I am going to be laid up for a few months with an unsure future. I shouldn't do it but I am buying myself a gift to help me through it. I have it narrowed down to the MM15 or the Olight SR Mini. I like them both because they are flooders and kind of unique or atleast a little different. The SR Mini actually a little longer but not as wide being a 3-18650 design which I like. And the MM15, shorter and a little wider being a 4-18650 design. But now to the title of the thread, there is an app 2500 lumen difference. When comparing do I say its twice as bright? Which is significant or 2500 lumens brighter which seems even more so? I guess I am having a hard time gauging the difference without a direct comparison and wondering how the difference will be perceived. Feel free to throw in your 2 cents on the lights mentioned.
Lumens are invisible, you can't see them. They are essentially the photons flying out of the light, but, they didn't hit anything yet to bounce back and create an image for your eye to see. If they do hit something, and the light bounces back to your eyes, you perceive that as brightness, or lux.
What you can see, is the lux.
So, the tighter the beam, the more the photons are concentrated into a smaller circle of light, which then looks "brighter".
When you spread the beam out (Flood), the same photons are hitting a larger surface area, and, this dilutes the brightness you see.
It takes a LOT more photons to cover a larger area, and, that means more lumens are needed to do it.
Humans are HORRIBLE light meters, so judging brightness is very very difficult, especially as soon as it reaches our saturation point (Glare).
We ARE good at seeing targets though, so, the best way to visualize this is to say that you can have two identical lights, with the same beam angles, except one is putting out 20% more lumens. Shined at a white wall, most people would be hard pressed to tell the difference. Shined out in a field with trees and shrubs or other people in it as reference points, you WOULD see more trees and shrubs and people with the higher output light, even if you could not tell it was brighter.
In the case of the MM15 and the Mini, the beam angles are different, so, you'd see farther with the MM15, and, in a broader field of view. So, you WOULD be able to tell the difference in this case.
If either form factor, etc, would work for you, the MM15 would be noticeable brighter and light up a larger area.