Shadows have become darker since 1.8...

So I was playing around with the new command blocks in an air world and I put a 3x3 platform ontop of my7x7 platform and I noticed that these shadows are alot darker than I remember, this is not one of those old lighting glitches, this is new to me. My Brightness is 50%, when I changed it to 100% it didn't really change at all.
I have provided two screenshots. One up close to the shadow and another showing the platform making the shadow.