Malkoff M60F good for indoor search use?

[Justin Case]

The one thing you have to be careful wrt such photos is that the human eye is not strictly like a digital camera. The central (or foveal) vision is where you have your sharp, in-focus vision. And that falls off very rapidly. Only about 10 arc minutes off of the visual fixation point, your visual acuity drops by about 25%.

In the photos, the width is stated as 25 feet and the range as 37 feet. That gives a half-angle of 18.7 degrees. At that angle off of the fixation point, you are down to around 10% of your max visual acuity.

So sure, a flood may illuminate the scene more evenly overall. But what detail can you really see? You need to know if the limitation is one of illumination or human visual acuity.

As a counterpoint, the wider illumination from a flood may be better to help you detect movement at the periphery, which is more of a target detection task rather than a target identification one. And movement is something easier to detect than a stationary target.

Clearly, there is no law of physics "right" answer in choosing a flood vs a spot pattern. It is situation dependent. But it is important to understand what the presented data really means. Otherwise, you may make some erroneous conclusions.

 

[MrGman]

Justin, I agree with your point wholeheartedly. The reality for this specific example was that I could see the targets on the outer ends better than what the digital images are portraying. I have been working on this project for quite a while. I get to spend as much time as I want at the range and work with the flashlights in the dark a lot. I have even tried working on some video (much harder). All I can say is that I have tried to strike a good balance of showing what the flashlights can do versus the limitations of digital photography (not that film would be any better in this case). The range is 50 foot deep and I have worked from that range in down to about 15 feet. The further back the harder it is for the camera to get the subtleties between hot spot and spill. Too close in and then the hot spot is too overwhelming and the overal beam width is not that good. So this distance was picked to help take advantage of the size of the range versus the actual flashlights used, but full well knowing the images would never do the reality justice. For those of my friends and fellow shooters who have seen these lights first hand they have been impressed and come to understand the value of a good 200 plus lumen light with a good combination of hot spot versus spill. The limitations of human vision (at least mine) were not the true limits for this set of conditions. G

 

[FrankW438]

MrGman: Thanks for the pics! They were "enlightening" if you'll excuse the pun. It's nice to see people trying to take a scientific approach to this. I have one of those Fenix T1's and I think it has better throw than the Malkoff M60. But individual units may differ.

Justin: Something did pop into my mind while I was reading your posts. The effects of adrenaline include auditory exclusion, tachypsychia (loss of sense of time) and TUNNEL VISION. Please correct me on this if I am wrong. I am trying to recall training from at least 15 years ago. I believe these effects were mainly due to the spike in blood pressure caused by adrenaline.

But if tunnel vision is an issue in a stressful situation, a flood light may not matter, because your field of view is reduced. However some may argue that the flood beam may help you break your tunnel vision.

Excellent point about picking up movement in the periphery!

This is a pretty darn good thread, guys. Keep it up!

I think I am going to stick with my first statement about having a thrower with a good amount of spill. For me it makes the most sense. But then again, I haven't seen a Malkoff M60F in person. It may change my mind.

-- Frank

 

[Justin Case]

Tunnel vision is perhaps more accurately described as tunnel focus. Although often associated with high stress situations, you can also get tunnel focus when consumed with any high cognitive load task. The way I look at is the brain has only so many CPU cycles available. When someone is trying to kill you, the brain focuses on the immediate problem, discarding all other extraneous information. Similarly, if you are completely engrossed in a book, you can have auditory exclusion and tunnel focus.

The way I've been taught to break tunnel focus is to scan by physically moving the head.

 

[enLIGHTenment]

The central (or foveal) vision is where you have your sharp, in-focus vision. And that falls off very rapidly. Only about 10 arc minutes off of the visual fixation point, your visual acuity drops by about 25%.

The picture changes somewhat if you consider eye movement. The total horizontal angle you can see clearly is about 90 degrees if you move your eyes. With a narrow-beam flashlight you'll have to re-point the light to accommodate eye movement, which will increase reaction time to surprises as you can move your eyes faster than you can aim a light. In contrast, a floodlight will cover much more of your total visual field and will necessitate less movement just to look around.

Not being in a line of work that involves conducting indoor searches, I have no idea if this is a concern in the real world, but it does seem to be a little questionable to favor narrow beam lights purely on the basis of foveal vision angle.

 

[Bloodnut]

While the pics don't precisely duplicate the perception of the human eye, they do provide a yardstick for comparison. I think a lot of us, myself including, get enamored with throw which can be impressive and makes us feel like we are really putting out a lot of light, but for many situations, a flood may be a better choice.

The standard M60 has good color rendition (for an LED), a lot of raw lumens, and a good combination of throw and flood. It has a wide but bright hotspot with good spill - and still throws like a mother. I'm assuming that Gene has taken the M60 recipe and flattened out the beam making the hotspot huge.

The original query was geared toward how such a beam would work as a utility light for a LEO, and since it may be a primary, how that light would work in event of a violent encounter in low light. At what point/distance, does the standard M60 become a better option? I'm thinking that the M60F would do well at pistol-fighting distances.

Lastly, I'll address a point made recently (I think it was in this thread, but maybe not). I'll admit it - I'm a gear whore. I've been one since I was a kid. I while back, I "repented" and changed my mindset toward gear and decided it's the man, not the stuff, that gets it done. Recently, I've come back to my roots after realizing that gear *does* make a difference in getting the job done. Having gear that supports the mission (whether it's a camping trip or assaulting a structure) makes the job easier. Conversely, I watch people fight their gear all the time - it can get ugly. So I no longer apologize for chasing the cutting edge of gear that makes getting the job done easier.

 

[enLIGHTenment]

All I can say is that I have tried to strike a good balance of showing what the flashlights can do versus the limitations of digital photography (not that film would be any better in this case).

Theoretically it's possible to capture both hotspot and spill with correct exposure by using HDR methods. Take for example this HDR shot, where I was able to capture both the hotspot and spill rings from a 2006 Inova T2:

By tweaking the HDR exposure and gamma curve it's quite possible to reproduce something that very closely approximates what the naked eye would see.

 

[Bloodnut]

I went back and re-read Gman's post and scrutinized the pics again. The M60F appears to me, to be edging out the others - at least at 12 yards.

At the risk of pissing off Gman, could I suggest pics from 25 yards and include a SF P60 bulb? The P60 is a widely known quantity and was the first real tac light. It is still, literally, the standard by which others are judged. BTW, I think the idea of taking the pics at an indoor range is a good one for a lot of reasons. And you you go at at the pics again, try putting a photo-realistic target at ~15 yards and also at 25 yards in the same shot (I guess the camera can capture both images in the same frame).

enLIGHTenment, you are hitting on my original thought which is that it may be more efficient to hit a room with a wider beam - that would be more akin to flipping a light switch instead of having to pan around with a narrow beam trying to locate the threat.

While I'm on a roll here, it might be fun (for us anyway if Gman was hit with the beams and advise at what distance the M60F et. al. cease to take the eyes away.

 

[MrGman]

I don't mind that you ask Bloodnut, but there are simply limitations to what I have as assets. As I said in a previous post the range is limited to 50 foot deep, that's all we got. Behind that are obstructions. My backyard isn't big enough either. What is the actual original P60 lamp supposed to be in Lumens brightness? If its the "65" lumen unit I measured it at 50 lumens, not worth the time of day. I have the Lumens Factory ES9 at 150 lumens that only measures 100 lumens real output is that close enough? If it is the 65 lumen lamp I would have to increase exposure time as it would not be comparable to those 200 lumen range lights. I chose to simply omit anything in the 100 lumen or less range. Remember we were comparing M60F to comparable lights that simply had more throw. I had what was supposed to be one bright Xenon lamp that I wanted to show as comparison and that its beam pattern was terrible.

I am not willing to be blinded repeatedly by lights at different distances to see what the threshold is to go from annoyance to blinding threshold on multiple lights.

I could go and buy some realistic color photo type targets but I am finding that the glare off of the sheen of the printed image on the paper sends back a reflection of the light more than a good usable image when the light source is on axis. Even the black and white targets were doing that which is why I moved them to the outer stations and tried the more common brown cardboard silhouettes in the center. The sheen of the printed images reflects and would be better with angled side lighting than on axis light. I would have to put the targets at an angle to the light which kinds of throws things off and again would be more difficult time consuming since I would have to rig tilting stands. They dont have any this range as its not allowed, nothing human like can be shot at. I have to go to other places to get them and bring them in for photo shoots only then take them away. I need an assistant to help set this all up and take the photos while I sort through flashlights and take notes, haven't gotten any local volunteers yet (they are all slackers).

enlightenment that is a lot of work, it (HDR) will still never really show the depth of what the human eye can see. My son is the photoshop expert, it looks like we should have it but he doesn't know how to use it and has never heard of it till I mentioned it. The other general features of changing contrast, gamma, and such don't come close to doing justice. So that isn't going to happen for this mission any time soon.

Eventually I will find a way or get some help to make more realistic images of targets or volunteers to show the qualities of these lights to illuminate things you really need to see. In a house with white walls the M60F does simply help eliminate overwhelming glare and makes it easy to see everything just as if a room light was turned on. But we aren't always searching inside a nice house with white walls are we?

I believe its mindset, tactics, tools, in that order. You are the weapon everything else is just tools.

Or from the other end of the philosophical spectrum. Just eat more jelly doughnuts and as your waistline gets bigger, you have more room on the belt for more gear.

 

[harddrive]

Thanks again for the great posts guys. And thanks to you MrGman for the photos.

 

[Bloodnut]

MrGman, copy that.

The photo-realistic targets were a suggestion so you could avoid having people go downrange. But that might actually be a better solution due to the issues you mention. I understand that any beamshots are gigantic PITA.

RE: the getting blinded repeatedly. Where's your sense of adventure? C'mon man! Take one (or five) for the team!

Seriously, I've done this before. It's not a lot of fun, but it does give you the best possible assessment of what a particular light is doing downrange. Sort of along the lines of taking the OC hit/Taser ride. Not a lot of fun, but very informative. I understand though, that this isn't on the short list of fun things to do.

Thanks for your efforts.

 

[MrGman]

I have done it before its not fun, very limited amounts. I see spots for a very long time and I am not doing it any more if I don't have to. We can have people go down range in this instance because all that is pointing at them is a flashlight and camera, we have blue training pistols and airsoft pistols as well to use to point back at me so we don't have to have actual firearms to make the pics and violate any standard range safety rules. Its just getting these guys to stay late to do the photos in general when they all want to go home. I have been at this range doing this some times with the practice shots till midnight. I had taken a heck of a lot more photos than what I have shown to get to those worth showing. I have made several short videos. the ones with the flashlights did not come out worth seeing at all due to the exposure sensitivity issues in real time. So I am still working and experimenting, just need more time and at least 1 helper.

For instance there is no way I can have the video camera back 37 feet or more to show in real time the overall differences in the flood of light because the lack of overall light in the image except for this small spot in the center makes it very dark and grainy looking. I would have to have the video camera within the first 25 feet and be closer with the flashlights as well. But this means I have a camera man with me at my side or I wear a helmet cam.

But thanks for the comments and the feedback. I was working on this project for quite a while and it dovetailed nicely into your original post theme and I had gotten my M60F pretty much at the right time so at least this part all came together to get some of this work done.

Now if I could only get Anne Hathaway to pose with some of the prop guns and flashlights for me????

 

[g8trwood]

I have the standard M60 and it is a great light for searches. The light has a large hotspot to pull you on target, but it also has a lot of spill. For house searches, the spill consistantly spans most rooms. It is in a different league from my standard P6, stinger or magcharger.

 

[MrGman]

I ordered the M60 full power standard myself and also the Uniq continuously variable tail cap, so my psychic powers tell me there will be more testing in the near future!

 

[Bullzeyebill]

I ordered the M60 full power standard myself and also the Uniq continuously variable tail cap, so my psychic powers tell me there will be more testing in the near future!

Got a link to that Uniq tailcap? Thanks,

Bill

 

[MrGman]

yes I do, why do you ask????? :naughty:





Its at Lighthound.com there is only one so you can't miss it.

 

[Wattnot]

I ordered the M60 full power standard myself and also the Uniq continuously variable tail cap, so my psychic powers tell me there will be more testing in the near future!

WHOA!!! THAT looks AWESOME! Let us know how well that works! A variable Malkoff drop-in . . . . NICE!

 

[Gene43]

I would be interested to know if there is any current draw when the light is off. If there is none this may be a Great thing!

 

[Bullzeyebill]

yes I do, why do you ask????? :naughty:

??

 

[MrGman]

BE Bill, you know they don't like it when we post links to actual items for sale right? I am sure you found the Uniq tailcap on the Lighthound.com? If not you can just type in Uniq in their search engine and it will come up.

I will keep you posted.

Gene you never answered any of my questions about diffusers in front of the 6 degree optics or not using a diffuser with the 25 degree Khatod optic, does the 25 degree optic already come with the diffuser attached? I am wondering about a soft diffuser over the 6 degree unit to smooth out the hot spot in general?

I know they make separate pieces.

I will also check the continuously variable tailcap to see if it draws current in the off position as that is a concern with any of these electronic control switches is that they alway are actually "on" to run the controller for the switch.