Should CPF have beam shot standards?

I think it would be cool if the members voted on some guidlines for standardized beam shot pictures. Of course everyone would still be able to take whatever kind of beam shots they wanted, but if a few standards were agreed upon, then people could more closely compare their beam shots to other members beam shots.

For example, a specified distance for white wall tests.

Two or three specified distances to a tree.

Two or three specified distances to a house/building.

Etc., etc...

I think it would be helpful to all if this were to happen.

Thoughts everyone?

..don't wanna make it too much work for people...fewer people will bother...

I don't think that's necessary.
I don't see any problems with todays beamshots.

They're fun.

No thank you. I sorta like the freedom that's there now.

Some standards would help help relating to aperture and exposure times, there is no way to compare different beam shots with out fixing at least these two variables. I have built lights with heaps of lumens, but because I only have an automatic camera my beam shots all turn out looking like a mini mag, other peoples beam shots with a large aperture and 3 or 4 second exposure look like the were taken in the mid day sun
Norm

Standards like KG mentions are a fine idea in some ways.

But, I disagree about standards for aperture and exposure times. I've mentioned this a number of times before, and most especially in my thread A new flashlight beam metrology, but the camera and the human eye are most definitely NOT the same.

You'd think that fixing everything scientifically and repeatably would be the only way to go, but the problem is that it doesn't work. You end up with a few way over-exposed shots, and a lot of shots that are basically just a bright round circle surrounded by darkness. The dynamic range of the camera isn't nearly as great as the dynamic range of the eye. And more than that, there are other differences.

The end result, is that a lot of beamshot comparisons just don't tell you very much.

I think that we need to abandon the idea of a scientific, standardized process. I propose that we go ahead and screw with whatever variables we need to IN ORDER TO ARRIVE AT A SET OF BEAMSHOTS WITH THE GREATEST FIDELITY TO THE WAY THE LIGHTS REALLY ARE.

Yes. I'm saying "cheat in order to be more faithful to the truth."

I discovered this because my digital camera simply won't let me control things the way a camera SHOULD. It's more of a point and shoot deal. However, it has a special mode called "Night Mode" with a long-shutter open time, and special algorhthyms to better capture what a night scene looks like to the human eye. The first time I tried it, I would very doubtful about how it would work out, but to my great surprise it was a lot better than the set of shots where I locked the ISO and exposure. And I mean a LOT better. I was like, well, I know that these are much closer to the truth, but I can't claim that they were done at the same exposure. Then I was like, SO WHAT! I have extensive experience with these beams, and I know these are pretty good beamshot comparisons. That's better than something more "objective" but with a lot less fidelity to reality.

Then, I decided that things got even better when I separated the camera from the flashlight, moving the camera a lot closer to the object being illuminated, allowing a more even light to fall across the cameras field of view. That's essentially my new beamshot metrology. That and the notion that we should cheat in order to tell the truth. If I needed to, I would mess around with brightness and whatever via a photoshop type program in order to make things better tell the truth. I don't give a damn about scientific standards because they simply don't work, and I won't be a slave to them.

However, standard ranges to white walls and trees and so on I think is a good idea.

No, not everyone will have the ability/resource to conform to the standard. What is easy to do for someone who live on 15 acre is not for someone who live in suburbs, or apartment.

jzmtl said:

No, not everyone will have the ability/resource to conform to the standard. What is easy to do for someone who live on 15 acre is not for someone who live in suburbs, or apartment.

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KG isn't suggesting a single standard. Rather he is suggesting a SET of them.

One or two standard white wall distances, which anyone who doesn't live in a cardboard box could manage.

Two or three standard distances to trees which anyone who doesn't live in a major metropolitan center could manage.

And maybe one or two very long distances for those who do live on or near 15+ acres.

It's not restrictive of type, just offers a discrete set, instead of an uncountably infinite one.

If I were voting, I'd say no wall shots as they're completely useless except for measurbating over the beam (OMG it has a slight ring!) or comparing tints.

This is different from a beamshot lighting up a whole room, or down a hallway, etc, I see the usefulness of those sort of shots. And of course the outdoor shots of trees, buildings, etc.

js said:

You'd think that fixing everything scientifically and repeatably would be the only way to go, but the problem is that it doesn't work. You end up with a few way over-exposed shots, and a lot of shots that are basically just a bright round circle surrounded by darkness. The dynamic range of the camera isn't nearly as great as the dynamic range of the eye. And more than that, there are other differences.

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I just ran into something similar doing some beamshots of souptree's orange A2. I can't use the original location where all the other shots were taken, and the lighting conditions where I shot the new round of pics is different. I tried using the same camera settings as the original shots, but I could not produce comparable shots. I ended up playing with the camera settings in an attempt to reproduce what I was seeing. Not ideal since now this latest set of pics is not directly comparable to what I had done in the past.

If any attempt at standards was made, I would suggest a first step would be a standard target. Perhaps it is a readily available colored inflatable beach ball or a rainbow towel from some department store or a T-shirt or whatever. If one were to photograph a standard target at standard distances then we might have some idea of relative beam coverage and possibly some information on color rendition.

With the variations in the lights themselves and then add all other variables it is very difficult to relate one persons beam shots to anothers. However if one person is consistant in their method of photographing the beam shots of various lights then there is value in relative comparison among their shots.

A standard requires duplication and the only thing I can think of that we could duplicate with any real control would be the target itself. The target would also give some scale and feel for its surrounds which obviously would vary considerably. Even a white wall is not a standard unless we all use the same paint over the same textured surface!!

Don't forget white balance. Auto white balance tries to turn any beam white, making it hard to see what the actual beam color is. The people with total auto cameras are probably out of luck, but I find that setting the white balance to "cloudy" gives me the truest color rendition of the beam, in a Nikon anyway.

DesertFox said:

Don't forget white balance. Auto white balance tries to turn any beam white, making it hard to see what the actual beam color is. The people with total auto cameras are probably out of luck, but I find that setting the white balance to "cloudy" gives me the truest color rendition of the beam, in a Nikon anyway.

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Not only that, but sensors are calibrated and images are processed differently depending on the manufacturer.

I think it is a question must talk over, standards like rules i think no. but i have seen many beamshots here wich say realy nothing. When there is nothing you can compare with you cant do anything with it. That problem is not only with beamshots.

I think there should just be standard white wall shots because well white walls don't vary as much as trees and having guidline distances wouldn't really be inconveniant. Also I think there should be a bullseye target similar to the flashlight reviews website and maybe a standard printable color chart for seeing color renditions.

too many variables.

1 camera on tripod with manual settings. then run through all flashlights on a bullseye white wall. at a cpf gathering. stitch pics or animated gif.

I don't even feel that a standardized target would get us any closer at being able to seeing color differences given the differences in cameras and the CCDs they use. I think that the effort involved in measuring distances, and everyone attaining the same standardized target wouldn't be worth the mix of varied results we'd be left with. It would be an interesting experiment in itself, if say, three CPF members used identical lights, targets and distances and then posted their pictures so that we could see the differences.

js said:

KG isn't suggesting a single standard. Rather he is suggesting a SET of them.

One or two standard white wall distances, which anyone who doesn't live in a cardboard box could manage.

Two or three standard distances to trees which anyone who doesn't live in a major metropolitan center could manage.

And maybe one or two very long distances for those who do live on or near 15+ acres.

It's not restrictive of type, just offers a discrete set, instead of an uncountably infinite one.

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By the time you have enough sets to accomodate most people's location, camera etc., you might as well not have any because there would be too many.

It would be much easier if people would just include a common light in their shots for comparison, like a 2/3D mag.

KingGlamis, an excellent topic for discussion. While there are many variables involved, I don't think that should keep us from striving to come up with some kind of voluntary standards.

That way, if somebody chose to follow the setup procedure, they would just have to say that they followed the KG1 Standard for this series of photos, and we would all know that the photos were shot with the lights and camera 3 feet from the wall, with the ASA set to 100, zoom set to 50mm, white balance set to daylight, F stop at F 4, and the shutter speed set to 4 seconds (just an example).

This wouldn't prevent anybody from posting beamshots taken any other way they want, just like now. I like the idea, and think it would be worth the effort to give it a try.... nothing really to lose.

Derek Dean said:

KingGlamis, an excellent topic for discussion. While there are many variables involved, I don't think that should keep us from striving to come up with some kind of voluntary standards.

That way, if somebody chose to follow the setup procedure, they would just have to say that they followed the KG1 Standard for this series of photos, and we would all know that the photos were shot with the lights and camera 3 feet from the wall, with the ASA set to 100, zoom set to 50mm, white balance set to daylight, F stop at F 4, and the shutter speed set to 4 seconds (just an example).

This wouldn't prevent anybody from posting beamshots taken any other way they want, just like now. I like the idea, and think it would be worth the effort to give it a try.... nothing really to lose.

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Great points. I thought of starting this thread after taking the same beam shots with the same target and same flashlights with two different cameras, which provided two totally different outcomes. I know a thing or two about photography, but with modern "cheap" digital cameras we are at the mercy of the camera.