Advice on how to take beamshots

I am expecting my HDS B42 to come anyday now. Once it comes I would like to take some beamshots and do some runtimes. What is the best way to take beamshots? What aperture and shutter speeds are best at near or complete darkness? And for runtime, I don't want it to step down because of heat so is the best way to do this to hold it the whole time or maybe keep it in cold water?

Thanx,

Patrick

the shutter & aperture speeds needed will change depending on the distance your light is from the target, so it's difficult to give you an "optimal" exposure setting.

my best advice is to try and get it as close to "what you see" as possible, and then maybe overexpose and underexpose to show spillbeam and hotspot characteristics if you so desire. don't forget also to lock white balance if you want to take comparison shots. i usually use daylight white balance :shrug:

probably a fan of some sort would be good for cooling. (stationary/non-flowing) water is one of the best insulators, and although the water may be cold at the start, once it warms it'll do the opposite and insulate the heat into your light. maybe ice water... with light stirring every now and again =P i dunno =P

anyway, hope this helps a little

The best way to take beamshots is to take multiple exposures at over a range of at least +/- 2 AE and merge everything into a single HDR using Photomatix or Photoshop CS2. This is the only way you can get spot, corona and spill in the same shot.