"Practical" Beamshots? (indoors, stairs)
Problem with beamshots is that no single photo can actually show how a flashlight performs under all conditions.
Typical shot on white surface from reasonably close up does nicely show the beam characteristics - but doesn't really indicate how well the light performs at a distance.
Real-life situation beamshots are difficult to reproduce by anyone else, and unless the actual scene is known - tends not to show how a light really works to anyone else.
Also there is the difficulty that a camera (digital or film) doesn't really have the same dynamic range as the human eye.
All this is really saying photos do show something useful - but can't really substitute for actual usage of the flashlight. To illustrate a flashlight's ability probably numerous different types of beamshots have to be shown......way too impractical.
Anyway I thought about this and came up with something that most people can at least visualize - shining a flashlight up some stairs.
I picked some of my brightest lights to fix a constant exposure setting for my camera and set up the "scene" to try to get consistent reproducible results (for me).
This is the scene - lit by my regular indoor lighting and supplemented by the flash on my digicam - white balance set to Auto (this shot ONLY) for the mixed lighting. Walls are light cream - ceilings stippled white, carpet camel/beige, and that's a colored optical test target on the wall by the door knob.
The rest of the flashlight shots were all taken with Fixed Daylight white balance -
and fixed exposure - ISO100, f/2.8 at 0.6 sec, lens = 28mm (equiv)
The distance from the camera and flashlight to the center of the target (the door knob) was approx 15ft. Ceiling at top of stairs is approx 8ft, there are 10 steps, width of the stairway is 3ft 5in (41").
From the bottom of the stairs - the camera is about eye-level and the flashlights are held about upper chest/breast level - bascially trying to reproduce how I would see and use a flashlight from the bottom of those stairs.
Flashlights I used for this trial -
Not shown MagLite 3D
Beamshots:
MagLite 3D (alkalines) ....................................... Streamlight Scorpion Xenon 2x CR123A
Nuwai Q3 with RCR123 ...................................... 8LED 1AA "Xnova" New (alkaline)
S1801 1w Luxeon 1xCR123 ................................ Fenix L1 v2.5 (Non-Premium) (alkaline)
Comments, please?
Problem with beamshots is that no single photo can actually show how a flashlight performs under all conditions.
Typical shot on white surface from reasonably close up does nicely show the beam characteristics - but doesn't really indicate how well the light performs at a distance.
Real-life situation beamshots are difficult to reproduce by anyone else, and unless the actual scene is known - tends not to show how a light really works to anyone else.
Also there is the difficulty that a camera (digital or film) doesn't really have the same dynamic range as the human eye.
All this is really saying photos do show something useful - but can't really substitute for actual usage of the flashlight. To illustrate a flashlight's ability probably numerous different types of beamshots have to be shown......way too impractical.
Anyway I thought about this and came up with something that most people can at least visualize - shining a flashlight up some stairs.
I picked some of my brightest lights to fix a constant exposure setting for my camera and set up the "scene" to try to get consistent reproducible results (for me).
This is the scene - lit by my regular indoor lighting and supplemented by the flash on my digicam - white balance set to Auto (this shot ONLY) for the mixed lighting. Walls are light cream - ceilings stippled white, carpet camel/beige, and that's a colored optical test target on the wall by the door knob.
The rest of the flashlight shots were all taken with Fixed Daylight white balance -
and fixed exposure - ISO100, f/2.8 at 0.6 sec, lens = 28mm (equiv)
The distance from the camera and flashlight to the center of the target (the door knob) was approx 15ft. Ceiling at top of stairs is approx 8ft, there are 10 steps, width of the stairway is 3ft 5in (41").
From the bottom of the stairs - the camera is about eye-level and the flashlights are held about upper chest/breast level - bascially trying to reproduce how I would see and use a flashlight from the bottom of those stairs.
Flashlights I used for this trial -
Not shown MagLite 3D
Beamshots:
MagLite 3D (alkalines) ....................................... Streamlight Scorpion Xenon 2x CR123A
Nuwai Q3 with RCR123 ...................................... 8LED 1AA "Xnova" New (alkaline)
S1801 1w Luxeon 1xCR123 ................................ Fenix L1 v2.5 (Non-Premium) (alkaline)
Comments, please?
Last edited: