Black yoyos. Are they harder to use?

General Yo-Yo
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I’m getting ready to make my first “expensive” yoyo purchase. Well, expensive for me, over $100. With the yoyo I plan to get next there are two color choices available, grey or black. My eyesite has always been a bit deficient and I have worn glasses since I was 4. Now at 60 I’m wondering about the effect of color on performance when doing higher level tricks. Does it make it harder to hit the string? Are lighter or brightly colored yoyos easier to track when doing tricks?

I know that a brightly colored yoyo would be more visible to an audience, but I will most likely never have an audience. I’m talking strictly about site from the performer perspective. I’m trying to decide between buying a new black or dark grey, or start watching for a used natural color.

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Not really, and if there exist a certain unclearness in using a black colored yoyo, I would imagine it would be so negligible that it shouldn’t matter. This is all from my experience tho (I use glasses too. Mild case of myopia).

I usually tend to stay away from black yoyos because I film myself a lot, so I always want my yoyos to pop in my videos.

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No, but you might like bright strings.
Even this won’t matter much.
Buy the color you like more.

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Is it the butter?

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I find black yoyos can sometimes be a little problematic. In low light conditions they can be harder to see, especially as we age and our low light vision deteriorates (I’m old enough to know first-hand that this is true). In normal or bright light conditions, a black yoyo will have less visible contours since shadows will be less apparent (black shadows on black object means less contrast), and shadows are what give objects, especially round ones, their sense of volume and shape.

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I find that color affects my ability to see the string more than the yoyo. With the yoyo I find that I feel it as much or more so than I see it.

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TI Vayder

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I literally have been selling a good portion of my black yoyos because I tend to yoyo at night and it’s legit annoying to play with black yoyos in low light. I have 20/20 eyesight, no issues there. It just requires more concentration which is super annoying when I’m trying to casually throw.

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Here is a view from a former Custom Painter that spent more than 2 decades talking to people about colors. People have so many ideas about what they are trying to achieve through colors. And there are just as many answers to the numerous end games envisioned.

Let’s move closer to the present to avoid my usual wall of text Thesis.

During my painting career, I painted many things that ended up black😳.

When I started modding yoyos in 1998, black was what I looked for. I just thought that was the thing.

Then… I started going to Contests, here and there. I immediately noticed something. A number of the players wore black shirts. And about half of them used black or darker yoyos.

Without good contrast, it was actually pretty difficult to ‘see’ what was going on. Obviously that was/is my opinion from a viewers standpoint.

I thought about that for a while. Then I just mothballed my thoughts.

As I started throwing more, I easily realized that certain lighting conditions and background colors presented various degrees of difficulty in seeing the yoyo in motion.

From a functional point of view, I personally feel that brighter colors are much easier to ‘see’ under a wider number of backgrounds. Easier for me to see. Easier for others to follow when viewing.

Over time as vision powers fade, the majority of yoyos that aren’t black or dark; are just much easier to follow in motion.

… if in a unbelievable dream, I was actually good enough to compete or produce instructional Yoyo trick videos. Black would be my very last place choice.

Black yoyos look sweet. But for most situations, most yoyos lighter and/or brighter than black, will be more useful.

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I have (and have had) a number of black yoyos. From a personal viewpoint I don’t find them hard to see when playing. From a spectator stand point I can see where it’s hard to see them and agree with yoyodoc…

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I don’t find that the colour effects things at all.

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I am much younger than you, but still, at my current 32 i got not really “perfect” vision. For a couple of years now i started to prefer a brighter yoyos instead of dark ones. Bright yoyos are certainly more visible in lower lighting, or on dark backgrounds.
No offence for dark yoyos, they are absolutely gorgeous, but mostly when they standing still on a table or on a shelf, in all their glory :smiley:

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Personally, I don’t have an issue with the colour of a yoyo unless it’s in low light conditions as many have suggested above.
In low light I find bright colours like pink or shiny colours like raw to be the best for those conditions.
I feel the string colour has more of a play in the ease of seeing what’s happening from a first person’s perspective and I use neon yellow strings for this reason, and also because that colour looks good to me in my eyes.

I have a grey Ti-Vayder to be more specific to your question and I have no issues with it, and even used it to yoyo in an aeroplane in low light.
But I am 33, with no major sight problems so your personal experience might be different to me.

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I have a lot of black yoyos and think they look classy with white strings. One downside to black is that they show every flaw, nick and pin prick you get from normal wear and play.

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From a playing perspective, black yoyos don’t give me any more problem than any other color. However, black string is nearly impossible for my old eyes to see

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Lol, black string. When I first got back into yoyoing the first string I purchased was a 10 pack of black Kitty string. I have used 1 of them. I have ok eyes (astigmatism, but im still in my early 30s and consider my eyesight with glasses to be sufficient enough with depth perception). but when I use black string, it is like putting the vision on hard mode. It doesn’t even stand out. Dark strings are terrible.

As for yoyo color, I don’t really notice much of a difference. Brighter colors are more visible in low light, so in theory they should be easier to see and thus easier to play with. In my experience this slight advantage really doesn’t play out, but ymmv.

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I was always afraid I’d have trouble seeing black yo-yos, but after getting my first, I find the string color is far more important, even/especially in poor lighting.

Now if you’re performing for an audience, you might want a yo-yo that’s easier for others to see, otherwise I find black to be not a problem at all. And unlike @MoonageMin, I do have eyesight problems at my overripe age of 41 :sweat_smile:

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I have always avoided buying black yoyos because I consider them aesthetically ugly (why clearing an aesthetic aspect so important when there are a multitude of beautiful colors ?!).
Anyway I have only one black yoyo, a prototype in black delrin and when I play it I don’t notice any difficulty.
I took the Ti-Vayder gray, I could have chosen it, I would have taken it raw (the natural color of the titan does not need anything else, it is beautiful in itself) I had found it only black, certainly I would have discolored it.

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i find that the yoyo doesn’t matter to me as much as the string.
i like brightly colored strings. i have some black ones because i thought they would look good. they do, but they’re hard to see.
the black yoyos i have are a little harder to see but that doesn’t effect my play as much as the string does.

kgb

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^ this. This is me, astigmatism and black Kitty string and all. Nothing but bright/neon for me these days.

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