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Well... guess I have a favorite lens. A Trail of Trails

Trail Torch is good in my opinion for a couple different reasons :
  • If Trail is too bright for you, especially when moving between shade out into open sunny/brighter space (such as if you're mountain biking)
  • If Trail exhibits too much contrast for you (ie: getting a little too psychedelic for you)
  • Or if you really don't like people being able to see your eyes behind the lens (though can still somewhat behind Torch, just more mirrored when you're getting hit with the sun).
Torch has less 'pop' in the reds/browns/yellows and is pretty evenly reduced across the board much like Prizm Road, instead of spiking in brightness towards the red end. Even though they're 36% and 35% VLT, the red/orange end on Trail is more like 50%+, and Torch is petty much 35% VLT across the board.
Great explanation... hey @Jon the Don thank you if you sent @KarlBlessing my way. Not sure you did. But he was a true gentleman and great to work with! People feel free to check his items out in the exchange (shameless plug).
 
Are they really!? Where did you see that. I believe you but hadn't heard that.
Just seems like an odd move seeing that it's relatively new-ish (well 4 years compared to many other options), but also seemingly popular, but I'm wondering if people really prefer a mirror finish more so than the visuals thru the back. Especially considering that you can't get Trail Torch as a stand alone lens on some of the frames.
 
@KarlBlessing do you have a comparo of the trail vs the trail torch? I did see the comparo video on SportRx and that was anything but helpful. I gather it leans more towards the red vs the orange, is that it?
 
@KarlBlessing do you have a comparo of the trail vs the trail torch? I did see the comparo video on SportRx and that was anything but helpful. I gather it leans more towards the red vs the orange, is that it?
I can try to render a side by side with my camera that's tweaked slightly to mimic what you might interpret with your eyes.

Like I did with Trail here (sort of a before/after):

giphy.gif


But far as Wearing Trail vs Trail Torch, color wise they're nearly identical, the video on SportsRX does make sense in terms of the spectral chart they gives, and matches what I see in the lens. In that Trail is a much higher contrast, anything that's not on the red end is reduced in brightness causing things towards the red end to pop more. Trail Torch looks almost identical, except lower contrast because the red/orange end is reduced in luminance. So the color itself isn't necessarily changed, just decreased in overall brightness which ends up making the contrast seem more muted.

So doesn't lean more red or orange, they're the same as far as hue goes, just lower contrast and darker across the board if that makes sense.
 
Well, not phased out, but looking at current offerings, you see more and more Torch and less and less trail. RJ, plasma, the upcoming Kato, Jawbreaker, sutro, etc: Torch only

Custom and replacement lemses aside of course
Noticing course that the Torch are not usually available as replacement lenses, so that may be more a marketing strategy to push certain colorways (or model featuring Torch).

Kind of make sense in a way, having the standard trail available on a frame by default is probably going to have more returns as it can be 'too intense', whereas torch I'd imagine is more suitable to people who aren't as used to that kind of bump or will be using it in a lot of variable light. If you're buying a Trail lens separately, you are feeling the need for popping.

Well that's my speculation of it anyways :p
 

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