565ft / 172m Underpass (Outdoors) Beamshots - 11 lights XM-L THROW SHOWDOWN!

There is a section of I95 near my house where the underpass is accessible and best of all isolated. It's just a massive area of pitch black darkness that would likely conquer the lights carried by any other than a flashoholic. After I cleared my activities w/the local PD, I took the shots in two parts since the first time I winged it solo (and I gotta say, it was quite spooky since I wasn't sure what to expect as they said the area wasn't exactly the safest) and forgot to take measurements between the columns but luckily had the help of a friend for part 2.

Here is the list of lights/batteries that were used along with their relevant stats (albeit not all lights were used in both parts):


PART 1
There are total of 8 support columns that finally culminate in a wall of sorts (the wall isn't viewable in the shots given the curvature of the path of the columns).

Here is a control shot of the scene with the flash on maxium output of my Canon S3 IS:

(spooky isn't it?)

And another illuminated by the HID's on hi-beam of my friend's car:


Running out to grab measurements:


To give you a better perspective of the size and distance involved, I'm standing at the 1st column which is 49 feet away from the camera:


The second column is now 129 feet away:


The other column distances are:
3rd - 203' | 4th - 277' | 5th - 353' | 6th - 425' | 7th - 495'

And the 8th and final column (which I'm standing in front of in this pic) is 565', this is the last column that can be seen in the photo:

That's me signaling w/an XT20 to my friend to grab a shot (scene illuminated by T40CS).

There was a bit of envrionmental dust being cast from the speeding cars in the roads directly above which added to the challenges for the lights but overall, even the weakest/floodiest light in the group was able to illuminate the 8th column.

All shots on ISO80 @ f2.7 using WB that matches closest to what my eyes saw (although I think in general, these pitcures a slightly warmer than in real life). Left = 2" | Right = 1". Click on pics for full size.

Without further ado, here they are...

Dereelight DBS V2


Fenix TK21


Klarus XT20


Olight M20


Sunwayman T20C


Sunwayman T40CS


Sunwayman V60C


SureFire M3LT


ThruNite TN10 (1x18650)


ThruNite TN11 (1x18650)


XENOLED G10v2




PART 2

Although the focus of this set of shots was on XM-L lights, I realized that there really was no reference as to how well they can throw so made a second trip and added a XR-E light to the group given they are still really the standards by which throwers are measured by (just not the total output).

Given I couldn't find the exact spot where I took the first set, I retook some of the better throwers along with the Lumapower for reference (unfortunately I forgot the V60C but the beam profile is similar to the T40CS with a slightly larger hotspots and just a little less throw). I'll look into standardizing the shots in the long run to allow for better comparisons as new lights roll in.

Lumapower D-65V w/TF Kit


Klarus XT20


Sunwayman T40CS


ThruNite TN10 (1x18650)


ThruNite TN10 (2x18650)


ThruNite TN11 (1x18650)


ThruNite TN11 (2x18650)


And finally a comparo of the crops between the XR-E and the T40CS:



As you can see, the XR-E light casts pretty much a pencil-thin beam but it does illuminate whatever is within that beam reasonably well just that there isn't a lot of output overall. Now the T40CS (best XM-L thrower in this bunch) prolly isn't as bright dead-center but just check out the total output! For people who want both great throw and output, we can just about have our cake and eat it too.

This (as with most of my forthcoming threads unless otherwise indicated) thread was originally posted elsewhere but figured it'd be of interest to those on this forum as well.

As a follow up, I've since taken lux measurements of all the lights involved and to my surprise, the Lumapower Turbo Force Kit (XR-E) is only approx. 20K lux vs. nearly 47K lux for the T40CS. Others have measured the LMP @ 50K+!

I'm going to reach out to LMP to see if I can order another pill since this one for whatever reason is underperforming (at least as compared to what others have measured).

Thank you for taking the time and sharing.

Really nice stuff. Thanks for putting it up here. Now I’m off to find that Klarus.

Nice work! I love these kinds of threads. I’m impressed by the Klarus as well.

Excellent !!
The Klarus really rocks…

You mentioned the aperture and WB settings, what shutter speed did you use for these?
Nevermind, I figured it out…left 2 seconds, right 1 second

Thanks for posting these.