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Joe Talmadge said:
Well, meters and eyes don't always agree. Not only is my Tigerlight obviously and significantly brighter than a P91, it is brighter than an MN60 (225 lumens), and even seems a bit brighter than an MN61 (350 lumens). Candlepower-wise, the Tigerlight is much brighter than all of the above, but it appears to my eyes as if it throws more overall light as well (admittedly, sometimes hard to judge since the beam patterns are so different).
Joe
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Joe,
I was curious to see how my metered test compared with my "eyeball" test in that review, so this excerpt followed directly after the metered review.
Subjective tests for total output
These evolved out of a curiosity to see how closely "eyeball" tests correlated with instrumented tests. Methodology combined several techniques including an eyes-closed "substitution" test, an eyes-open reflection test and other attempts to measure the total amount of light projected within a room. Each of the incandescent lights were compared in turn with the SpaceNeedle II.
This list shows the subjective impression of relative brightness grouped by those lights which seemed brighter than the Space Needle and those which seemed "dimmer".
Brighter (appearing) light is in bold type
SN II D3/P91
SN II Tigerlight
SN II Magcharger
SN II UltraStinger
SN II TACM III
SN II Stinger HP
SN II D3+SRTH+N2
SN II Pelican M6
SN II Polystinger
The subjective list matches the instrumented list except for the MagCharger which measured lower than the Space Needle.
There's no question that the Tigerlight is much brighter than the P91. In fact the TACM III, ASP Taclite and Pelican M6 will all cut right through the P91's beam even though their total output is much lower. NTL, the P91 convinced both me and the meter that its total output (ie lumens) was slightly greater than the Tigerlight's. The difference is small, only about 3% according to the meter.
I should mention that in my testing I metered all the rechargeables fully recharged, and with completely fresh, virgin batteries in the other lights. That P91 is so hungry that it dims noticeably after a very short burn. At that point it outputs noticeably less light than the Tigerlight which keeps burning brightly for many minutes.
Brightnorm