In the park with a 10X, MagCharger, and TigerLight

We had a little informal gathering last week and were hoping to compare the SureFire 10X with the Mag Charger, the TigerLight, and the Ultra Stinger. The guy with the Ultra Stinger was unable to make it. The setting was a local park with little ambient lighting.

The 10X lived up to it's name. It Dominated all the lights by throwing a wall of light that was very bright. 500 lumens is a lot of light. This light reminds me of turning on the headlights on my truck. Just a nice even bright beam. Those of you that do not have a 10X can kind of see what it is like by covering up one of you headlights and turning them on.

The Mag Charger can be focused to a tight spot. That spot can be seen within the 10X beam. The TigerLight (with Generation 3 lamp) does not focus, but the hot spot of the beam could also be seen in the 10X beam. If you open up the focus of the Mag Charger, the 10X just wipes it out. The same is true with the spill light from the edges of the TigerLight. We pulled out a (2 million candlepower?) spot light and the spot beam could also be seen within the beam of the 10X, of course there is little spill light from a spot light.

A question has come up. The 10X puts out more light than both the Mag Charger and the TigerLight. Why can we see the hot spot inside the 10X beam?

I checked the 10X and TigerLight on my light meter and noticed the following:
10X at 1 foot = 5500 foot candles
TigerLight at 1 foot = 4500 foot candles
Both lights together at 1 foot = 6500 foot candles

I was expecting close to 10000 foot candles. What happened to the other 3500 foot candles?

If light is additive, the meter should have read closer to 10000 foot candles, If light is not additive, I should not be able to see the hot spot of the TigerLight in the beam of the 10X.

What is going on here?

Tom

Re: In the park with a 10X, MagCharger, and TigerL

The light of the X10 gets more diffused over distance where the lights with the tight spots hold there brightness better. They also would have a higher CP rating than the X10.

Re: In the park with a 10X, MagCharger, and TigerL

Hi Silverfox,
as I told you before, these results seem weird, and I'd be very interested to have an explanation.

Jtivat,
on the contrary, the testing done by Silverfox shows that the 10x's beam is brighter (more intense) than the tigerlight's hotspot (5500 vs. 4500), hence the apparently contradicting results.

Otherwise, I'm very happy to know that the 10X dominates .

François.

Here's an excerpt on this subject from my review: "SN II faces down Incandescent Wolfpack"

Hotspots

Hotspot diameter, along with wattage, reflector characteristics and lamp efficiency correlates with intensity and throw. However, the distribution of total energy between the hotspot and the surrounding beam sometimes accounts for seemingly contradictory results from one light to the next. The D3/SRTH, PolyStinger, D3 P91, and Pelican M6 have fully textured reflectors which project a relatively amorphous beam making hotspot measurement difficult. This was somewhat less problematic with the D3/SRTH since its tight focus was more clearly delineated and thus easier to measure. The D3/P91's beam was so broad and smoothly graduated that an accurate hotspot measurement was not possible. No attempt is made here to measure beam "brightness" per se, as major reviewers have developed sophisticated techniques for this purpose.

Several of the tested lights had what can be described as a "hotspot nucleus" or a "hotspot within the hotspot", which is a smaller, brighter spot inside the regular hotspot. The lights exhibiting this were the MagCharger, UltraStinger, and Stinger HP. It was this "nucleus" that enabled the MagCharger to outthrow other lights in a previous test.

Brightnorm

I'd guess that the (mine actually) MagCharger had a brighter hotspot was because all the light was focused into that little (in comparison to the wall thrown by the 10X) hotspot. The Tigerlight is also focused more than the 10X. The spotlight was a 2 million CP Vector that I changed to a 120 watt bulb instead of the stock 100 watt.

Francois1,
Yes, the 10X puts out much more light than the TL, but that's at close range where the light is still concentrated. At a distance the light spreads out, and the tighter focus of th TL makes it's hotspot a little brighter.

Unicorn,
imagine an idealization: the beams originate from the focal point of the reflectors.
If you imagine that you can define the cones sustended by the hotspots of both lights at a distance d and having their summit at the focus of the parabolic reflector, then the intensities of each beam at a distance d are proportional to a/d^2 and b/d^2, where a and b are the cones angles. Hence the ratio of these intensities is simply a/b: it doesn't vary with distance, this means that if beam 1 is brighter than beam 2 at one perticular distance, this will be true at any distance. This is why the results didn't make sense to me.
Of course, this is based on a drastic simplification: light originates from "point sources".

François.

Re: In the park with a 10X, MagCharger, and TigerL

All three lights in one show? How decadent /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif Beluga, Oscetra or Sevruga. Your pick.

Wilkey

Re: In the park with a 10X, MagCharger, and TigerL

I have the 10X, TigerLight and UltraStinger. No MagCharger yet. I also bring a 9NT as it can play with the bigger boys.

Al

Re: In the park with a 10X, MagCharger, and TigerL

I have still not come up with why there is such a great loss.

Does anyone have any experience measuring multiple lights at the same time?

The theory presented by Francois seems sound, but it might be simplified a bit. I first thought that the difference in appearance had to do with the difference between reflected and transmitted light. There will be some loss when the light is reflected, but the amount of loss should be consistent between lights. The light meter readings confirms this.

Brightnorm suggests that there is a super hotspot within the hotspot. This would suggest that the super hotspot has a higher output than the 10X and that is why we can see it. Dimpled reflectors tend to integrate the hotspot, polished reflectors tend to enhance it. The 500 lumen rating comes from an integrating sphere which would also tend to minimize any super hotspot. My light meter also has a 1.75" diffusion disk over the sensor. Perhaps the light meter measurements would make more sense if they were taken with a spot meter.

Unicorn, do you remember how well the beam of the Vector could be seen? I was focusing on the Mag Charger and TigerLight and don't recall.

Wilkey, the idea of having Caviar by "Dominating 10X" light is decadent.

Al, it sounds like we need to get together. Your place or mine. We will have Wilkey bring the snacks...

Tom

Re: In the park with a 10X, MagCharger, and TigerL

Silverfox,
I think that here:

"My light meter also has a 1.75" diffusion disk over the sensor. Perhaps the light meter measurements would make more sense if they were taken with a spot meter"

you hit the nail on the head. The brightest
areas from the tl and mc must have a smaller surface than
this disk, so your device has not enough resolution to measure the very brightest portions of the hotspots while your eye can still see them.

François.

Re: In the park with a 10X, MagCharger, and TigerL

Hello Francois,

Does this mean that small areas of the Mag Charger and TigerLight beam have more than 500 lumen output? Wow - that's bright.

I will have to come up with a way to do a spot measurement on the TigerLight beam.

Tom

Re: In the park with a 10X, MagCharger, and TigerL

[ QUOTE ]
SilverFox said:
Hello Francois,

Does this mean that small areas of the Mag Charger and TigerLight beam have more than 500 lumen output? Wow - that's bright.

I will have to come up with a way to do a spot measurement on the TigerLight beam.

Tom

[/ QUOTE ]
No, lumens is a measure of total light it means they have a higher Candle Power rating as they are much more focused. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Re: In the park with a 10X, MagCharger, and TigerL

Hello Tom,
it doesn't mean that: the lumen rating is the total light output integrated over 4Pi steradians, while the brightness
measurements like lux or candle power etc are homogenous to
lumen/unit surface. If your 500 lumen output is very focused, you'll get a very high intensity reading (actually,
if you could get it focused to a point, intensity would be infinite, devices approaching this limit are laser pointers), if it's isotropic, the intensity reading at the same distance will be far less. A spot measurement will give you a more accurate value of the beam's maximum brightness.

François.

Re: In the park with a 10X, MagCharger, and TigerL

Maybe the hotspots of the TL and MC were brighter at all ranges, but we might just have been blown away by the sheer output of the 10X. It could be that at the closer range, the 10X lit up such a large area with bright light, while the smaller beams of the TL and MC didn't seem as impressive.
There has to be some point though, where a higher output light will be brighter than one that is just more tightly focused. That might just be within an inch or two though. I've taken a larger Mag and it was definately brighter, o threw further than my 9N, but if I put them both a few inches away from a surface, the 9N seemed to be much brighter.

Tom,
I'm not quite sure what you mean by how well the beam of the Vector could be seen. I couldn't really see much of a beam since it sort of lit up the entire area. In a less enclosed area, it would be easier to see I'm thinking. If you mean how the spot of light on the ground or whatever looks, like when we talk about SureFire's "perfect" beam, then I don't recall shining it on anything that was flat enough to tell. I don't think I've shone (Is that a word?) it on a wall since I put the 120watt bulb in. One thing I have noticed though, is that it's not as bright when it's not plugged into a cigarrete lighter plug. Maybe I need to fully charge the battery again. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Re: In the park with a 10X, MagCharger, and TigerL

Which was better the magcharger or the tigerlight?

Chris

Re: In the park with a 10X, MagCharger, and TigerL

Hello Chris,

They are both great - of course.

I like the TigerLight more, but it's my light. Unicorn may have a different perspective.

Tom

Re: In the park with a 10X, MagCharger, and TigerL

[ QUOTE ]
cmacclel said:
Which was better the magcharger or the tigerlight?

Chris

[/ QUOTE ]

In one of my more informal "tests" I brought both to work in the evening and had colleagues try them out (outside, urban environment).

While they were impressed by the Tigerlight's massive output and long reach the Maglite quickly became the favorite because it acted more like a "light saber", and they were able to reach out and touch unsuspecting civilians way down the block. At one point two previously unnoticed LEO's came over and my first reaction was "hey, you want to try some great lights?". They smiled no thanks, but one said "pretty bright".

Brightnorm

Re: In the park with a 10X, MagCharger, and TigerL

[ QUOTE ]
cmacclel said:
Which was better the magcharger or the tigerlight?

Chris

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know. The Mag is better for longer reach, while still having a decent amount of spill light. The Tigerlight is better at closer ranges. Neither have great beams, artifacts, a few dark spots etc. The Mag is worse in this respect except when focused to it's tightest spot. I could go back and forth on these all day, but in the end, I couldn't come up with a definate answer. This is a case of get them both, and use which is more appropriate for the expected task.