I popped home for lunch and there waiting is a package
It's the Zebralight H51w
I already own the H51 (cool white version) it is one of my most used light out of my collection, often used in moonlight mode. I see much love on different forums for neutral lights and decided to see what the fuss was about, so I decided the H51w will be my first neutral.
H51w and H51
Build quality as always is top notch from zebralight, seriously, if you don't already own a Zebralight, you are missing out. Just with my H51 the machining on the H51w is superb and the emitter is perfectly centred. Zebralight have a UI which is a cut above the rest in this price bracket - instant access to moonlight and full power and well spaced modes.
Baring in mind this is my first neutral light: I switched it on for the first time, my first thoughts were something along the lines of "Hmm.. well that's different!". Quite yellow and, well.. warmer (derrr!). I wasn't sure what to make of it. The tint didn't really look like what I had in mind for a neutral emitter.
I took it down to my basement along with my H51 side by side and placed them both on high mode.
Something that stood out to me straight away: Cool lights are are creepy. No doubt about it. I agree with the train of thought out there that cool lights create this surreal/end of the world/cold/bad vibe of a feeling, the camera can't capture it but I feel the creepy-ness is present. It's not until you try a neutral or warm light that you can see how unnatural and weird cool lights can look. It is a personal thing though, and I will come back to my thoughts on tint a bit later.
Allowing my eyes to adjust to this new wavelength, I walked around with the H51w for 5 minutes down in the basement, I found the light produced from the H51w to be very pleasing and easy on the eye by a massive amount. These thoughts were reinforced every time I flicked from the H51w to the H51 to compare them.
Basement:
H51
H51w
The camera captures the light from the H51w in a different light here, it isn't as red as the photo suggests. Daylight white balance used.
Out in the garden now:
H51
H51w
H51
H51w
It is noticeable that the light output from the H51w is less than the H51 to the eye. I am looking at it tonight and feel like I want more light output from it, having said that I am saying the same about the H51! Purely because I think I am being greedy and am forgetting that these are headlamps. I have been spoilt with a Cree XM-L being driven at 3amps in my other light.
There is a lack of punch (brightness wise) with the H51w but that lack of punch is forgotten about when you look at the beam tint, there is a punch in colours, things look.. normal. It is very very nice indeed. The H51w seems to have a nicer spread of beam compared to my H51 which has a smaller hotspot and a more harsh spot to spill nature of the beam, odd.
I really like the neutral tint. Some say once you go neutral you will not be interested in cool tints any more. It is early days and I have no intention of ditching my cool lights.. I find the sheer lumen output of cool lights appealing and fun they have *POW* factor
! But for actual real long term usage I think neutrals are very appealing. I have only owned the light for a few hours so will see how I settle in with it.
I think the next step would be to go for a 18650 based P60 neutral drop-in which drives the emitter hard. With neutral XM-L emitters due out very soon, I think I will wait.
