turboBB's 2012 Memorial Day Weekend Camping Report (24 XM-L lights, beamshots, vids)

It's been almost a year since I published my Sunwayman T20C review (with pics and testing conducted mostly at the camp grounds off of Ft. Getty Rd. in Jamestown, RI). At the time, Cree's XM-L was just beginning to be widely adopted in the industry. Since then, they have not only become widespread but are pretty much the de facto LED used by the majority of lights being released (especially in multiple formation).

It will eventually be replaced by the next brighter LED but until then, here's a quick summary of my experiences while conducting beamshots and usage of 24 lights.

The chaos the night before setting off:


All lights and their batteries were packed into these 3 bags:


We ended up going to the same location this year. This time, given the outputs and capability of the lights I brought along, I decided to do long distance beamshots. Unfortunately time and weather didn't allow me to conduct mini vid reviews of all the lights so I'll be supplanting ones without vids with text summaries.

Here are the lights in alphabetical order by mfg:



LONG DISTANCE BEACH SHOTS
Given there was heavy misting both nights, I limited the long distance shots @ 500ft (152.4m) that were done at the nearby beach:

The upper-right arrow indicates location the camera was setup and the oval in bottom-left was the target at 500ft away.

Here is the control shot and close up of the target (doesn't match the beamshots exactly since I didn't have the tripod at the time):


Here is a control shot at night, there was some ambient light plus the moon was out (waxing crescent phase) but didn't contribute to any of the lighting in these shots (at least in the path of the beams) as far as I could tell:


All shots were taken w/Panny FZ150 on M mode, ISO400 and AWB. Exposure was locked at 1" @ f/2.8. At these distances and especially for lights w/a broad hotspot, my aim may not always be perfect (e.g. EYE25 vs. EYE30) but in some shots, it looks like I'm aiming lower but it's actually centered.

As mentioned, there was heavy misting both nights but it should still give you a good idea of the beam profile and throw capability of these lights (plus how many mist beamshots have you seen ). Without further ado, here are the beamshots!


Elektro Lumens Big Bruiser (review)



FoxFury Rook CheckMate (review)



Klarus XT20 (review)



Lighten7 Elite M1A



Lighten7 Elite M1B



Lighten7 Max L2A



NITECORE TM11 (v1.12)



Niteye EYE25 (review)

Niteye EYE30 (review)



Prometheus Lights Alpha Series XM18-B (review)



Shadow JM07-PRO



Sunwayman M11R Mr. Elfin (review)



Sunwayman T20C (review)



Sunwayman T40CS (review)



Sunwayman V11R Mr. révolution (review)



Sunwayman V60C (review)



SureFire M3LT (400lms) (review)



ThruNite TN10 (1x18650) (review)


ThruNite TN11 (2x18500) (review)



ThruNite TN30 (review)



ThruNite TN31 (review)



XENO G10v2 (review)



XENO S3A (review)



XTAR S1 Production (review)


After these shots were done, I drove my wife and daughter back to the inn so I could also charge up for the next night's shots and vids:

CAMPING GROUND SHOTS
The next night, I stayed right by the campsite and did even closer range beam shots since the misting was pretty bad. Unfortunately there is a bit of feedback (reflection from the mist) so I took four shots of each light; two aimed at the small tree about 40ft. away and two at the tip of the taller trees in the background that are approx. 100ft. away:

When I got back, I deleted the shots that had too much feedback so as not to create a false sense of brightness, however. Overall, the shots look just slightly overexposed as compared to what I my eyes saw but not too bad.

I also managed to squeeze in a video of a few lights (full playlist here) based on use around the tent and then a quick walk around the campsite. I had to keep it low since it was pretty late and there were others already sleeping. Given I was focusing on low light conditons, I bumped the ISO to 6400 so quality isn't the greatest and the vids will be pretty grainy but hopefully it tells the appropriate story on usage. Here is a pic indicating roughly the path taken:

(image courtesy of Google maps - red arrow indicates distance to small tree)

Here's a quick vid of a walkthru of the campsite and the path I took to test the lights:


This pic provides size perspective as you can see the location where I took the beach shots:

(image courtesy of maps.live.com - campsite in rectangle and the large oval in bottom right indicates target from beach shots and small circle in upper right where the camera was)

And here is a control video w/LedLenser H7 at night in the tent:


All shots were taken w/Panny FZ150 on M mode, ISO100 and AWB. Exposure was locked at 1.6" @ f/2.8. Again, given the heavy misting, my aim may not have been perfect for each shot so they may be slightly off but shots on left are always centered on the small tree and the shots on right at the tip of the trees in the background.

OK, with that all said, let's start off with a control shot using a Led Lenser H7 (intentionally overexposed given it's lower output):



Elektro Lumens Big Bruiser (review)
It was tucked away in the back pouch of the Maxpedition so I missed its shots for this round.


FoxFury Rook CheckMate (review)





Klarus XT20 (review)





Lighten7 Elite M1A





Lighten7 Elite M1B





Lighten7 Max L2A





NITECORE TM11 (v1.12)





Niteye EYE25 (review)





Niteye EYE30 (review)





Prometheus Lights Alpha Series XM18-B (review)




Mini Review/Summary



Shadow JM07-PRO





Sunwayman M11R Mr. Elfin (review)





Sunwayman T20C (review)





Sunwayman T40CS (review)





Sunwayman V11R Mr. révolution (review)





Sunwayman V60C (review)





SureFire M3LT (400lms) (review)





ThruNite TN10 (1x18650) (review)





ThruNite TN11 (2x18500) (review)





ThruNite TN30 (review)




Mini Review/Summary



ThruNite TN31 (review)




Mini Review/Summary



XENO G10v2 (review)





XENO S3A (review)




Mini Review/Summary



XTAR S1 Production (review)





Mini Review/Summary

great shots! much appreciated.

looks like you had a fun holiday weekend!

Wow, really fun comparisons. I'm slightly surprised with how well the little Eye30 did but it does have 3 fully shaped reflectors vs the TM11's merged hybrid. The TN30 was another astonishing performer.

After seeing these beam shots and reading your review of the TN31 it makes me wonder how much better the planned SR95UT will perform, if at all. The planned output is about the same but in a much larger package. I would definitely want to see a comparison of the TN31 and SR95UT before I pulled the trigger on the larger, more expensive light.

Great stuff here! Thanks for giving your time to put this together for us.

Was this your primary excuse for going camping?:devil:

Very nice shots :thumbsup:

Awesome, Awesome, Awesome! And thank you from the other post! Excellent shots and comparisons!

thanks! some coronas or hotspots look greenish on the photos, for example the Xeno's, Xtar S1, the ThruNite's, most SWM's, and others.

Thank you for the beam shots. I like the way the TN31 and S1 performed, as I have purchased both. I am hoping to see the Olight 95UT in the future.

Tremendous job...as always!!!

Cool shots. Lots of fun!

Thx guys!

@LK715 - no, but it was one of the reasons I was really looking forward to the trip. We went with a bunch of friends so that allowed me some opportunities to "escape" to grab these shots.

@shelm - I waited for a while for the mist to subside a little and given I wasn't sure if it was going to rain or not, I didn't bother w/custom white-balacing so yes, the colors will not be truly accurate although they aren't too far off either based on what I can recall (just not THAT green in certain shots).

I finally got my PC restored yet again so I should have part two up tonight along w/a few vids.

Cheers,
Tim

Great set of beam shots and a lot of work! After looking at the great group of lights in your lineup, the TM11 seams to me as the most practical light of the bunch, it lights up the whole beach. :thanks:

Thx!

Qustion for you guys watching this thread, before I go posting the second set of shots, since I took two for each light (left-pic centered on small tree @ 40ft, right pic at tip of trees in background approx. 100ft) would you prefer smaller 400x400 side-by-side shots like :
[PIC][PIC]

Or larger 700x525, stacked shots:
[PIC]
[PIC]


Either set of shots will have links to full-size pics @ 1280x960 but just wanted to know what was best for your comparo purposes. I'll see if I can set up a poll.

I'll give it til noon tomorrow and then post the shots in the format based on the votes.

Thx,
Tim

I like the larger format as its easier to see what level of detail each light is enabling.

So, larger stacked is better for me at least.




And, Tim, as always GREAT JOB!

:goodjob:

TEEJ said:

I like the larger format as its easier to see what level of detail each light is enabling.

So, larger stacked is better for me at least.




And, Tim, as always GREAT JOB!

:goodjob:

Click to expand...

I too like the larger 700x525, stacked shots.

Great review yet again. Keep the work up

Stacked it is! The pics (and where available a mini video review) are now up. I'll flesh out the text summaries as time allows.

Enjoy!,
Tim

Wow man! Really nice shots! Nice touch with the above ground map shot with annotation. It gives a really good perspective of the distance. Great stuff! The sunwayman v60 surprised me as to the throw and general power!

simply amazing