Thanks for the quick responses—- for me it’s not the time to do the PH test (whether meter or Taylor, I use the same sample bottle that I use for all testing); it’s more the color matching that gives me problems as I’m old also and my eyes are not what they use to be. With Taylor test, I always ask my wife for an opinion and go with her answer.
Difficulty reading color-comparing pH drop tests is an excellent reason to use a meter. That said, I wasn't referring to the red/green thing. Women can distinguish more shades of red than we can, even when we can clearly see that something is red. (Though that and the red/green blindness might very well be related somehow physiologically. I wouldn't know, I'm just regurgitating the men/women thing.)
It changes the intensity of the color, not the actual color. It is how I do my pH testing.
I test indoors, under a strip of under-counter LED lights that are fairly color-neutral. That gives me very consistent, repeatable conditions (as opposed to testing outside). I hold a white card behind my pH test and angle it such that it reflects light through vial and color bars. Same same. Phone is a good idea, too, though if you alter your brightness regularly that is a tiny bit less "consistent, repeatable."
Dirk gets a big, shiny TFP Gold Star for that statement. Consistency and seeing trends are far more important than being obsessively accurate. I hope all of us bring that statement into our TFP vocabulary.
You've missed my point, I think. My MO assures me of consistent, repeatable results. My LEDs are in the middle of spectrum, but that doesn't really matter. We are comparing a red test result color to shades of red on a chart. The type of color of the chart's colors closely resemble the type of color of the test sample, because we're looking through both, with the same background behind. It doesn't matter if the reflected and/or ambient light is tweaking the two colors we're comparing slightly blue or slightly yellow, whatever, the colors can still be accurately compared relative to each other. It's not like we're comparing a clear vial of colored water to a chart of colors printed on opaque paper, which would indeed be much more affected by reflected and ambient light. And because I'm using the same exact light source, indoors, every time I test, I can trust any trends I might see because I've eliminated most all of the variables.
