Vintage Flashlight Beams?

Hello everyone,
I'm making a video game set in the sixties. At one point, the player's only illumination is an old flashlight. The problem I'm having is that all the patterns to shape the game light to resemble a flashlight's spot pattern look too modern. They're perfectly round and balanced. I want something like I remember from my childhood with a sort of starburst/sunray pattern caused by the segmented reflector, scratches on the lense, irregularities in the light, etc. I had a really sweet vintage rayovac that would've been perfect but the bulb burned out a while back and I haven't found a new one. Does anyone have something like this in their collection? I just can't picture how it looks anymore so if you could point your flashlight at a wall in a darkened room and snap a photo of the spot pattern I would REALLY appreciate it. I really want to get this detail right because it would add a lot to the atmosphere of the game and I can't find anything anywhere so I thought I would ask here. Thanks!
joshua

No old incandescent MagLite?
Someone will have this covered here with a good camera I'm pretty sure.

I hope so, WarRaven. It doesn't have to be a good camera. I'm going to have to do the whole effect from scratch I just need something to look at. I'm just trying to avoid something plain like this image.

I have several incan lights at home. I'll shoot some pix for ya a little later.

I think this thread has incredible potential; I hope you get some great photo responses, JudoTRON!
:welcome:

I'm feeding my Cravens.. I'll try an pic a light later too.

Thanks, you guys. Anything would be helpful. I keep trying to do it from memory and it doesn't look right.

2AA MagLite on garage door.
Nearly broke neck trying to navigate dark garage via said light lol.
It's a terrible pic but sets stage.

Awesome beamshot ... perfect example (lol)

Hehe, I can make it look worse if you like ☺
Just got my old camera fired up and set better, was doing late night moon shots last night.


O/T, but keeping it bumped. ☺

Thanks, WarRaven. That's much better than the ones I've been seeing. I didn't remember the edges being as fuzzy as that so this is already a huge help. Thanks, again.
joshua

WarRaven said:

2AA MagLite on garage door.
Nearly broke neck trying to navigate dark garage via said light lol.
It's a terrible pic but sets stage.

Click to expand...

That is a fantastic beam shot, beautiful, I hope that makes it into the game.

JudoTRON said:

Thanks, WarRaven. That's much better than the ones I've been seeing. I didn't remember the edges being as fuzzy as that so this is already a huge help. Thanks, again.
joshua

Click to expand...

If I can figure out how to do a beamshot, I will try to post one from my 1965 Rayovac Sportsman. If you don't find what you want, can't you use WarRaven's, and tweak it with photoshop?

Yeah, Braddy I will most likely have to do the whole thing in Photoshop, it's just I'm having trouble remembering details. In my mind, I'm picturing a pattern that has rays emanating from the center, or faintly around the edges that might be caused by a reflector like this one: or a lense like this one : (Sorry about the formatting here.) Does that make sense? It could be that I'm just misremembering the whole thing. I would've sworn there was something like it in the movie "Time Bandits" but I looked yesterday and it was obviously just a small spotlight they used to simulate a flashlight so if I was wrong about that, I could just be completely wrong. If that's the case then I will use work from warRaven's image because that looks much more vintage than the usual ones.
joshua

Here are some pictures of a 1920s Eveready 2C flashlight, one of which is a beam shot. I had to dig through two hard drives to find these, so I hope they can be of some help. The pictures are not that great, and were taken back in 2005 with a sucky camera. Unfortunately, the flashlight is stowed away somewhere in the attic, and I don't have it handy to take new pictures. You may notice that the beam has no hot spot, and it looks kind of like a full moon with a bright ring around the outer edge. It has a sort of fisheye, magnifying type of lens. The reflector has faded, and it was no doubt painted originally, so the beam was probably clearer and brighter when it was new.

Thanks, Stream. These are all very helpful. Do I see a bit of chromatic aberration around the edge of the spot? The rainbow effect? I never thought about adding that. That could make a really nice detail.
joshua

You're welcome. The ring around the spot does look rainbow colored in the picture, but I don't remember if that is just how the camera rendered it or if the rainbow colors could be seen with the eye.

Judging by the shape of that lense, I'm guessing it's chromatic aberration. Great detail.

I originally posted these photos in a "Show us your worst beamshot"- thread on Budgetlightforum. One shows the beam pattern of a 3xAAA powered 6 LED + 1 incandescent flashlight made in the early 2000s (in incandescent-only mode), the other that of a 2xAA powered incandescent from ca 2010. Not exactly vintage lights, but not exactly state-of-the-art beam patterns either

Wow thanks, Swede74. That second one has a great texture!