Prometheus Delta Flashlight Review

Got Lumens?

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Hi All,

I have been reviewing the Prometheus Delta flashlight.
This line of lights was first released in the Fall of 2018.
To present there are a few Exotic Auction lights, and
Blue Label Custom versions of Electroless Nickel, Brass,
Copper, and Titanium builds that have been made.

These lights feature two fully programmable mode groups,
a Direct Access mode, Programable mode memory, Digital
drop detection, and Low Power detection of the ICARUS
driver coupled with a Copper MCPCB seated with a new
proprietary graphite thermal pad on the solid Copper pill.
One of the most advanced customizable drivers makes it
real easy to tailor the lights behavior to your actual needs.

I need to add more pictures to this review in progress soon.
I would like to start this review by sharing some actual Beam
shots taken with the Delta and Alpha flashlights recently. I
plan on adding photos and comments on adding upgrades,
different carry methods, and the operation and feel of these
lights.

Here are a few Beamshot comparisons while I finish this review
in progress. Due to Dropbox hosting, the photos do not display
properly for everyone. The photo place holders and their
descriptions are clickable to display the photos in a new tab or
window.



Control daytime photo:




Delta 219C Wide




Delta 219C Medium




Delta 219C Narrow




Delta 319A Wide




Delta 319A Medium




Delta 319A Narrow




Alpha Carbon Fiber 219C Narrow




Alpha Classic MC-E ~4000




Alpha Custom XM-L2 ~4000




Alpha LEO 219C




DEFT EDC Enthusiast @ 200'

 
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Newguy2012

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The Alpha Beam shots look a bit off. How Bright is your Alpha? Is your Alpha Classic MCE 4500K the OG Blue label w/ Class 3 threads?
 

RCS1300

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Thanks for the beam shots. Definitely like the Delta 219c narrow. Were the shots at the max lumen setting?
 

wweiss

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I hate beam-shots - they give no sense of what the eye will actually see. Which is usually much more than the beam shot.
 

Got Lumens?

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I hate beam-shots - they give no sense of what the eye will actually see. Which is usually much more than the beam shot.
I hear You. You are correct, they look different to each person. Both in person and looking at photos. The beamshots are of Medium range outdoors. I have some short range planned later. They do show a perceived representation of brightness difference between the 219C and the 319A LEDs against the same objects and distances. The higher 319A lumens can be seen in the photos as does the better color renditioning of the 219C's. My preference is now use driven. I am leaning more towards the cooler(Near white to my eyes) 319As for general carry and use.

I do prefer the 218Cs for tasks requiring better CRI, like photography lighting, when I need to better distinguish color shades, and/or needing better task specific depth perception. I've acquired a spoiled taste for HCRI LEDs. The 319As are pretty close to Neutral to my eyes with just a very very slight blue hue of the corona if You are whiteboarding. One trick I've had success in the past is lowering the levels on the camera to just be able record the low and show approximations of the perceived brightness changes. I do not to use any filters or PC photo processing editors on the photos just because everyone's eyes are different. If You have a suggestion to overcome the lack of perception, I would consider giving it a try. I will be hosting a pass-around for the Delta in the future, it could be the chance needed to solve your questions. Join Prometheans to be eligible and keep an eye out for it in the forum to overcome seeing is believing :).
 

RCS1300

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I hate beam-shots - they give no sense of what the eye will actually see. Which is usually much more than the beam shot.

Actually, beam shots do give a much better picture of a flashlight beams performance than no beam shots. For example, I have a Thrunite Catapult V2 that puts out 170 lumens and will throw a tightly focused beam of light over 100 yards. The Delta lights put out 5x the amount of lumens, have a wider beam of light that illuminates about 1/3 the distance of the Catapult. Also, the beam shots give a relative comparison of how the different emitters illuminate the ground and objects. As to what the eye will actually see, and I am assuming you mean distance, you are probably right that the eye can see further than a camera at night.
 
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Got Lumens?

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Actually, beam shots do give a much better picture of a flashlight beams performance than no beam shots. For example, I have a Thrunite Catapult V2 that puts out 170 lumens and will throw a tightly focused beam of light over 100 yards. The Delta lights put out 5x the amount of lumens, have a wider beam of light that illuminates about 1/3 the distance of the Catapult. Also, the beam shots give a relative comparison of how the different emitters illuminate the ground and objects. As to what the eye will actually see, and I am assuming you mean distance, you are probably right that the eye can see further than a camera at night.
I have tried zooming-in in the past. The problem is it exaggerated the amount of light the eye actually sees. While it does show relative beam/brightness comparison at a given distance, it involves taking a whole other set of shots to make sure the zoom is the same on all of them. I have a DSLR coming. I will be taking some more soon. These photos came from an older digital camera with zoom. All my other digital cameras all use the screen to shoot and You can't see what You are looking at. This one has a view finder with alignment marks, I see what my eye sees :). More soon.
 

wweiss

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To be clear, I should have said beam shots are much better for "spot" beams and distance than for "spill". It's the edges of useful, near / awareness spill that cameras can not render in a photo. Our eyes are great at using any available light at the edges of dark...
 

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The pictures do not appear here.
Same here, both on my phone and home computer.
There are links within the photos placeholders if the photos aren't showing for You. Sorry, it's out of my control, it's a dropbox issue.
This is why each photo has it's own link embedded in to it. Hover over where the photo is supposed to be and click the placeholder
to open the pictures You can't see in a new tab/window from the dropbox site directly. This affects a lot of people, but it's better
than just posting the links to each of the photos.

I just added links into each photos heading/description



To be clear, I should have said beam shots are much better for "spot" beams and distance than for "spill". It's the edges of useful, near / awareness spill that cameras can not render in a photo. Our eyes are great at using any available light at the edges of dark...
I have some new equipment coming. I will be redoing these shots, and will explore taking some wider angled photos than the ones like I already took. Typically these wider angled shots will be of a short range ~25 Feet(~8 Meters). If I were to whiteboard these shots at 1 Meter, the Narrow would have a 26" circle, the Medium would have a 33" circle, and the Wide would have a 46" circle. The only real way to see this in photos would be to create a panoramic view from several photos. It would be tedious, as It would require 3 separate takes to get it right. There would be a right, center, and left view for each beamshot in that case.
 
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Got Lumens?

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For me, they don't show in IE, but firefox is fine.
I'm posting with Edge, my Computer crashed, haven't had time to reinstall everything :(.


@Got Lumens - sounds like an interesting approach!
Thank You. I know I could try something similar with my digital camera, but each set would
auto level off at slightly different levels that might look poorer trying to assemble the 160° view
using the multiple photos approach
 

Got Lumens?

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I had a better idea looks like it will work well.
I think I now have a handle on new equipment. Here's a couple test shots.
Yellow markers are all 25' from the light source.
Lights were aimed at the base of the Large tree in the center of photo 50'.
I will have more coming as weather permits, hopefully better shots :).
Click link in the title if pics don't show for You.

Narrow
1testNarrow.jpg


Medium
2testMedium.jpg
 

wweiss

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The markers are a very nice touch - are they in an arc centered on the tripod? What is their spacing? Distance and radii dimensions give solid data to the images. Thanks for your attention to detail...
 
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