To The More Experienced Flashoholics?

Which Surefire STOCK LA is better for cutting through fog? an Incan Stock or LED Stock. I am looking into getting the 6P from Surefire and am needing to know this.

IME
Incan

Why im not in the "experienced" category.

I would go with agree with Sgt. Led on this one.

Go with incan.

Ican too. For me the white tint of the LED scatter too much in fog.

Incan. Maybe a 5A LED. IIRC, my Q3 5A cuts through fog better than my P60L.

Have you thought about the Surefire A2, it has a regulated incan for approximately 50 minutes runtime.

In addition there is the low level 5mm led to conserve power.

The stock P60 incandescent lamp is a lot more intense (more focused hotspot) than the P60L LED lamp. It's not even close, in fact.

In my opinion you need to go to the Malkoff M60 drop-in to get the equivalent throw of a P60 lamp on fresh batteries. (But the M60 might give you more backward glare from its more intense sidespill beam ... I haven't tried it in fog though.)

Incan is far better in fog and rain than LED. It's not just intensity and throw, it's the color spectrum. The predominance of reds and yellows in the incan beam is actually an advantage for use in fog and rain, as those frequencies of light aren't scattered as much and thus get out to the target, reflect off of it, and return to your eyes. This is why fog lights on cars are both incandescent and have a yellow filter on them.

js said:

Incan is far better in fog and rain than LED. It's not just intensity and throw, it's the color spectrum. The predominance of reds and yellows in the incan beam is actually an advantage for use in fog and rain, as those frequencies of light aren't scattered as much and thus get out to the target, reflect off of it, and return to your eyes. This is why fog lights on cars are both incandescent and have a yellow filter on them.

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This is not correct for fog, because the particles are much too large relative to the wavelength of light. It is correct for air over many kilometers of penetration (Rayleigh scattering).

Yellow filters are a based on a misconception and a marketing gimmick. You're not going to get a beam to penetrate further by merely subtracting photons from it.

Consider that a red and green laser of the same output intensity vary visibly in terms of how much you can see the beam. Green lasers have a visible line under foggier, etc, conditions, whereas red is less visible.

What I find most important in thick fog, actually, is not the beam color and tint, etc, but how tight the beam is. I would say you're looking for a light with very little spill and just a focused hotspot, such as... say, a TIR based light... E2DL or E2L perhaps.

Bruce B said:

Which Surefire STOCK LA is better for cutting through fog? an Incan Stock or LED Stock. I am looking into getting the 6P from Surefire and am needing to know this.

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since you asked for "stock" the answer is the 6p with the stock p60 LA.

asdalton said:

This is not correct for fog, because the particles are much too large relative to the wavelength of light. It is correct for air over many kilometers of penetration (Rayleigh scattering).

Yellow filters are a based on a misconception and a marketing gimmick. You're not going to get a beam to penetrate further by merely subtracting photons from it.

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I've also seen fog lamps with a blue filter lens... anyway you look at it though the pure white light will be reflected right back at you, much better to go for a lower frequency output incandescent lamp IME :thumbsup: