Hey, it's been a decade and people are still a) complaining and/or b) not understanding the 2009 ANSI-NEMA FL1 ratings. Really? It was never perfect from the start but at least it's a standard that works across brands and models for comparison on basic numerical merits. Still have to interpret them with a little real world experience and consider all of the influencing factors. Maybe our enthusiast community could cobble together an update of alternatives for the standard. For candela, perhaps bumping it to one full lux instead of one quarter of a lux? I think we've been lucky that the majority of light manufacturers finally got on board with the standards - getting them to adapt to changes might take awhile, causing confusion or disappointment in the market until everyone is homogeneous again.
Look it up because I might be wrong but I think it's measured candela divided by the standard (.25 lux), then the square root of that. Changing it to 1 instead of .25 seems to give roughly half the value on the couple I ballparked. I actually think changing the standard might be helpful to consumers but I wasn't paying much attention when all of this was being discussed and I can't find a free copy of the actual testing standards (ANSI and ASME don't give away anything for free). I don't know if there's a chance changing the value could affect very low-powered devices in a negative (marketing) way or what other aspects might really matter and caused them to decide upon this seemingly worthless value of one quarter lux.
ChibiM - thanks for the very nice review I found on 1Lumen.com.
Unless you have an obsession for owning the best, brightest, etc, light, there is a small matter of the price. Maxtoch focusses on selling their lights to hunters, who value functionality over looks and price. But for me that price is just a bit steep for owning yet another wow-light. Slap in a green Osram and lower the price and I might be persuaded.
“I see that it performs extremely well my dear fellow, but does it also work in theory?”
And I repeat once more: lux measurents are a direct measure of hotspot brightness and as such it gives you the same information of the real life throw distance that your eyes will give, but way more accurate (eyes suck at estimating brightness).
What will also affect real life performance/usability of a thrower is hotspot size and tint, beamshots can provide that extra information, but how bright things light up in a distance is purely determined by the throw number, as measured with a luxmeter.
If it sounds alike, it probably means the same. Or does it?
Here’s a quote for the Eternal Hall of Fame.
From our long-time-ago Secretary of State: mr. Josef (what’s in a name) Luns.
When asked about his hobbies, he replied: I fok horses.
EN: horse breeder
FR: eleveur de chevaux
DE: Pferdezüchter
NL: paardenfokker