liquidsunshine
Newly Enlightened
Hi everyone!
Not sure if this is the right forum - moderator, please move if appropriate, thanks!
I had two items lying on my table recently that suddenly yelled at me "use us together!" Now the result is not strictly speaking a Photon Freedom with 100 metres throw - nonetheless those of you who carry some survival gear may actually have said long reach photon in their pocket without knowing.
It's simple: Hold a credit card sized fresnel lens - which is basically only a foil no bigger than a card and pretty cheap - in front of your Photon, or whatever other single light source flashlight you may have. To add stability, rest the hand holding the Photon on the lower arm that holds the lens. Line up light and lens, shine the light vertically onto the lens surface, and vary the distance to get the beam you want. For my lens, the best distance between light and lens was about 15 centimetres.
You can quite easily adjust te tightness of the beam within a surprising range. In a residential area with quite a bit of light pollution, I could see the Photon Freedom beam on objects about 6 metres away without the lens. In the "freelens superspot setting" [TM] I could easily see the bigger branches on a tree that was about 70 metres away under the same conditions! In total darkness that would be 100 metres or more.
Now this setup is certainly not very handy and requires both hands, BUT the lens is easy to carry and a multi use item, and if you want to signal someone at a big distance of whom you know the approximate location - scanning the horizon in one particular direction, aiming at SAR aircraft etc. - it could well increase your chances significantly.
The visibility of the light for another person would be drastically increased if aimed correctly. I'd LOVE to see a test done on this - Doug Ritter, in case you're reading here: If you're ever doing land-land or land-air visibility tests with lights again, could you please also test this setup?
Worth mentioning: The beam is so clear cut that if the air is not totally clear, you can see its angle and where it is going easily, allowing you to adjust the width according to what you want to do, and aim it even if the target is too far away to actually make the beam visible to you on objects.
If anyone tries with other lights or has other ideas arond this it would be cool to hear from you.
Cheers,
Matthias
Not sure if this is the right forum - moderator, please move if appropriate, thanks!
I had two items lying on my table recently that suddenly yelled at me "use us together!" Now the result is not strictly speaking a Photon Freedom with 100 metres throw - nonetheless those of you who carry some survival gear may actually have said long reach photon in their pocket without knowing.
It's simple: Hold a credit card sized fresnel lens - which is basically only a foil no bigger than a card and pretty cheap - in front of your Photon, or whatever other single light source flashlight you may have. To add stability, rest the hand holding the Photon on the lower arm that holds the lens. Line up light and lens, shine the light vertically onto the lens surface, and vary the distance to get the beam you want. For my lens, the best distance between light and lens was about 15 centimetres.
You can quite easily adjust te tightness of the beam within a surprising range. In a residential area with quite a bit of light pollution, I could see the Photon Freedom beam on objects about 6 metres away without the lens. In the "freelens superspot setting" [TM] I could easily see the bigger branches on a tree that was about 70 metres away under the same conditions! In total darkness that would be 100 metres or more.
Now this setup is certainly not very handy and requires both hands, BUT the lens is easy to carry and a multi use item, and if you want to signal someone at a big distance of whom you know the approximate location - scanning the horizon in one particular direction, aiming at SAR aircraft etc. - it could well increase your chances significantly.
The visibility of the light for another person would be drastically increased if aimed correctly. I'd LOVE to see a test done on this - Doug Ritter, in case you're reading here: If you're ever doing land-land or land-air visibility tests with lights again, could you please also test this setup?
Worth mentioning: The beam is so clear cut that if the air is not totally clear, you can see its angle and where it is going easily, allowing you to adjust the width according to what you want to do, and aim it even if the target is too far away to actually make the beam visible to you on objects.
If anyone tries with other lights or has other ideas arond this it would be cool to hear from you.
Cheers,
Matthias