N30 First Impressions

[Flashanator]

Its RT10000, but they have change it from what it use to be.

Now it has a shallow reflector...
2 x 6v SLA rather then a 12v SLA
Different legs/stand

 

[flasherByNight]

How does the light selector switch work?

I see the big switch on the side near the handle, does that operate both the HID and LED's? 2 toggles...1 for led, 1 for HID, mid for off?

 

[Northern Lights]

How does the light selector switch work?

I see the big switch on the side near the handle, does that operate both the HID and LED's? 2 toggles...1 for led, 1 for HID, mid for off?

Which light, serveral are talked about in the thread? N30 has switches on both sides. One for each light. I added a third clicky in the front to control the GID find the light LEDs in the back although they draw so little power they do not need to be shut down, I found the rearward glare if you held it at eye level to be bothersome so I just turn them off.

 

[Ray1968]

Is there a 12v adaptor for the N30?

 

[flasherByNight]

thanks, didn't see that in the pics

 

[Northern Lights]

Is there a 12v adaptor for the N30?

yes

 

[Team Member]

A thread like this needs some pics...

Surefire M6 is a good light, and even better when fitted with a WA1185 :naughty:
But compared to the N30 it is dim...:mecry:

M6

N30

And you are able to take the N30 with you when you walk the dog at night :twothumbs

 

[BlueBeam22]

Great beamshots Team Member, thank you! The M6 looks very dim and weak compared to the N30. The N30 makes my 3mcp 200W Vector spotlight look dim and weak too.
That is amazing how the N30 smokes the M6 in hotspot brightness.

 

[Patriot]

They are great beamshots but the beam color is white. Did you use auto white balance or manual WB?

Beautiful forest btw. That so reminds me of my hunting trips on the North Kaibab Rim, here in AZ.

 

[Illum]

I've been using the N30 occasionally and noticed that the CCT remains around 5000K and turning 4000K only sporadically which is cool indoors
judging from this chart

 

[mtbkndad]

They are great beamshots but the beam color is white. Did you use auto white balance or manual WB?

Beautiful forest btw. That so reminds me of my hunting trips on the North Kaibab Rim, here in AZ.

Look closely at the pics.
They are a little over exposed on the road but notice how much yellower the branches are on the sides of the road and browner in the distance with the M6

With the N30 you get the characteristic ''greening" of the bushes on the side of the road and the greening of the trees in the distance from the 4200K bulb.

I would guess auto white balance was used.
The colors look pretty accurate to what I have seen when using these same lights.

Take Care,
mtbkndad :wave:

 

[Flashanator]

team member you take great photos.

 

[Patriot]

Look closely at the pics.
They are a little over exposed on the road but notice how much yellower the branches are on the sides of the road and browner in the distance with the M6

With the N30 you get the characteristic ''greening" of the bushes on the side of the road and the greening of the trees in the distance from the 4200K bulb.

I would guess auto white balance was used.
The colors look pretty accurate to what I have seen when using these same lights.

Take Care,
mtbkndad :wave:

Ah...yes! That's a great observation. I do see more color difference now that you mention it but still not as much difference as I would expect.

I guess I articulated that thought rather poorly. I should have said that the M6 looked very cooler than it should compared to the N30. That said, I'm reminded that the 1185 on 3 x li-ions is very white, relatively speaking.

I also suspect that auto WB was used and I think it ended up warming the N30 beam and cooling the M6 beam. In a typical preset WB mode it would tend to warm both beams or cool both beam equally. Maybe TM will tell us what the settings were though.

It does look slightly overexposed to me but not by much. The pictures are really great and I think this is another example of just how favorable the 4200K range is for color rendition. The forest colors look so true there.

 

[Flashanator]

Looks like a nice location for beamshots too, is the M6 is around 500 bulb lumens?

 

[Morepower!]

They look almost close enough to do that gif thing with them. But you can definately see the greens better with the N30. It would be good to see something around the 3900K for comparison also.

 

[Patriot]

Looks like a nice location for beamshots too, is the M6 is around 500 bulb lumens?

It's an M6 with WA1185 bulb run on 3 x 17670's. The output is in the 1300-1400 lumen range at 11.6V. A stock MN21 lamp assembly on fresh primaries is around 800-900 lumens (est by some of the incan gurus).

 

[mtbkndad]

Patriot36,

I think part of what is happening is the light reflective nature of the road is having some degree of a neutralizing effect on the beams and therefore how the camera interprets them. I would be willing to bet that if we were there the beams would have looked as you described to our eyes too.

If the dirt was very dark brown or grass instead, the auto white balance would likely have shown the M6 slightly yellower and the N30 slightly greener.

These days with most decent cameras,
I really do not like using anything other then auto white balance because the pictures show more realistic colors even if they are a little more saturated. I have demonstrated this at different get togethers. This is particularly true when the distances for the targets start getting to the end of the effective range for different lights and their color temp becomes more noticeable.

I got tired of seeing photos with cameras set to "daylight" only to see the pictures show colors that are all off and not being any better at showing total light output.

Take Care,
mtbkndad :wave:

 

[Flashanator]

Great...

Mount an N30 a dirtbike & night riding is set. I bet its a durable little bugger.

The N30 must equal to typical car head lights (no high beams)? But then I reckon 4200K would be far superior to halogen.

 

[Patriot]

I got tired of seeing photos with cameras set to "daylight" only to see the pictures show colors that are all off and not being any better at showing total light output.

Take Care,
mtbkndad :wave:

Hmm...that's really starting to sink in now. I guess there isn't really any major disadvantage to doing it that way and like you stated each light then appears individually correct color wise.

I guess my original thinking was that all these CCD's tend to favor the slightly warmer beam colors and thus would appear to disproportionately brighter compared to the cooler beams.

CPFer StefanFS ran into this effect when taking beamshots of the MRV, Tiablo, Spear, and DBS. The MRV would consistantly appear brighter in his beam shot images even though the lux readings showed that it wasn't. These were all very close lights though and in actuality the difference is probably neglegible for dissimilar lights. I'm sure that the extent of the effect probably varies from camera to camera and I'm going to guess that the latest SLR CCD's are least effected.

 

[Flashanator]

does the M6 with 1185 throw as good as the standard Mag85?