how well does LED perform in foggy condition?

[picard]

how well does LED perform in foggy condition?

Can LED light penetrate foggy night?

 

[GBone]

Best that I can tell and LED and incans go through fog just the same, meaning they both throw the same amount of light on the intended target (assuming you are using the same power LED and incan).

Difference is this, to my eye the color of the incan causes less reflection off the fog therefore making it easier to see the target you are trying to illuminate. Again, to my eye I find that the cooler color of most high output LEDs reflects more off the fog and therefore makes it more difficult to see the lit target.

Hope my opinion helps...

 

[picard]

Best that I can tell and LED and incans go through fog just the same, meaning they both throw the same amount of light on the intended target (assuming you are using the same power LED and incan).

Difference is this, to my eye the color of the incan causes less reflection off the fog therefore making it easier to see the target you are trying to illuminate. Again, to my eye I find that the cooler color of most high output LEDs reflects more off the fog and therefore makes it more difficult to see the lit target.

Hope my opinion helps...

ok. thanks for your info. It is very informative. :thumbsup:

 

[cernobila]

The above post is close to the mark except that when I tried this on a foggy rainy day, I found the LED lights next to useless compared to the identical sized incans. The LED lights reflected back at me and lit up the moisture in front with very little penetration.....the incans had little reflection and very good penetration through the moisture lighting up the trees and fences etc a long way ahead......

 

[Dances with Flashlight]

I've seen fairly effective fog lights on vehicles, and amber lights seemed a bit better. I wonder whether colored LED's might not offer some advantages over warm or cool white incands. If so, which colors?

 

[Bushman5]

I swear i'm the only one who has experienced the complete opposite.

 

[kramer5150]

The above post is close to the mark except that when I tried this on a foggy rainy day, I found the LED lights next to useless compared to the identical sized incans. The LED lights reflected back at me and lit up the moisture in front with very little penetration.....the incans had little reflection and very good penetration through the moisture lighting up the trees and fences etc a long way ahead......

But were the beam patterns identical though? Most LED torches I have played around with flood as much as they throw. Not a good thing (one would think) for heavy fog penetration. Whereas incans generally are more throw oriented with less flood.

I would think its wiser to take it on a case by case basis... rather than generalize too much. If you take an LED torch, focus the output for more throw than flood... how would that compare to an equally set up incandescent?

 

[cernobila]

The only way to find out is to do a controlled test where the bulb lumens and the beam angles are identical and only then you will find out. My own comparisons were based on lights that use D26 size lamp modules and run on a single 18650 cell in both LED and incan.

 

[TMorita]

This has been discussed extensively on CPF...try searching for the terms: backscatter fog throw.

Your question is kinda meaningless, because you're assuming that whether a light penetrates fog depends on the type of light source. This is like assuming that all Russian programmers are brilliant (I had one manager who would make these types of assumptions) which is obviously not true...it depends on the specific person and is different on a case-by-case basis.

If you do the search I suggested above, you will understand that it's the type of beam (not the type of light source) which determines whether or not a light penetrates fog well.

Toshi

 

[JanCPF]

As others have said I think it depends highly on the beam pattern. If more light is put into sidespil or flood, more light will backscatter into your eyes. Try the old TIR based Surefire KL1 held as far away from your eyes as possible. It's excelent in foggy weather IMO due to the fact that it has no sidespil. Same goes for Pelicans LED recoil designs which seems to be favored by firemen as this design also has very little sidespil and therefor penetrates smoke better.

Jan

 

[Zenster]

Plus, there's always the simple option of using an amber filter over a bright white LED light.
Since you can buy "specific use" colored filters for other lights including (for example) an HID light such as the AE 25W for which there is the amber filter specifically recommended for "fog, smoke and dust", I would think that any similar amber filter you could get that would fit your LED light would give the same performance.
http://www.batteryjunction.com/hidpofiplsmf.html
... note the "3000K color temperature which brings that 6000K HID right down (exactly!) to an incan color temperature of 3000K.

Since most of the newest "white" LED's are in the 6000K color range themselves, it seems to me that for every person who laments about how they can't live without incans (accompanied by dismal runtimes), there might be an amber filter that will fit their LED light and bring it's color right into the exact range of incans.
In fact, if you think about it, a high performance LED light fitted permanently with a 3000K amber filter should give one the absolute best of both worlds; the full time color of an incan accompanied with huge efficiency and long runtimes of LED technology.

Last thought; I wonder if some manufacturer will pick up on the "incan vs. LED color" controversy and make a light with a permanently installed 3000K amber lens (not just an add-on filter) in order to offer a light for the incan crowd.

Someone really needs to do this.

 

[Gaffle]

It depends on the reflector.

The Propolymer 4AA is a fireman light. Made to penetrate smoke. The reason it penetrates is because of the deep reflector/lots of throw.

 

[techwg]

The only time i have ever encountered fog while out walking, was a few years ago, and the light of my life was the Inova X5. It illuminated the THICK fog and i could not see squat. I hate the X5 so much i gave it away, because i need throw. I would imagine that my P3D's would handle them selves in a foggy condition, light is light, the only difference is what spectrums do you see.

 

[tsask]

http://www.batteryjunction.com/hidpofiplsmf.html

if this light had a GREEN LED instead of RED I'd buy it imediately!

 

[WadeF]

I haven't had many chances to try comparing lights, but on a fairly foggy night my ROV 4w 3c Q5 penetrated the fog as well as my Odyssey's low beams.

 

[KROMATICS]

Since most of the newest "white" LED's are in the 6000K color range themselves, it seems to me that for every person who laments about how they can't live without incans (accompanied by dismal runtimes), there might be an amber filter that will fit their LED light and bring it's color right into the exact range of incans.
In fact, if you think about it, a high performance LED light fitted permanently with a 3000K amber filter should give one the absolute best of both worlds; the full time color of an incan accompanied with huge efficiency and long runtimes of LED technology.

Last thought; I wonder if some manufacturer will pick up on the "incan vs. LED color" controversy and make a light with a permanently installed 3000K amber lens (not just an add-on filter) in order to offer a light for the incan crowd.

Someone really needs to do this.

As stated elsewhere it's about color rendering not color temperature. Incandescents produce more natural light because they have a significantly higher color rendering index than LEDs. An incandescent is 100 while an LED is only 70 to 80 as they only peak in a couple spots in the spectrum. Slapping an amber filter on an LED isn't going to make it outperform an incandescent because color temperature is simply not the issue here. LEDs have their benefits such as long life, runtime and whiter beams but they don't hold a candle to the superior color rendering of an incandescent. I use both. A good incandescent at 3300K is hardly what I would call yellow either. It would be nice if it could be pushed a bit higher but that's not really an option. Until full spectrum LEDs are available with a CRI the low to mid 90's incandescents will remain champ for color accuracy, contrast, depth, etc.

As for fog a narrow beam with no spill would help because your not illuminating a wall of fog in front of you.

 

[cernobila]

As stated elsewhere it's about color rendering not color temperature. Incandescents produce more natural light because they have a significantly higher color rendering index than LEDs. An incandescent is 100 while an LED is only 70 to 80 as they only peak in a couple spots in the spectrum. Slapping an amber filter on an LED isn't going to make it outperform an incandescent because color temperature is simply not the issue here. LEDs have their benefits such as long life, runtime and whiter beams but they don't hold a candle to the superior color rendering of an incandescent. I use both. A good incandescent at 3300K is hardly what I would call yellow either. It would be nice if it could be pushed a bit higher but that's not really an option. Until full spectrum LEDs are available with a CRI the low to mid 90's incandescents will remain champ for color accuracy, contrast, depth, etc.

As for fog a narrow beam with no spill would help because your not illuminating a wall of fog in front of you.

Thats it!.......If I had this kind of information and knowledge, thats exactly what I would have said.....

 

[Lit Up]

If it's any help, I went outside just now in very foggy and cold conditions for a test.
The 2 lights used were a Brinkmann 2D LuxIII which has a heatsink and a Surefire G2 incan with the P60 lamp. Had to put the batteries inside the Surefire. I won't leave them inside it. Even with it being a Surefire brand battery; I just don't trust em.

Anyways ,the results: Both threw and shined even. The only difference was yellowish illuminated water drops vs. bluish ones. Outside of a few feet it all just became illuminated fog.

Also, that Brinkmann is a thrower. It really made no difference.

 

[trapn1]

For what its worth, I went outside last night with my lights. It was foggy and drizzling rain temp was about 35F. Of all the lights I tried my SF 6P w/P61 LA worked the best in penetrating the fog/rain. Like I said that was my perception only. The other lights I used were Huntlight, Inova T3, JB MarkII w/123 tube, JB Cle,Feniz l1p and l2p w/123 tube, Olight T20 SE. Just my $.02, George

 

[cv3po]

This has been discussed extensively on CPF...try searching for the terms: backscatter fog throw.

Your question is kinda meaningless, because you're assuming that whether a light penetrates fog depends on the type of light source. This is like assuming that all Russian programmers are brilliant (I had one manager who would make these types of assumptions) which is obviously not true...it depends on the specific person and is different on a case-by-case basis.

If you do the search I suggested above, you will understand that it's the type of beam (not the type of light source) which determines whether or not a light penetrates fog well.

Toshi

Not entirely true. Beam focus DOES have a large effect but the simple fact is that white led's have MUCH less output in the yellow/red part of the spectrum and a lot more blue than incan's. Blue light gets scattered more easily and not as much reaches target. The sky is blue because the blue component of sunlight is reflected around and into our eyes. Sunset/rise is reddish because it goes through more air and all the blue is scattered out by the time it gets to us. So basicly, incans are better in fog and smoke. I think pelican makes an led series called the recoil that faces the emitter back into the reflector for a really tight beam. That one is marketed to firefighters and is supposed to be pretty good for an led tho.