Great shots, rdrfronty. And you guys are all gonna hate me for saying this, but the pics kinda make me glad I haven’t invested in more high-dollar mods like the OSTS stuff. The difference doesn’t seem that much.
I mean, 300 meters? How is it we are getting talk of ANSI distances of 600 to 800 meters and only hitting 300 just barely? Seems not worth it to me.
I keep noticing the more I play with throwers that none really put great, usable light down range at a certain point. I don’t know if it is the eyes or what. Can someone explain to me what I am missing?
I can’t really explain the discrepancy of rated throw vs useable throw. For me pure throwers are not very useful. By the time the spot is big enough to use, the target is too far away. I’d rather have a giant spot that can reach 200m instead of a tiny spot that can go 500m. Of course there’s a use for the small spot thrower if you do need to see that far; the spill doesn’t blast your eyes.
My top throwers are:
- HD2010
- UltraFire T90 (alternative: TrustFire X6)
soon to arrive BTU Shocker (alternative: Fenix TK75 here)
Practically thrower is not meant to reach far as human eyes can’t see that far. It is meant to make things brighter especially if you are looking at dark color objects. Because the target in these beamshots are lighter color, so the advantages of the best thrower is not so obvious. But if it is dark color target, at 300m, best thrower will suffer either because human eyes can’t see clearly with dark object at this distance.
All are thrower to me except SRK. TK75 definitely looks like the best performance.
This just shows how amazing the King is. There is a smooth transition between the spill and the hotspot whereas the TK75 has gaps. It still baffles me that we can get the King for <$50. It is such a nice light.
The TK75 appears to have more lumens overall and it puts more of them down range. Another great light but I can't justify $175 for it. Maybe if it had XM-L2 emitters.budget
I don’t think it is right to judge beam profiles under this condition in this scene. SRK is basically flooder, so of course it looks like it lights up evenly than TK75 in this scene.
For throw, SRK can’t see clearly even with a white target in the beamshots. Imagine an attacker(impossibly wearing white shirt and white trousers and white hat) walks by, SRK will not be able to see him. But TK75 can.
Let’s keep in mind, my issue is with the 300 meters aspect. It seems we are getting sold a bad bill of goods in these “ANSI rated” 600 to 800 meters. No one has really addressed that except one person. I’d like to know why I seem to be the only one who is concerned with it.
Well it’s not just barely hitting the 300m target. It is putting literally about 10 times as much light on that target as a SR51 or hd2010 would. At that distance those two lights put appx .5 lumens on a target. The TN31mb puts about 5 lumens on the target at that distance. Roughly, anyway. Haven’t done full testing on it yet.
Or another way of looking at it is, the TN31mb will put the same mount of light on a target at appx 900m as a SR51 does at 300m.
So it does make a difference. Im pretty confident you will be able to spot targets at close to a 1000m.
Now we intend to test at longer distances, much longer. But taking shots at long distances get tricky, along with the trouble finding good targets to shoot at in nice dark areas. But I’ll see what we can come up with.
And remember I stated the zoomed shots are under exposed. The target was certainly brighter a bit to the naked eye. We need to work on our photo taking skills.
But again throwers are not for everybody. I’m cool with that. I also love the combo lights like the BTU & TK75 too. I promise the BTU will put plenty of useable light out at 300m. It has a nice fat spot.
And the King is an awesome little light too. Those shallow reflectors and roughly 2200 lumens make a great combo for lighting about everything in front of you very well.
Joe it is possible that our pictures are not accurately portraying what we actually saw. The zoomed in shots are definately under exposed. I can not seem to find the coorect setting on either of my cameras to fairly represent these lights. The OSTS TN31 was head and shoulders above the rest of the lights. If you could see them in person I do believe that you would be very impressed. Every one of the lights performed admirably but I just cant make it show in my pictures. We were grinning the whole time. We were that impressed with all 6 lights. They are each impressive in their own way.
I agree, the ANSI rating is bogus if you intend to follow it for useful throw. I usually calculate to one lumen for ‘more useable’ throw. In other words, useable throw for me is exactly half the ANSI throw.
OK. I believe you. I guess it is just a visuals thing then. And I suppose the ANSI system and manufacturers are testing under the most ideal of conditions (open terrain, total darkness, no humidity, etc.) But I can’t help but wonder what those pics would look like at, say, 600 meters. If the OSTS TN31 rated for 1100 meters is 5 lumens at 300 yards, how would that shot look at double that distance? See what I mean?
I’ll totally concede that the lights are wicked amazing and that taking pics is damn hard. it just doesn’t seem thinkable to say that the distance lighting could ever be useful. Again, that’s just the way it appears in light of the stats.
And keep in mind, I was the one who first blurted out how the Olight SST-50 M31 (ANSI rated at 700 meters throw) could be the same as the Thrunite TN31 (the first version, also rated at 700 meters throw) with all those extra lumens. They can’t perform the same. Not a chance. Something’s not right, or the ratings are give-or-take accurate in a wide range only.
Can’t help it. It’s a discrepancy to me. My mind takes those sorts of things apart. And there is always that part of me wondering how many of us are reviewing/measuring/posting in a state of supercharged hype. For that reason, I no longer ever review a product right when I get it home and it works fine out of the package. I wait a month at least.
Yep. Has to be. Others have said the same (Patriot36 comes to mind). My Coleman “500 lumen” (ANSI) is about 230 lumens and throws about 175 yards (ANSI 248 meters).
Even though we test our lights to the ansi standard of .25 lux I do agree with you that anything shy of 1 lux is not a usable amount of light. I suppose if you were to use a rifle scope you could see .25 lux just fine but the naked eye requires a brighter light to see.
I agree that the ANSI rating of.25L is pretty low for a standard of “throwing” the distance. 1 lumen would be a little more usuable. But that’s the standard set. Going by that standard of 1 lux my Olight SR51 will only throw about 228 meters. And my TN31mb would throw about 660 meters. Or even .5L would be a fine too.
But hey I didn’t set these numbers. But I can say with certainty that every ANSI rated light I own tests within about 5% of their ANSI rating in throw. Meaning I’ve verified every single one via 100m tapes , lux meters, two way radios, etc., taking readings down to .2L
I haven’t tested the TN31mb yet though. Not sure if I can. I tested my dedomed SR90 a month or so ago. Tested it to “throw” .25L in the 850 meter range. My testing grounds and methods was getting close to maxed out with that light though.
I mean at 300m, you never know what you're going to get.