Lumens to lumen , halogens and leds

Why does a surefire MN11 225 lumen feel like it's as intense as some 1000+LED?

I'm not a physics guy and would almost be duped by numbers. But there's a factor that's not marketed or stated. Can someone help me understand this?

Thanks in advance.

SureFire, Streamlight, Pelican and others had developed ways of getting the light out of the bulb in ways that appeared much brighter than their competition.
Using optics like lens shapes or reflector shapes along with the location of the bulb inside the housing took advantage of the newest, brightest burning bulbs.

I just did a recent "dual" between 2 sizes of Maglites using the same bulb and voltage. The 40mm head sized light beat the pants off the 50mm head sized one. All things being equal I surmized the shape of the reflector made one "appear" brighter than the other.

Great point and tint makes a huge difference imho.

To add, many LED's are placed into a configuration to provide an overall spread of light without a super defined hot spot that seemlessly blends to spill.
I have a 100 lumen Pelican 2350 that is an LED thrower. The next version is 178 lumens but according to numbers has less light at a distance, yet from the user perspective looks a lot brighter than 178 lumens. Same size body as the 100 lumen one but the diameter of the LED is broader.
So size/shape of bulb globe or the emitter also causes certain appearances to take place.
Oh and the 70 lumen incan Pelican 2320 appears at least as bright as the 100 lumen LED 2350 and throws further.

I don't try to understand it all... I just look for the candela number to get an idea if it's a flooder or thrower and go from there.

Lumens alone doesn't give enough of a picture.

Can candela alone be enough to give you an idea if it's a thrower or a flooder?

Dr Forinor said:

Lumens alone doesn't give enough of a picture.

Can candela alone be enough to give you an idea if it's a thrower or a flooder?

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Basically, yes. If you have a high candela rating I would expect it to be a spot light that would reach out a distance. It also helps to know the characteristics of the LED being used.

If you take three different sized leds xp-e, xp-g, xm-l and put them in the same sized reflector, and give them the same amount of current. The smallest led will throw the furthest. basicly two reasons. The bigger ligthtsource you got, the bigger reflector you need to focus the beam into throw. Just the same way as a big man needs a big mirror in front of him to see his whole body. Yes he can take a step back, it helps the same way as a deep reflector does. And the bigger leds will have less surface brighness because they get less watts pr square mm than a small one. So throw is determined by the size difference between the lightsource and the optic/reflector, and the intensety of the lightsource.
Those old halogens has a small lightsource compared to leds. And high surface brighness, so it's easy to get some throw out of them.

jorn said:

Just the same way as a big man needs a big mirror in front of him to see his whole body. Yes he can take a step back, it helps the same way as a deep reflector does.

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Great analogy, as a newb (and 6'4" 230lbs) to lights this helps me understand quite a bit better. Lol