically measured by the amount of usable light for the human eye. But you cant really measure Lux in the context of a bulb without knowing about what is reflecting the light and a variety of other variables. Most importantly, no one would buy crazy colored lights, because they don't produce as much usable light.
2. Color temperature AKA KELVIN
Since no one measures their headlights/bulbs in lux, what we need to do is optimize light for the human eye. Our primary source of light for all of history has been the sun, our eyes have adapted to sunlight as the optimal color temperature. Sunlight, as measured from earth is approximately 5800K-ish but varies a lot depending on what is between you and the sunlight (atmosphere, clouds etc.)
(Another important note K/Kelvin color temperature is not an indication of power, it is an indication of color temperature. A 5800K light with identical output to a 10000K light will actually be more useful to the human eye, since our eyes prefer color temperatures closer to the sun.)
"Got it 5800K, perfect color temp, can I stop reading this nerd ****?" Almost done, promise.
3. Why yellow is better than blue
So we've talked about the way that light is supplied and how being closer to 5800K is better, but there is a little more to consider. Aside from our eyes being bad at blocking blue light, there are a ton of nasty side effects from blue light. I'll post an article at the end if you want to read more about some of the positives and lots of the negatives of blue light (especially the digital blue light).
Our eyes have little things inside them called cones, for sake of brevity of I won't get into what they do beyond telling you they sense, react to, and receive light. Cones are sensitive to three colors: red, green, and blue. You can see that our cones are least sensitive to blue light and most sensitive to red light. The cool part about cones is that more than one cone can react and receive light at one point in time. So you can see that our cones really like green and red. Green and red make yellow, so to activate both green and red cones you need a yellow-y light.
"You idiot, 5800k is white, now you are saying use yellow? Who is this guy."
So, what is the conclusion?
You have to determine what is best for your eyes.
Now that I've said that, I don't think any color temp about 5800K is necessary or useful. For optimum viewing, I think lights 3200K-4800K range are best for you and everyone else on the road.
Any more yellow (lower K) and they seem less powerful, any more blue (higher K) and you start straining your eyes and burning others out.
PSA
Don't forget if you lift or level your truck that your headlights need to be adjusted and it literally takes 10 minutes.
Blue light bad - https://www.allaboutvision.com/cvs/blue-light.htm
Okay, I'm done now.
1. Lumens vs Lux
More lumens do not necessarily mean more useable light. Lumens are a measure of output, Lux is a measure of useable light per square meter. In photometry, Lux is specifically measured by the amount of usable light for the human eye. But you cant really measure Lux in the context of a bulb without knowing about what is reflecting the light and a variety of other variables. Most importantly, no one would buy crazy colored lights, because they don't produce as much usable light.
2. Color temperature AKA KELVIN
Since no one measures their headlights/bulbs in lux, what we need to do is optimize light for the human eye. Our primary source of light for all of history has been the sun, our eyes have adapted to sunlight as the optimal color temperature. Sunlight, as measured from earth is approximately 5800K-ish but varies a lot depending on what is between you and the sunlight (atmosphere, clouds etc.)
(Another important note K/Kelvin color temperature is not an indication of power, it is an indication of color temperature. A 5800K light with identical output to a 10000K light will actually be more useful to the human eye, since our eyes prefer color temperatures closer to the sun.)
"Got it 5800K, perfect color temp, can I stop reading this nerd ****?" Almost done, promise.
3. Why yellow is better than blue
So we've talked about the way that light is supplied and how being closer to 5800K is better, but there is a little more to consider. Aside from our eyes being bad at blocking blue light, there are a ton of nasty side effects from blue light. I'll post an article at the end if you want to read more about some of the positives and lots of the negatives of blue light (especially the digital blue light).
Our eyes have little things inside them called cones, for sake of brevity of I won't get into what they do beyond telling you they sense, react to, and receive light. Cones are sensitive to three colors: red, green, and blue. You can see that our cones are least sensitive to blue light and most sensitive to red light. The cool part about cones is that more than one cone can react and receive light at one point in time. So you can see that our cones really like green and red. Green and red make yellow, so to activate both green and red cones you need a yellow-y light.
"You idiot, 5800k is white, now you are saying use yellow? Who is this guy."
So, what is the conclusion?
You have to determine what is best for your eyes.
Now that I've said that, I don't think any color temp about 5800K is necessary or useful. For optimum viewing, I think lights 3200K-4800K range are best for you and everyone else on the road.
Any more yellow (lower K) and they seem less powerful, any more blue (higher K) and you start straining your eyes and burning others out.
PSA
Don't forget if you lift or level your truck that your headlights need to be adjusted and it literally takes 10 minutes.
Blue light bad - https://www.allaboutvision.com/cvs/blue-light.htm
Okay, I'm done now.
because even if the color temperature is right, neither ~4700k nor ~5600k truly looks like sunlit skin tones.
