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Newly Enlightened
Back in the day all spotlights and flashlights were rated by candlepower. Now everything is rated by lumens or lux. Apparently LED's changed all that. Anyone explain the difference and how do they compare?
Lumens are an OK measure for lights that do not throw, such as light bulbs and area lights, but mostly irrelevant when it comes to flashlights that project a beam. Candlepower/candela/lux is what tells you how much light your flashlight is sending down range to whatever you are looking at.
That is not entirely true as there are a lot of lights out there that do throw that list lumens you then have to compare the light engine that focuses the output into a throwable beam with other lights that use similar setups. I almost forgot about candlepower since the high power spotlights started being replaced by LED models that offer 1000s of lumens the candlepower ratings would probably be in the billions for some now as the incans were listed in the 10+ million range with a lot less lumen output. Some lights list throw distance as part of the ANSI standard but I don't think they require candlepower ratings. The biggest problem with candlepower is a good laser can have high candlepower but not be useful as a lighting device so too small a beam with almost no spill can be useless in some instances but have very high candlepower ratings.