The more lumens, the wider the beam please!

The more lumens, the wider the beam please! I want to see it all!!!

I have found that the natural instinct with people is to focus their light to the tighest, smallest, pin-hole of light so they can impress people with the brightness. I have a light for that, and it's not white. It's Cyan. And it's cool! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

But aside from that, I need a wider beam than looking through a pinhole of light. I love the beam of 3 LuxIII's in 20mm IMS reflectors. There's enough lumens there to light up things bright, and yet a whole room and even my whole back yard lights up like I flipped on a light switch! This is great for actual use. I don't want to be surprised by things outside of my beam of light. But yet this setup has a nice wide hotspot that will still reach the tops of trees across my back yard. So I'm not limited for distance either.

I find anything that goes farther, I'd have to use a telescope to see anyways. So if I make a light that's more powerfull with better LED's in the future, it will be a medium-flood type light. The 20mm beam is great, and isn't too tight/bright even if you doubled the lumens.

Now in a single LED light, a slightly tighter beam is ok, but the Mag reflector is a bit too tight for me. I'll still use it for colored leds, as I want those super tight for sheer impressiveness as they aren't too pratical anyways. And it's fun to scare people from a distance!

Anyone feel the same? Do you feel that you get more use out of a light that lights up the whole area in front of you bright enough to see a good distance away, or do you still want a pinhole beam that is super-duper intense?
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/popcorn.gif

Yep, I agree with you. I'd rather have excellent area coverage so I can see EVERYTHING in the close to medium range area, rather than a thin laser like beam that only shows you a tiny bit of area but at a great range.

For me, the Surefire L5 is the perfect compromise. The flood area of the beam is very bright, yet it also throws far enough for what I would consider medium range. This beam I feel works great indoors and outdoors, as long as you don't need far range.

The Surefire L2/L4 to me are the perfect flood-oriented lights, exceptional flood, which I find very useful indoors especially, and to a lesser extent for relatively close range outdoors.

It sounds like you described the Tri-LuxIII by Icarus. It has a beautiful flood light but a spot is in the light too. It just lights up the area. I like it because nothing gets lost because of dimming on the edge of the beam.

It all depends on the usage. If you need to see distances then you simply can't without throw. Throw is almost useless when you need a flood. I live in the wilderness with no artificial lights and can really make use of throw on a daily basis. This does nothing for me when I head to the wood pile however.

I agree the three Lux3s make a good beam. My eight year old daughter has a choice of a couple dozen lights and she keeps reaching for the Barbolight. I think that says something. With this light apparently she feels "illuminated" and it's worth it to her to lug around the volume. This has 3x20mm reflectors as well.

I find single Lux3s for throw are skinny beams, for single LEDs if you want the best marriage of throw and spill I like LuxVs with medium to larger heads. You can have some of both this way. When it's really dark in a forest you need more than 1 Lux3 if you really want to light it up.

I'm looking forward to the ELX series. Perhaps with this I will feel like I've lit up my environment. Literally sometimes I'll be running a headlight, the barbolight and a HypeluxV or a Lux3 light and still feel I need more. Hell maybe I've got cataracts.

TrueBlue, yup it's the same setup that I use. That photo proves my point. Nice flood to light up a large area, but enough lumens to reach out far. I don't think I'd be lighting up and looking at things farther than the top of that palm tree. So I don't need any more throw than that!

Bogus1: Do you find a need to light up something farther than the tree top in TrueBlue's photo? If so what and why? To me if you can light up that far, then if you get more lumens, spread them out! Yup, tri-20mm is great, you feel more secure being able to see everything. Of course there are times when carrying a light that big isn't pratical, and the lumens aren't there so it has to be tight focus... So you have no outside artificial light right? You have a computer so I assume you have electricity! Perhaps some outdoor house flood lights? Or perhaps a HID moddified Thor! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I guess I need to state that regardless of light size, if you have a lot of lumens, I think it's more pratical to spread them out some, than to keep them as tightly focused as possible.

I agree.

My daughter's bicycle headlights came with a 12W flood and a 35W spot. I would have preferred a 35W flood and a 12W spot.

When there's a lot of ambient light, throw is really the only think you should need a flashlight for.

at work i carry 4 lights
1. magcharger - for its throw (also as a percussive attitude realigner)
2. Pila GL3XR - for its huge flood
3. surefire 6P - backup for #1+2
4. Inova X1 - for when i am walking round one of my sites and i dont want to wake people up

when im not at work (i work as a security guard by the way)
i carry a L4 and a LB micra

I agree thar spill is important, but from the title "more lumens, wider the beam" is a little misleading since you generally do not want more than a 10 degree beam for otherwise all the hard-eanred lumens from your poor little Luxeon Die will be rendered useless beyond 10 feet with ANY sort of ambient light.

This problem is opposite of people like me who use incandescents more, since we have the opposite problem where we have generally PLENZTY of side spill and sometimes can't get a tight enough beam. Case in point, My mag 4D now houses a base for osram bulbs, and only one of the bulbs I would consider a thrower while every other bulb just puts out enough flood to attract low flying aircrafts.I say more lumens,include the sidespill but keep the main beam as tight as possible. I think all the Aleph head made hby McGizmo reflect the is preference. As lumens go up, you genrally want to see further, and more flood just kinda puts a halt to all that...

Nick

I like them both /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif (= more flashlights)

IsaacHayes,

I feel yer pain, but I think it depends on the intended use. I actually have used binoculars to inspect rigging with a flashlight so I wouldn't have to leave the ground. In some situations I've looked at the same rigging from three or four different locations (angles) with binoculars and a flashlight looking for problems. For that type of application I'd like a 2 degree beam so I can put everything I've got right where I need it.

I understand that spill is important in many applications -- but not ALL of them. I'm usually looking for tighter and tighter beams for jobs where I know exactly what I'm looking for and I already know exactly where it is. In those cases, spill is a waste at best and an outright distraction at worst.

From a practical point of view the picture with the palm tree is very misleading in that the tree itself is set against a black background (the night sky). That photo totally minimizes all of the distracting downsides of spill by having almost nothing in the spill zone to reflect back at the observer. If the observer already knows where the target is, he is often not lucky enough to have it set against an ideal black background to minimize splashback from the spill of his light.

I guess much of this issue revolves around whether your task involves looking for a distant object or whether you already know where the object is and just want a good look at it. I usually fall into the second catagory.

But I do feel your pain. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon23.gif

I live on a *very* dark country place. When the leaves are on the trees it is common be totally dark with no modern lighting visible for miles....

And I just pulled the standard reflector out of a one-led Mag LuxIII mod and installed a 20mm reflector. The 17mm, 20mm, and 27mm were tested......and the 20mm won as the best combination of throw and spill for my purposes. This is a good setup for a trip to the woodpile, security checks, latenight walks, or lighting up wildlife at 60 yards. If I need more spot, I pull out the Aleph I...
Stu

It's all about intended use. Somtimes I want to see miles to see my fence lines, or look for coyotes, mt lions, trespassers etc. If I'm on foot unfortunately there is little hope of doing this with my lights, so yes I need many multiples of the throw that's in the photo.

I couldn't agree more with you though, if you don't actually need it, throw is just a toy and not a useful beam of light.

My preference for a closeup setup for just running out for wood is an A1 or LH with a surefire beamshaper. With one finger I can flip the filter for nice small throw or flip it down for total flood. It's simple a matter of what's needed.

If there is a lot of ambient light, then a tighter beam will pierce the shadows better. I've worked private security, and I can assume that cops will have similar needs when looking into a car. A broader beam will light up the outside of the car, but might not light up the inside. Also, looking at a specific object can need a more focused beam, especially at a distance. Before I deployed to the Middle East, and thought I'd be doing convoys or convoy security, I selected my MagCharger and a spotlight to light up potential IED's (which can be anything) at as far as possible, as well as any potential ambush sites. Lighting up windows, seeing if a person is there is another good use of a tight beam, a wider one can sometimes just create a shadow or a dark area a person can hide in.
But when just walking around, or for general lighting, a flood can definately be more useful. Searching the inside and underside of cars, a broader beam is usually more useful. I switched from my Mag to my SureFire 9N for that reason.
It's a matter of the right tool for the job. That's one of the reasons I like to have more than one light around. Well that's my excuse anyway /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Bogus1: I like the setup you have with the flip up beam shaper. Instant change of setup. But I'm not sure if the flood from the shaper would produce an even mixture of throw/flood like the tri-20mm does. That's why I like them so much. The hotspot goes far and the sidespill blends in at about the same brightness reflected back so you get this effect of lighting up the whole back yard at the same intensity all over!

Yes you need throw for certain things but what I'm trying to get at is that if you have a light that throws far enough for your needs, that if you increase the lumens of that light, I'd rather put the extra lumens into sidespill. Does that make more sense now?

Unicorn,what's an IED?

IsaacHayes wrote:
I like the setup you have with the flip up beam shaper.

Can one of you please compare this arrangement to the flip-up diffuser found on the Heliotek HTE-1 (2AA)?

My preference is moving away from "throw" to "flood." For example, I own three Costco 2AA Luxeons, and I'm about to mod two of them with an IMS 27mm reflector (and glass AR lens).

However, I can see how throw is more flexible. You can never use a floodlight to reach farther than its nominal throw rating. But by sweeping your light back and forth, you CAN use a "throw" light to cover a wider area.

I'm reminded of photography forums, where several photographers defend "wider is better" for the opposite reason: Once the shot is taken, you can always crop and zoom a wide-angle shot. But you can never take a telephoto shot and make it emcompass a wider view.

"what's an IED?"

Improvised Explosive Device