"But, but, I can't fit into this tiny head!"
"Hey, that's no fair--I can't produce that much amperage!"
"More and more magnetic flux--I'm saturated! I can't take it!"
(Don't you hate listening to inductors whine?)
(Don't you hate listening to inductors whine?)
I've really come to appreciate high cri, and slightly warmer tints. This headlamp will be definitely on my list.
Interesting. Yeah, you might be right. (Hope you're wrong).
And I think that an H1 of 285 or so would be an absolute catastrophe for the SC62 upgrade [eta: sorry, meant SC52]. It's one thing to say that we don't need huge outputs in a headlamp. But in a regular flashlight configuration, a single-AA model that tops out at 285 is going to be dead in the water. That's so far from the cutting edge that it cannot even see the spine of the blade.
Welcome to the forums Genzod!
That's an interesting point, although I'm not sure if Zebralight uses a consistent means of measuring their hotspot width - in most industries, lighting intensity falloff is marked at full width at half maximum is used, but a lot of people just eyeball apparent beam widths. One of their competitors, Armytek, I'm fairly certain does not use a consistent measure - I've seen beamshots of clearly different patterns between different Armytek models where they list the same beam width spec.
Also, the amount of light that falls within the hotspot compared to in the flood can affect the hotspot intensity, too. I don't think we can infer too much simply from the hotspot width spec.
It also would not affect those of us who prefer the floody beam versions.
I noticed the spot of the H52 is 12 degrees compared to that of the H53 which is 10 degrees. Wouldn't that put the intensity of the consistent 285 lumens of the H53c very close to the intensity of the former 500 lm boost level (maybe within 10%)?
I am a bit confused about the new multiple group mode. How does it work?
I'll take a crack at thinking this through, although I'm no expert, either. Feel free to correct me for my blunders.
Let's say you took all of the illumination that one light puts into a 12-degree beam, and then focus it a bit more so that it puts the same amount into a 10-degree beam.
How much more intense will it be?
Suppose you shine a 12-degree beam and a 10-degree beam on the same flat wall, from the same distance. What is the difference in the area covered?
The ratio of sin(6 degrees) to sin(5 degrees) is about 1.2: the radius of the larger circle will be about 6/5 the radius of the smaller circle. Squaring that for area, you can see that the larger circle covers about 1.44 times the area of the smaller circle.
So if the smaller beam concentrates all of the lumens from the larger beam, it will have a light-density (lumens per area) that is 1.44 higher. Lumens per area is what lux measures, so its lux figure will be 1.44 times greater. 1.44 x 285 = 410, so the light with 285 lumens in a 10-degree hotspot has the same intensity as the light with 410 lumens in a 12-degree hotspot.
How does this apply to the two ZL lights? Well, if we make a *lot* of simplifying assumptions about beam shape, diffusion, light-density across different regions, and so on, then it suggests that the hot-spot of the H53 will be about 80% of the brightness (intensity, lux) of the hot-spot of the old H52.
That's the good news. The bad news is that it covers only 2/3s of the same area (it's a smaller spot), and it generally puts out only half the light.
Light intensity isn't everything. There's a reason that most of us care more about lumens than about lux. Especially in a general-purpose, non-thrower light like the ZLs--no one is going to buy a Zebralight for its lux figures.
So although you are not wrong when you say that "the intensity...of the H53c" will be "very close to the intensity of the former 500 lm boost level", I think you are bit off in your 10% guess, and I also think that this point does not really address the concerns of those of us who care about total output.
Yeah, Genzod, I think our numbers are pretty much in line. I said "80%", i.e. 20% lower, but that's pretty much the same as your 82% or 18% lower.
I just knocked off another significant digit because of all of the slop in the calculation, as well as the points you make about how much of the light is concentrated in the hotspot.
You mention an application in which throw does matter, namely spotting trail-blazes at a distance. And you are right, for that application the new one should be about as good as the old.
I just hate to move *backwards,* when everything else in LED land keeps moving *forwards*!
But like I said, I have pre-ordered this one already, and I will be excited to try it out and see how it works in the hand. Good tint and CRI can make up for quite a bit of difference in lumens.
you may be over thinking this as the listed light output specs are for eneloops so technically H53c is brighter comparing same bats by ~5 lumens vs H52w, if you ignore 14500 and again just compare both using an eneloop.