I bought an Ultrafire 5W infrared led light to add illumination for my nightvision camera. I've read vague references to people using a black magic marker to color in the reflector although none of the posts were detailed enough to explain why. Is this to enhance the output of the light? Or is it possibly to reduce the red reflection given off my the emitter? :shrug:
Should I darken in the reflector of my infrared light?
- Thread starter wahoowad
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jaycyu
Enlightened
I also have an 5W infrared LED. The only reason I've seen for blackening the reflector is when it'll be paired with an aspherical lens, that collimates the beam (for better accuracy when shooting). I heard that reflector + aspherical lens equal to unpleasant beam quality. My Ahorton aspheric kit (with a black reflector) is still in the mail, so I'm not sure how IR fares after going through glass.
If you darken the reflector without the lens, then your beam will not have a hotspot, losing a lot of lumen.
If you darken the reflector without the lens, then your beam will not have a hotspot, losing a lot of lumen.
Fireclaw18
Flashlight Enthusiast
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If you have an aspheric lens installed, the beam may look ugly because it will project an image of the surface of the reflector as a ring around the image of the emitter. Blacking out the reflector gets rid of this ugly ring leaving just the image of the emitter.
If your light lacks an aspheric lens, blacking out the reflector should dramatically decrease output and throw. Output may be uniform but it will be a fraction of what it was before you blacked out the emitter.
This is definitely the case for visible wavelength flashlights. I see no reason why it would be different for an IR flashlight.
