FIRST I must point out that I made a mistake. The red, yellow and turquoise readings are off by a factor of 10. Sorry, I should have spotted this sooner but didn`t- it was late and I was tired, and got confused.
I`ll amend the diagrams in a moment. Sorry for any confusion caused
.
Spidey- the reason I took my readings the way I did (LEDs at 12 inches from sensor, meter reading in foot candles = beam candelas)is to give figures that could be related to other figures published elsewhere. Beam Candelas are used by LED manufacturers like Nichia to rate their products. An average white Nichia LED is 5.6 candelas in a 10 degree (half-angle) beam.
If I were to put the Luxeons flat against the sensor`s face then although they would catch maybe 98-99% of the light, it would give fairly meaningless high numbers I could do little with, other than compare between. I would have no way to relate that to any other standard measurements. I think my Peak Beam Candela readings up there do that quite well.
You`re thinking about Lumens, right? Sorry, it`s a lot harder than that. Expensive photometric equipment is needed to measure lumen output. Thankfully a cheap digital light meter will work taking beam candelas.
on the picture for the turquoise spot, is that 2,920 candelas, or 292.0?
If it's 2,920, does it appear that much brighter than the white?
Yes my mistake- as I highlighted at the start of this post. Mis-interpreted the reading on the meter due to tiredness and beer
Turquoise vs White....hold on let`s find them and hook them up. 348mA through both in series and even though it`s daytime now and a bit bright, I would say the Turquoise is brighter. But....it has a narrower hotspot in the beam. The white`s beam is softer, and wider by about 75-100% so it will naturally appear dimmer. White will also be the clearest to see by as colours will show up as nature intended. Under turquoise light (which in this case is very greeny like those "green" traffic lights that look sort of blue-green), some colours like reds will look almost black.
The white is certainly the best all-round choice, but for longer throw especially outdoors in a land of green stuff (plants), turquoise would be a good choice.