Great post StarHalo. I forgot to mention that second one, extending one's arm and shining the light at an angle at wherever you need to see, I also feel that not only holding the light to the side works well, so does holding it arm raised upward and shining it downward.
What is the best flashlight in the fog?
- Thread starter efka
- Start date
Help Support Candle Power Flashlight Forum
asdalton
Flashlight Enthusiast
I quickly discovered the importance of an off-axis beam when hiking at night in humid conditions. There wasn't much fog, but my breath was condensing and reflecting light back from my headlamp.
This seems to be the one case where a headlamp falls down in performance compared to a hand-held light.
This seems to be the one case where a headlamp falls down in performance compared to a hand-held light.
The batteries went into both lights at the same time, from the same box of SF batteries.
Sub_Umbra
Flashlight Enthusiast
Well put, StarHalo.
doh, normally fog season is starting now, here.
Sitting around with XR-E (P4) 18650 and Streamlight Scorpion 18650 - to have lights of comparable everything - and those adhesive discs to put on after the "with spill" shots ...
... and there is no fog whatsoever
🙄
Sitting around with XR-E (P4) 18650 and Streamlight Scorpion 18650 - to have lights of comparable everything - and those adhesive discs to put on after the "with spill" shots ...
... and there is no fog whatsoever
🙄
lctorana
Flashlight Enthusiast
No sealed-beam lantern? You're still playing in second division.
I found that the Fenix headband can fix that problem rather well... just put your flashlight on the downwind side of your head and you're set to go
Linger
Flashlight Enthusiast
Cooler / blue white light is the worst.
My P7 out on a foggy night lights up a huge swath and nearly the entire beam is visible as a cone of white coming out the front of the torch.
Consider, what 'colour' is fog, anyway? During daylight / dusk when sunlight is still available fog appears white (not red, not green). Water vapour, visible in the form of steam rising from a hot kettle, appears white.
And so it holds that a redder, warmer light (incan, warm tint led), when used on in dense fog, reveals more of the surrounding landscape.
Lastly, a cool emitter in one hand, a warm emitter in the other, the 'cool' appears as a cone coming from the front of the torch, the warm has some beam visible in the fog, but in truth if you only use the incan / warm tint it just you'll swear the fog has lifted. Until you fire up the cool tint again.
Lots of time in the woods / on the water
-Linger
My P7 out on a foggy night lights up a huge swath and nearly the entire beam is visible as a cone of white coming out the front of the torch.
Consider, what 'colour' is fog, anyway? During daylight / dusk when sunlight is still available fog appears white (not red, not green). Water vapour, visible in the form of steam rising from a hot kettle, appears white.
And so it holds that a redder, warmer light (incan, warm tint led), when used on in dense fog, reveals more of the surrounding landscape.
Lastly, a cool emitter in one hand, a warm emitter in the other, the 'cool' appears as a cone coming from the front of the torch, the warm has some beam visible in the fog, but in truth if you only use the incan / warm tint it just you'll swear the fog has lifted. Until you fire up the cool tint again.
Lots of time in the woods / on the water
-Linger
White reflects any and ALL colors, be it red, green warm white or cool white. I'm not sure where you are trying to go with this one.
Linger, please read all the posts in this thread. Spill versus Throw is important.
You are using a P7 which is pretty much a floodlight so color becomes secondary to its beam pattern. Floods are not the best choice for fog.
Your warm/cool tests are not necessarily valid especially if you have your P7 in one hand and a thrower in the other. Again, beam pattern makes a difference and you need to factor that in to your warm/cool comparisons.
Linger
Flashlight Enthusiast
Has no-one stopped when driving down a foggy road, pulled over, and gone for to urniate? The 4-way hazzard blinkers show some fog around the car but you'd think it lifted. Get back in, restart the car, and as the headlights come on you're back in the blinding white.
given - both were floody lights. I acknowledge and agree with your point, its not the issue i'm contending.
MCFLYFYTER
Banned
no other beamshots? Maybe I will go out and take my first ever beamshots. Wish me luck. Gota love that Tule fog.
:toilet:
Don't mind the guy on the crapper. I had never noticed it before, and thought it was funny.
:toilet:
Don't mind the guy on the crapper. I had never noticed it before, and thought it was funny.
MCFLYFYTER
Banned
Not happening. I have no idea how to take a pic through fog. I could see better with my m60, but I could identify objects further with the p60. It is also not very foggy. I wonder what peoples definition of fog is. Around my parts, it is considered dense if you have to look out the drivers window to see the road. I just realized a few years ago that not everyone has the pleasure of driving in tule fog. Some of the views I have read can't be speaking of very dense fog.
M@elstrom
Flashlight Enthusiast
Fog & mist are created by water particles smoke is not, excessive light spill will behave similarly in both mediums 😉
Additional information can be found in this thread here... Best light to cut through smoke :thumbsup:
Sub_Umbra
Flashlight Enthusiast
Quite a bit. They are composed of different things and have different properties.
In usage the term fog will imply something heavier than smoke and it will become denser and denser the closer you get to the ground (because it is heavier than clear air.) Smoke is heavier than air also but it behaves differently than fog because it may exist over a much wider range of temperature. Hot smoke rises away from the cooler air near the ground and will continue to rise until it cools to the point where it reaches thermal equilibrium.
Smoke is more complex chemically (and varied) than fog is and will reflect and refract light differently according to what it is made up of.
In the context of Display and Theatre the two terms are often used interchangeably which muddies the water a bit. The truth is that they have dramatically 😀 different properties and designers and technical directors who need a certain effect must know the difference and implement the right one to get what they want. Theatre/Display also has a hybrid called cooled smoke which is smoke generated from a conventional smoke machine and then passed through dry ice to severely chill it so that when it's deployed it will retain some of the properties of both smoke and fog. It resists rapid dissipation because the liquid it's made from is formulated with that in mind and yet it is cold enough to flow on the floor like fog -- for a while, anyway.
Last edited:
Magic Matt
Enlightened
I have taken photographs in fog with a flash. If the flash is on the camera, for get it, you just get a white haze.
The secret is to mount the flash away from the lens, as close to your subject as possible, with a sharp cut-off so that as little fog near the lens is illuminated.
With a flashlight for walking, following this principle, you actually want the beam aimed low towards the ground, and a cut-off shade to stop any of the light beam shining upwards. This results in you seeing far more of the ground, and your view is not obscured by the fog in front of your face being illuminated.
Colour makes no difference at all in my experience (which admittedly is more with flashes and colour filters than flashlights). What makes the biggest difference is the angle of the beam.
Car foglights are designed to case a bar-shaped beam and not to shine light upwards at all - some even cut off at -5 or -10 degrees from the horizontal. This gives maximum visibility on the road.
You can make ANY torch, even a cheap supermarket one, perform far better in the fog by making a shade out of a piece of card to stop the beam scattering upwards and securing it with an elastic band. I have had to do it before in an emergency, and it worked far better than expected. Try it - you may be surprised at just how much difference it makes.
The secret is to mount the flash away from the lens, as close to your subject as possible, with a sharp cut-off so that as little fog near the lens is illuminated.
With a flashlight for walking, following this principle, you actually want the beam aimed low towards the ground, and a cut-off shade to stop any of the light beam shining upwards. This results in you seeing far more of the ground, and your view is not obscured by the fog in front of your face being illuminated.
Colour makes no difference at all in my experience (which admittedly is more with flashes and colour filters than flashlights). What makes the biggest difference is the angle of the beam.
Car foglights are designed to case a bar-shaped beam and not to shine light upwards at all - some even cut off at -5 or -10 degrees from the horizontal. This gives maximum visibility on the road.
You can make ANY torch, even a cheap supermarket one, perform far better in the fog by making a shade out of a piece of card to stop the beam scattering upwards and securing it with an elastic band. I have had to do it before in an emergency, and it worked far better than expected. Try it - you may be surprised at just how much difference it makes.
M@elstrom
Flashlight Enthusiast
According to the manufacturers' "blurb" :thumbsup:
- The optical lens is impregnated with an enhanced fluorescent
pigment. The fluorescent pigment is excited by using a white,
blue, or near UV LED light source to produce the fluorescent
yellow light color necessary for the task. The optics then further
concentrate the color intensity and the light altogether. With the
right mixture of fluorescent dye, it will produce a fog light with a
yellow color light stream (~570nm) that improves vision in poor
weather conditions during DAYTIME or NIGHTTIME.
Last edited:
Icebreak
Flashlight Enthusiast
Seriously? Wow. That is fascinating. It's especially fascinating because I distinctly remember a few discussions that entertained adjusting light spectrum with fluorescence. Unlike a filter that subtracts and only subtracts this would absorb-adjust-add. Hugh. How about that? And just when I was getting a little board.
Thank you, M@elstrom.
[Edit] Oh, goodness, I see Phil Lui's post from 2007 explaining it. [/Edit]
Thank you, M@elstrom.
[Edit] Oh, goodness, I see Phil Lui's post from 2007 explaining it. [/Edit]
Last edited:
Similar threads
Latest posts
-
-
-
For Sale - Flashlight Prometheus Delta RM- Latest: Jim Bonney
-
-
