Brightness Isn't Everything

[DHart]

Yep... the right amount of brightness is what sets the winning lights apart from others and sometimes the right amount of light is a very gentle floody beam

or just a hint of tiny illumination in a very dark situation.

This is putting it perfectly... the "right amount" for the situation is everything. :thumbsup:

 

[dymonite69]

Brightness isn't everything because:

1) Too much light results in loss of night adaptation so we lose both colour perception, spatial resolution and sensitivity to movement in areas not being directly illuminated.

2) If the spectral power distribution of the light source is inadequately weighted then we lose brightness, colour and spatial sensitivity.

3) Objects in the indoor and outdoor setting have different absorption spectra so different light sources work better in each of those circumstances.

4) Uneven or excessive light affect the casting of shadows that may negatively influence depth perception

 

[fisk-king]

IMHO, I think its due to a *flashlight*/learning curve dealing with the notion of wanting "more brightness". After reading some of the posts in this thread alot of the people, who have been here for a time, state that they first bought into this notion but gradually learned better over time. Myself included. When I first joined I wanted the brightest and coolest looking light( aesthetics is still key:naughty and wondered why alot of the vets said otherwise. I have to admit that in the beginning this forum seemed overwhelming. I never cared about "bin codes" or types of emitters, etc. I just wanted a dang bright flashlight!

Now over a year later and still *more* reading to do, I am currently searching for a practical, not tactical:naughty:, flashlight that fulfills alot of my needs. Hmmm a Ra light w/ a selector switch for brightness? :thinking:

Maybe next year there will be less *tactical* branded flashlights but more *practical* ones.

 

[DHart]

Yeah... I kind of got caught up in a max output quest until I found myself with about 30 nice lights and realized that I really only need a few good ones.

And also discovered that there were a variety of other flashlight attributes which were much more important to me than attaining the brightest possible output. I'm quite content with a flashlight which has reasonable max output (even if not the maximum possible) as long as the flashlight has the following qualities:

1) a nice clean beam (not ringy)
2) nicely defined central beam (a little throwy) easing softly into a moderately wide, bright, and useful spill
3) pleasing neutral to ever-so-slightly warm tint
4) a low low (like 1 to 4 lumens or so)
5) easy UI to attain max, min, and one or two intermediate levels.

As long as a general-use light offers these attributes (which have nothing to do with maximum brightness), I have little need nor desire to seek out and obtain ever brighter maximum output. So no, for me, brightness is definitely NOT everything. It is nice to have but secondary to these other attributes.

 

[JaguarDave-in-Oz]

I have about twenty torches. I have tested all of them against another at some time in the past few months so I have a ranking of brightness amongst them. I test them by taking them outside (where 95% of my torch use occurs) and seeing how much of my property I can see with my own eys while using them (a test which equates to the majority of my usage pattern). The more of my property I can see with my torch the more useful the torch is to me.

Invariably it's the brightest ones that allow me to see the most of my area and thus it's the brightest ones that turn out to be the most useful. Well, I have to say that's not really unexpected to me.

With the bounds of sensibility run-time is unimportant, I have a bazillion batteries. Colour tint is not really that important, I see just about as well with a greenish tint torch as I do with a bluish tint one. Naturals and warms cast a yellowy brown pall over everything and my eye detests that so I don't play that game, they are dimmer anyway.

About the only thing other than brightness that concerns me is the beam angle and the way the spot fades into the spill but no matter what I'm still going to choose to use the the brightest one.

I can always make a bright light dimmer, I can't make a dim light brighter. Provided I can fit the torch in my pocket, brightness wins for me every time. That's why I love my new P20C2 MkII. It's brighter than the other 19 torches so it gets used every day, they don't.

 

[DHart]

JaguarDave.... I can totally relate and agree with your assessment of what's important in a flashlight to you. I live in the country on 5 wooded acres with wooded acreage beyond and when I'm wanting to see out there far, I too will choose the brightest-throwy arrow in the quiver. (At present that would be my Jet III Military, which is a great thrower.)

So what you're saying makes perfect sense to me. And in that application, I guess brightness is close to "everything" for that application. But that's not the light I would necessarily choose for my general use around the house - an application where brightness is not "everything". I never use my Jet III M around the house.

Most of my flashlight use is in and around the house and that's why ultimate brightness is lower among my desired attributes for general use in the house.

If I had to have just one light for out on the acreage as well as around the house, yes, it would be important to me to choose one with ultimate brightness, as long as it was compact enough for general use and dimmable to 1 to 3 lumens or so. And, hopefully, I could meet most of my other criteria as well.

I haven't checked to see, but I would guess that there's a newer Jet III Military out by now with a much hotter emitter than mine has (XR-E Q3 5A). Perhaps I'm due for an upgrade!

Definitely different criteria for different applications.

 

[JaguarDave-in-Oz]

If I had to have just one light for out on the acreage as well as around the house, yes, I would choose one with ultimate brightness as long as it was compact enough for general use and dimmable to 1 to 3 lumens or so. And, hopefully, I could meet most of my other criteria as well.

Indeed, and choosing's pretty much what I had to do (that's whay I went through twenty odd torches before I finally found what I was looking for in an every day carriage torch).

I spend most of my time (day and night) outside the house and that means that whatever I use has to be something that I'm carrying with me and since I don't wear a belt I have to have it in a pocket.

I guess there will always be a compromise somewhere no matter what I carry but I reckon the tool has to be capable of operating in the worst case scenario and that, to me, means it needs to be as bright as it can so I can see either the widest or the furthest (that's a beam shape preference that I'm still torn between two on. My P20C2 MkII and my original model P20C2).

It's a very very rare occasion that I would use my torch inside the house but my thing about being able to make a bright light dimmer would come in there because I can always put my rather threadbare handkerchief over the lens if I want a close up dim diffused beam but on the otehr hand I just can't think of a way of improving the brightness of a dim torch.

I guess my point comes down to the fact that for some people brightness is genuinely the more important facet and it's not, as someone inferred much earlier, always that they are under-done on sophistication or education.

 

[Black Rose]

For me, multi-mode lights and drop-ins have become the solution.

Brightness is there when needed, but 90% of the time, only the low mode is used.

Add a neutral white Rebel to the mix, and it's near perfection for me.

 

[DHart]

JaguarDave... on your P20C2 and P20C2 MkII do you have SM or OP reflectors? Do you obtain a good throw with a nice bright and wide spill with either of those lights? And, dare I ask, clean beam? And how's the tint?

 

[JaguarDave-in-Oz]

I'm using orange peel on both. The orange peel is different between them too.

The original model has an extremely light peel, barely there. It is enough to take away the "ringiness" that it has when I use my smooth reflector but the peel doesn't seem to dimisnish the real life throw by more than a few yards. Certainly not enough to make me want to go back to the rings of the smooth. One thing I did notice on the early model orange peel reflector was that it was focussed just past its pointiest setting so I had to shim the reflector out by seven thou or so.

My new mkII version has a heavier peel. It does not throw as far as the earlier model (though that's probably more to do with the XPG than the peel). On the other hand, it has a huge amount of light and the smoothest transition from spot to spill of any of my torches. I thought my Nitecore D10 was good for transition but the p20c2 MkII is way ahead.

I lose maybe about fifteen to twenty yards of throw with the mkII over the earlier model but it lights up the intervening area with a much more even and solid wide path of light so it's just as useful. That is to say that I can see wide rather than long so in the end they both sort of cover the same square yardage with bright light even though they do it in a different shape it basically gets the same result in a search pattern when looking for a fox etc.

 

[carrot]

Yeah... I kind of got caught up in a max output quest until I found myself with about 30 nice lights and realized that I really only need a few good ones.

And also discovered that there were a variety of other flashlight attributes which were much more important to me than attaining the brightest possible output. I'm quite content with a flashlight which has reasonable max output (even if not the maximum possible) as long as the flashlight has the following qualities:

1) a nice clean beam (not ringy)
2) nicely defined central beam (a little throwy) easing softly into a moderately wide, bright, and useful spill
3) pleasing neutral to ever-so-slightly warm tint
4) a low low (like 1 to 4 lumens or so)
5) easy UI to attain max, min, and one or two intermediate levels.

As long as a general-use light offers these attributes (which have nothing to do with maximum brightness), I have little need nor desire to seek out and obtain ever brighter maximum output. So no, for me, brightness is definitely NOT everything. It is nice to have but secondary to these other attributes.

Nothing sucks more than being misunderstood.

When I said brightness isn't everything, I intentionally left it open to interpretation. However, I was also hoping someone would bring up this sort of point and seeing a post like yours in this newly revived thread certainly made my day. Thanks DHart.

 

[DHart]

Nothing sucks more than being misunderstood.

When I said brightness isn't everything, I intentionally left it open to interpretation. However, I was also hoping someone would bring up this sort of point and seeing a post like yours in this newly revived thread certainly made my day. Thanks DHart.

Hey carrot.... glad you appreciate the viewpoint. Best wishes, my friend.

P.S. The lights I have which provide that which I just described above are my first generation XP-E Quarks (cool & neutral).... I love 'em all, they perform magnificently, gorgeous beams, great balance of throw & spill, very pleasing tints, all running great on li-ion rechargeables... and I feel no need whatsoever to replace them with something newer/brighter. At some point I may choose to add a hotter torch/thrower (updating my Jet III M) for use on my property (perhaps the P20C2 MkII), but for general use I'm thrilled with these Quarks.

 

[MarNav1]

Agreed, quality is far more important than quantity. People get too hung up on numbers.

So true. :laughing:

 

[Roger999]

and, did you ever turn on a C3 or something like it, in the middle of the night, to see what time it is? Your eyes are SOOO adapted to darkness then..... you only see all kinds of colors in front of your eyes :mecry:

Get a watch with well lumed dials + hands and you won't need the flashlight to see the time for a good hour or 2 :twothumbs.

 

[JaguarDave-in-Oz]

If I'm walking around at night I'd already have my torch turned on so I'd be able to see my watch with it just fine.

 

[fisk-king]

If I'm walking around at night I'd already have my torch turned on so I'd be able to see my watch with it just fine.

 

[scout24]

Since Carrot was kind enough to link this in another thread, I thought I'd add some recent observations from the Great Snow of October here in the Northeast, complete with ongoing power outages for some...

1. Zebralight H501w is the most useful close-range headlamp in existence. Wide comfortable strap, runs forever on an Eneloop, great tint, and intuitive UI.

2. Fenix EO1 with two small magnets attached to my fridge to ceiling bounce is a fantastic night light. Thanks to david1t for the tips in the ZL mod thread in headlamps!

3. High CR-I lights are easy on the eyes, and help with eye strain from working in the dark. More pleasant than cool white for me.

4. Tailstanding is important to me for ceiling bounce area lighting.

5. When it's truly dark, and there's no ambient light, lower output is certainly not a handicap.

6. During power outages, flamethrower lights DO draw attention, wanted or not...

7. YMMV.

 

[HotWire]

We just had a power outage, and despite my house being filled with bright hotwires and superbright LEDs, it was the low level lights that produced the most satisfaction. Don't need much light and the runtime is longer. Did miss CPF and the internet, though!

 

[mikedeason]

I must be in the minority.

firing up 500 + lumens always brings a smile to my face.

Same reason I drive a Vette.

I like to have the power even if I dont need it....its Big Kid Syndrome.

 

[kaichu dento]

Nice posts on the power outages, and the high level first types will be the ones coming over to borrow a cup of batteries...