I was ask to start this as its own thread of the best XM-L throwers with pictures. So I will oblige. This should decide at least for the sample I have of each of these lights which light reigns supreme as the king of current production manufacturered XM-L flashlights.
Now these pictures were all taken on 9X optical zoom with an ISO of 200 and were set on manual setting with a shutter speed of 1.5" and a focal of 4. These settings seem to capture just about what my eyes see.
All about the same :) I have got the Sunwayman and I don't regret it. The crelant might throw a bit further but at a cost of a smaller hotspot and narrow spill and therefore less of an allrounder.
Good to see that your 7G5 is up to snuff now. I received my new U2 16mm star from LED DNA. Lets see if it would equal in output to the original one (or even give more output!)
From the pics it looks like the M3X and T40CS have the lesser spill compared to the rest, which should mean they are more able to collimate most of the output light in the hotspot, so better thrower than the others.
Hard to tell which one between M3X and T40CS is king. Maybe 60yds is too close a distance to really measure throw capability, would need a farther object pics to show differences.
Anyway Catapult V3 seems floody in comparison, and 7G5, TK41 and SR51 beamshots are very similar indeed, nice hotspot but with considerable sidespill (which apart from this King of Throw race, I consider very useful in real world usage), if not for the colour: SR51 is NW meanwhile 7G5 looks more CW, and TK41 in between.
I’m not sure I get the interest in more and more spill in lights that are purchased primarily for throw (if I’m correct regarding that assumption).
I understand perhaps wanting to have a wider rather than narrower hotspot in many cases but how does spill do anything positive?
It reduces contrast, creates backscatter and makes it harder to pick out whatever the hotspot if directed towards.
Surely no one is using these bigger throwers to see how to walk around the yard. I’m sure everyone has much better lights for that so what is the primary attraction to having more spill with a light whose strength is primarily as a thrower?
Educate me please
Oh it's just a little personal preference. Agree too much spill makes for a lot of backscatter, but no spill at all and you see only what's in the hotspot. When I look in the distance I found with a little spill I can better recognize what's around the hotspot, instead of waveing the light around "searching" with abrupt transition between light and dark.
But if throw is discrimination to win the race, maybe I should not consider spill at all?
It looks like I'm not a true flashaholic yet because none of these pictures makes me desperately want to hold something else than the SkyRay STL-V2 I already have...
ILIKE... How about some close range white wall shots so we could "see" (or at least imagine by ourselves) the proportions of the hotspot vs. the spill? Perhaps even shot to a painted "target" with circles with a radius of e.g. 1ft, 2ft, 3ft etc. if that's possible.
When I saw your first post after buying the 7G5 I was gutted I didn't buy the M3X, but now you have a replacement I'm happy again, 7G5 wins to my eyes :)
The up close white wall shots can be misleading. I always find myself saying this one is brighter...no wait this one is and so on when they are pretty close in brightness. But if one is quite a bit brighter, you should see it. But when you take nite shots at this yardage your eyes usually can pick the brighter one. I know which one I know is the brightest.
Yes, that's true when it comes "just" to the perceivable brightness. I was thinking more about the dimensions of the hot spot and spill - the proportions which do not change in the longer distances either do they?