Reviewers I got a ? for you.

Hey, Im new to the forums, and I was wondering, lets just say for example when you see people or you, take pictues of a flashlights beam outdoors and they/you shine it against a wall, or fence, or anything for that matter. 1. With a DSLR Do you take the picture with the same shutter speed everytime, And Just make a picture to picture comparison, Or Is there a set shutter and apeture you reccomend using. 2. With a point and shoot digital camera, does the shutter speed change with each picture.

Thanks, Jon

:welcome:
Good question! There's standard agreed upon for taking pics. With the plethora of lights and brightness levels, and LED colors, I'm not sure one would be useful.

When comparing several lights at the same time, I fix the settings in my camera. That at least allows comparisons between the same photo-shoot. Comparisons between photo sessions, and possibly other lights are harder (say, trying to compare LED vs Incan, or different LED colors).

If you look at my review of A2 LED colors, you'll notice I have different camera settings, depending on what pics I was taking. The pics are (for the most part) directly comparable within the groups. However, some settings don't work well if you shoot distant targets.

:thinking: Bottomline, you have to explore a bit with your camera to see which settings show what your eyes are seeing.

If you only have a point and shoot, you may or may not to be able to take beamshots.

Jonathan,

One sure fire way to go is to take a beamshot of both lights shining at once, side by side.

But, anyway, there's been a lot of discussion about this sort of thing and the consensus is fixed exposure, shutter speed, ISO, etc.--whatever it is for your camera.

However, I disagree, because the eye and the camera are far from identicle. I say it's OK to cheat in order to tell the truth. But that's just me. If you want to know more, you can check out my A new flashlight beam metrology thread. And also my SF A2 review.