Both flashlights with freshly charged batteries. And the beamshots were done in less than 1 minutes from switching on for each flashlights, to make sure heat doesn’t affect their throw much. Target is a white building about 150m away. I zoom my lens all the way to the building to have clear look at it. I tried to point the flashlights to the middle of the building in the frame and takes 4 or 5 pictures each and then I pick the one that has the most even lit of the picture.
I’d assume a thrower would have an apparent hot spot even at that range, but a huge reflector doesn’t seem to give much advantage over a three-throwy T70.
I zoomed all the way in with my 400mm lens. It is clearer as no guessing with a remote hot spot in the middle of picture. To me, if a flashlight can throw as good as Fenix TK70, it is considered very good already.
This is about 150m. I am thinking if it were 300m or 400m, TN31 might actually out throw TK70. But I don’t know for sure.
Are you saying it looks brighter for TN31 in this picture? They look similarly bright to me. Photoshop spectrum also shows similar exposure for them.
I have a TK70 and a Supbeam K40. My K40 outhrows the 70 just a little bit. (sadly my camera is still out-of-town) If a single-reflector pure thrower like the TN31 can hardly out-throw. if at all, the 3-xml TK70, then thank God I had been resisting the ‘urge’ to buy the Thrunite TN31/Ti bundle!
I used to think my TN31 out throw TK70 just a little bit. But after doing beam shot last night, I think they are equal.
One disadvantages to TK70 is that it flood the air with lights, making eye sight judgement on the remote hot spot more difficult. Somemore My TN31 is warmer and not as cool as TK70, that actually make me believe TN31 throw better as I can see clearer at the remote hot spot.
Though TK70 is 3xml, it has deep reflector that makes it throw further than all 3xml light.
Makes my TN31 purchase even more appealing. May have to get some newer batteries or swap out my AW 2200mah for the EagleTac 2400mah set of 3. The only problem is the eagletacs are significantly longer than the aws. Almost a quarter inch longer if not 3/16 inch. They literally crush the negative springs on the TN31's battery carrier.
Here's a mouse-over - and actually upon further inspection I can't say the TN31 beats the TK70, but I also can't say that the TK70 beats the TN31.
And to LightUpTheDark; In a multi-cell light, you don't necessarily need good cells especially when 3 batteries are running one LED at 3.5 amps. That's 1.16A per battery, and probably 99% of batteries can handle that.
Edit: Upon even further inspection, if you look in the middle of the photo you can see the TN31 has a distinguishable hotspot which is brighter than that of the TK70. Okay so I can say that the TN31 does beat the TK70 in this picture.
Frankly I thought I was seeing a comparison between a TK70 and a TN30, not a 31, that I have to go back to the first post to see if it is indeed a TN31. I didn’t expect the 31 to have that much beam width at 150 meters.
In my honest opinion they are very close. But I believe the slight edge goes to the TK70. Here’s why I said that. In the mouseover on the TK70 beam, concentrate your eyes at the right side edge of each window. If you do this, you can see slightly that the TK70 is a hair brighter. But it is very close and hard to see. But I see it.
That’s just because the TK70 has a bigger hot spot due to the 3 emitters. Look at the point of highest intensity of the TN31 picture (which indicates the hotspot) and compare THAT point with the TK70, not the part outside the hotspot.
That’s really very close, only visible via the mouseovers.
Probably it’s like 92k cd for the TK70, and 98k cd for the TN31. (just a very rough guess)
In real life you would not see a difference in throw distance between the 2, but you would notice the bigger area of illumination of the TK70. (that’s in decently clear air)
Maybe a bit higher, I know selfbuilt has a reading of 113kcd, but that’s just one number and of course the more readings we have the more accurate it becomes, this is why I advocate light meters for everyone, so we can all collaborate lux and lumen numbers
Someone mentioned that his TK70 got well over 100k cd as well.
I measured mine in the high 80s range and 92k was at a long distance (IIRC it was 45m).
My view is that there really is no point + no way of calibrating meters very accurately. The distance factor would still make things off. There is a CPF thread on light meters showing the standard deviation.
There may not be a possibility for everyone to calibrate meters accurately, but there is definitely a point. There will always be a deviation in both meters and lights themselves, so I guess what you’re saying is all arguments regarding throw (between similar lights) are pointless? Because I guess there’s no real way to confirm which one throws further due to location constraints.
Very insightful 2100, and actually I agree (now). I’ll still look at candela numbers now, but I think I’m going to have to take it easy and take it with a grain of salt now.
You know it’s funny that everybody including myself seems to compare the best XM-L throwers to the TK70, and so far the TK70 is still coming out on top or so dang close it isn’t funny. Such is the case here. It pretty much shows the TK70 is one bad momma and thows with the best of the single XM-L’s to date which are supposed to throw father, but they don’t. But then the TK70 does so much more the single XM-L don’t do like lighting up a whole neighbors yard for several neighbors down the street. It’s one torch that pretty much makes it daylight around here.
