Are you a beam quality fanatic?

[sharkeeper]

I'm talking about ANYTHING that throws light!

I hate rings, halos, elongated spots, etc. People think I'm really strange when they see me trying to get a cheap flashlight to shine a decent spot!

Cheers!

 

[Nerd]

Hmm... I guess you already know that wrightright does wonders for smoothing beam up.... just remember to get the monochrome one, colour ones don't make a difference.

 

[Rifter]

If it throws light im happy, however beam quality does matter to me i would not consider myself a fanatic. Just buy lights thats are of decent qualiy and you wont have to worry about it IMO

 

[Brock]

I will admit I am also a beam freak. I can't stand light with rings at all anymore. I used to really like the UKE 2L output, but it is just adequate.

 

[sharkeeper]

I have a magcharger that I bought in 1990 that hasn't been used in four years. It's in need of repair. (switch is messed up) I can remember messing with the bulb to get the spot perfect. Then the light would get knocked over and I would have to do it all over again! What a pain! Hopefully, LED's will get in the 75 LPW range (I did say one day!) and worries about this along with shock will be a thing of the past. With MTBF ratings that high, you can TORR seal the LED's in place and this becomes a non issue.

Cheers!

 

[monanza]

I am very much a beam quality person. Smoothness in the hotspot and halo are very important to me (try making out scene details with a splotchy beam and you will see what I mean). I generally prefer round beams but I like to use oval beams for certain things. I would give up a very bright splotchy beam for a smooth but less bright beam nine times out of ten.

With optics readily available that can 'fix' a beam pattern for a more even hotspot and surrounding halo there is just no excuse for a bad beam. Unless there is a reason for maintaining the beam characteristics I find it a sign of lagging interest/technology on the part of the manufacturer to not provide a smoothed/rounded output.

Cheers.

 

[Charles Bradshaw]

Petzl headlamps are notorious for the 'ring of light'. I have a Zoom and I cured that by replacing the incandescant bulb with a single LED bulb. Result is smooth spot and smooth flood (widest focus). I fixed my 2D Mag-Lite the same way, only I get an extremely tight focus, and the ring when unfocused.

I can't stand filament images and artifacts, which are typical with smooth reflectors.

 

[PlayboyJoeShmoe]

I too try to get perfect or near so beams. I'll settle for a bright hotspot in some, but find a bright diffused beam to be more useful around 80% of the time!

Spots are fun to light up street signs from a ways off though....

 

[PJD]

sharkeeper...read my signature line. There IS nothing in the world more frustrating than a lousy beam! I have very few incandescent lights that don't have WriteRight on 'em...and most of my LED lights have it, too. On most of my lights I'm happy to give up some throw for beam quality.

PJD

 

[Eric_M]

I wasn't until I started hanging around here.

Eric

 

[Joe Talmadge]

I'll give a few extra points for a smooth beam, but unless the beam is M*glight bad and ringy, I don't take off major points for having a little bit of ringiness.

Smooth beam is nice, but as I've read cpf and used my lights more, I've actually gone the other way: instead of basing everything on just beam smoothness and brightness, which is what I used to do, I now balance that off more critically against runtime, battery cost, and appropriate beam pattern (relatively tighter for tactical, relatively broader for close-up EDC lights, etc.)

Joe

 

[FluffyGrunt]

Nope.

 

[brightnorm]

Originally posted by Brock:
I will admit I am also a beam freak. I can't stand light with rings at all anymore. I used to really like the UKE 2L output, but it is just adequate.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Brock,

I find that the UK 14801 lamp provides a consistantly focused and bright beam, somewhat narrower than the general average of UK lamps.
I am basing this on my three 14801 lamps (sometimes written as 480) that came with my new UK switched 4AA's.

Brightnorm

 

[Brock]

Brightnorm, your correct the beam is good, there is nothing wrong with it. But now I find it "not as perfect" as I used to if you know what I mean. I am not knocking them in any way, I recommend them as a great light, but I just can't compare the UKE lamp output to an E2 output. They are in two different classes, in my opinion anyway.

 

[Gone Jeepin]

I am since all the good members of this DB have enlightened me. As much as I don't like rings in the beam of a light, I am also getting tough on the color of the light. I can move towards different shades in lights for specific tasks. It has made the usefulness of my lights increase greatly.

 

[BuddTX]

I could care less! As long as some kind of yellowish/greenish shadowed, ringed, blotty light ousses out of the bezel, I could care less!

COME ON! We are FLASHOHOLICS!

We complain about SureFire lights that have a slightly oblong beam shape! (Does anyone else's XX SureFire light have an oblong beam shape?)

We complain about the slight hue of a hint of green on our hundred dollar plus LED lights.

We buy custom made, limited availabity, super tweaked lights!

We discuss "how much blue is too much blue?", in our LED lights.

We post pictures and more pictures, and build web sites with pictures of beam shots! And not just one, but at 6 inches, at 1 foot, 2 foot 5 foot, 10 foot, 100 feet 500 feet etc. We discuss camera settings to get the best shots.

We apolige for the camera pictures ("It's not nearly as green as the camera makes the beam shot look")

Are we a beam quality fanatic? Is the Pope Catholic?

Originally posted by sharkeeper:
I'm talking about ANYTHING that throws light!

I hate rings, halos, elongated spots, etc. People think I'm really strange when they see me trying to get a cheap flashlight to shine a decent spot!

Cheers!

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