My Flashlights and Beamshots (warning: pic heavy)

Hi CPF, another long time lurker, first time poster here.

I came across this forum while searching for a LED flashlight I had seen in someone's kit on another forum. I didn't really need a flashlight at that time, and I knew nothing about LED flashlights; to me the king of flashlights was still my trusty 3D maglite that had been going strong for over 10 years. However that LED light I saw online was tempting me so I wanted to know more about it. After some research on this forum I found out that it was a Fenix TK-12. I had never heard of the brand, but the kind folks here at CPF seemed to think it was an affordable, good quality light so I ordered it, completely unaware of what I was getting myself into.

When the light arrived I was completely blown away by it's build quality but especially by the output. I was amazed. What followed in the weeks thereafter will be familiar to many of you: it involved a lot of time spent reading on CPF and a lot of little boxes from all over the world appearing at my doorstep. Lights, more lights, batteries, chargers and more lights, a DMM, you get the idea.

What I've always found very helpful in my searches for "that next awesome light" are real-world, outdoor beamshots. So I thought that I'd put up my own, and hopefully someday, someone in search of a light may find them useful.

Setup: All shots were taken with fixed White Balance, ISO200, 2.5 second exposure, F5. All lights are placed on the edge of the table in the shot below, illuminating the target at full output. All lights have fresh primaries or freshly charged AW lions or Eneloops as indicated.
Here's a daylight shot showing the "target". Lights will shine from A (table) to B (purple flowers). Distance is 20 meters (65ft).




And here are the contenders:
4Sevens and Jetbeam, from left to right: Quark 123T R2, Quark AA NW, Quark 1232T R2, Jetbeam Jet-III Pro ST Q5 OP, Jetbeam Jet-I Pro V3 Warm OP, Jetbeam RRT-0 R2 OP




Fenix: LD20 Q5 SMO, TK12 Q5 OP, PD30 R4 SMO, LD10 R4 SMO, LD01




Surefire LX2, Eagletac T20C2 Mark II R5 (OP) , Nitecore Extreme R2 (OP) and Nitecore D10 R2



On to the beamshots!

Quark 123T R2 on AW RCR123



Quark AA Neutral White on Eneloop



Quark 1232T R2 on AW RCR123



Jetbeam Jet-III Pro ST on AW 18650



Jetbeam Jet-1 Pro V3 Warm on AW 14500



Jetbeam RRT-0 R2 on AW RCR123



Fenix LD20 Q5 on Eneloops



Fenix TK12 Q5 on CR123 primaries



Fenix PD30 R4 on AW RCR123



Fenix LD10 R4 on Eneloop



Fenix LD01 on Eneloop



Surefire LX2 on CR123 Primaries



Eagletac T20C2 Mark II on AW 18650



Nitecore Extreme R2 on AW RCR123



Nitecore D10 R2 on Eneloop

Nice beamshot. I see Fenix LD10R4 very bright more than spec.

Very nice ! :thanks: :goodjob:

Nice beamshots.. smooth pics!

Thanks for posting!

Wow! The T20C2 Mark II has more throw & less spill then the LX2 TIR!
Hmm.. maybe the beamshots are switched?

:welcome:

Great first post; your beamshots are very useful! I hope you update this thread as you acquire more lights.

Excellent. I love seeing real world shots like that...keep 'em coming!!

Thank you for sharing. Very helpful real life beam shots to tempt me to buy more lights

Nice beamshots! A good indicator of how much spill these lights have. And a good set of competitive lights! Thanks!

thanks for the encouragement guys, glad you like 'em!

@cm_mtb: Yep, I plan on keeping this updated as I gather more lights - a few are on their way right now and there are still some on my list, so those will surely be added in the future.

@sfca: The beamshots of the LX2 and T20C2 look pretty close indeed, but I assure you they were not switched around. If you look closely the T20C2 has more spill which is also brighter (note grass in front of the lawn chair, the small bush on the left and the part of the house on the right) Also, the LX2's hotspot looks larger.

A great set of real-world beamshots.

I just ordered a couple 14500s for my Jet 1 Pro v3 Q3 5A, so I was very happy to see that the Jet is, in fact, pretty darn bright.

The D10 R2 also looks to offer a good, floody beam for a 1 x AA on an Eneloop.

And the LX2 looks to have more flood than I expected, as well as good throw.

Great shots. Thanks for taking the time.

tk 12 looks like the winner to me......
best light,most usable beam.......
how does it compare to the eagle t2 in your eyes??

nodoubt said:

tk 12 looks like the winner to me......
best light,most usable beam.......
how does it compare to the eagle t2 in your eyes??

Click to expand...

The TK12 outthrows the Eagletac easily, but has a lot less spill and some annoying Cree rings. I'd say for general usage the Eagletac is more useful, if you really want throw, the TK12 is the better light.

Nice shots. I just got my tk12 and I'm just waiting on a few more lights and some 18650's. I can't wait to start taking some pictures.

Nice yard by the way!:rock:


oh, and the pd30 looks better that the tk12. Interesting. Wonder how they compare further out.

Thanks for the beamshots, nice work.