It’s about time I tried to learn how to take beam shots so I brought a few lights and my trusty Nikon D50 up north with me last weekend.
First thing I learned is don’t forget to bring a tri-pod, without one I was limited on shutter speed.
Second thing is my camera is lot smarter than I. I had the manual with me along with various BLF threads on camera settings but when I tried those settings the photo’s always ended up much darker than what I saw.
I have much to learn but since this was my first try I just tried to dial the camera in so the photos were more or less consistent with what I saw and somewhat focused.
Settings were: White balance to “Direct Sunlight”, f/3.5, shutter @ 0.62 sec., ISO @ 800. I thought I should be able to get these at ISO 400 but those were very dark.
It seems like no matter what I did the photos are not quite accurate, either the hot spot is good and spill is to dark or the spill is good and the hot spot to bright. In the end I think these are the best of the group.
For what it’s worth, all the pictures below were at the same settings.
Now for the pictures, first the lights.
- Nitecore SENS CR XP-G swapped out for Nichia 219 on AW ICR123
- iTP SA1 just the way it left the box, for referance
- Sipik SK 68 just the way it left the bubble wrap, also for referance
- L2P with home made triple Nichia 219 and KD V2*12 driver
- Int’l Outdoor D11 (may also be Convoy S4 or a number of other lights) with a CW XM-L (from the parts bin) and KD V2*8
- L2P with home made triple XP-G2 and KD V2*14
- Convoy M1 with XM-L2 3C on a coper sinkpad and KD V2*11
- Defiant 3C with XM-L2 3C on coper sinkpad and KD V2*10 and Tenergy Centura cells
I need to add a quick disclaimer here, I’m a bit 18650 poor right now. Only the XP-G2 light had a battery that could fully fuel the driver.
Ok, now for the reason you’ve hung on…I’ll skip the control shot, trust me it is black.
The trees were only about 120 feet, I was going to take another set of photos across the lake Monday night but heard about the Marathon (in my home town) and became glued to the radio the rest of the night.
I’ll keep working on my photog skills, hope it was worth the read.
Oh yea, a couple more pictures I took Saturday afternoon, included just cause I love them. Wish I was still there.