Hello. I applied the film to a Keygos KE-5 C8. This light had the exact same beam as the TangsFire C8. I could not tell any difference between the two. The Keygos says it has an XM-L T6 and the TangsFire an XM-L2 U3. That’s up to them, not me
I apologize for the beamshots! I have a new respect for those who do them well. Appreciate any instruction here for doing them. The film does an amazing job, as all have attested to. It’s very easy to apply. I didn’t think I would notice a drop in output, but I did, and I will probably remove the film. I did apply it to another light, my EagleTac D25C Ti. Made a nice beam even nicer!
I have some material i really really like and am a bit addicted to diffused lights . If you want soft floody beams then this is the only way to go . I have it on about 8 different lights. the stuff I have is just a bit less diffused than dc fix ...i think // very easy and works great
Just a tip or question regarding improving your beam shots.
Does your camera have a setting allowing you to choose White Balance? It may be in the form of an abbreviation WB. If possible you could try choosing a manual white balance setting such as daylight or cloudy for your shots rather than leaving it set to the more common "Auto". The resulting pictures may not be exactly colour correct but perhaps they would be a bit more comparable to each other.
I ask because I am curious as to whether there is actually quite that much colour shift after applying the diffuser.
Oh, and don't be afraid to post ugly beam shots, or decide to simply leave it to the pros. Experimenting and getting feedback is how we learn.
hello Gadabout. I had to chuckle about part of your post. NO, the color shift you refer to was solely due to different camera settings! As I said beams were absolutely identical. The DC Fix removed the hot spot. There are NO RINGS at all afterwards. If you do a search on DC Fix over at CPF you can read easily over 100 posts of very satisfied customers, me another one. Forgive me for not taking the time to post better beam shots. I threw them up quickly just to show the elimination of the hot spot. Thanks for your kind words…
I have found that the purplish tint shift of an XML emitter on the margins of the spill is less prominent when the beam is diffused , yet another good thing .
FWIW, I posted some DC-Fix beam shots recently too. I compared a normal ZL SC52 to a diffused one, though, not a C8. The pics are in posts #15 and #18.
I’m pretty happy with the result.
I also use DC-Fix on one of my CNQG brass lights and on a Convoy S3, and am delighted with the new beam pattern. Perhaps I’ll remember to get beam shots for one or both of those…
As said, if you take them all with the same manual setting (daylight makes the most sense) you can at least compare them, but every camera makes a mess of the tint. And every computer monitor displays it a bit different (but what the camera does is much worse)
And no camera can capture the right beam pattern, the 'dynamic range' (as it is called) of reality is much much higher than what any camera can record, or worse: what a monitor can reproduce. If you have the right exposure to show what happens in the hotspot, the spill is invisible, if you want to show the spill accurately, the hotspot is a huge overexposed area. I usually end up with an exposure somewhere in between.
'outdoor shots' give a bit more information about a flashlight IMO.
FWIW, a high-dynamic-range camera can do a better job with beam shots… but those are still relatively uncommon and expensive, and it can be hard to get software to process the images down to 24 bits. One option is to take a series of standardized exposures (like selfbuilt does) and merge them down to a single pic according to an algorithm (nobody seems to do this), to be able to compare beam shots from different lights, but it takes a pretty decent camera and a lot of calibration and tweaking in order to do that.
The human eye may be able to perceive nine orders of magnitude of brightness, and some of our lights can do five or six orders of magnitude, but no existing camera (that I’m aware of) can get anywhere near that. A typical camera can only deal with about three orders of magnitude per picture.
Good old Black & White film, properly exposed and developed, will capture a 9-10 stop dynamic range.
DC-Fix is on all my ‘around the house’ lights. It makes a nice diffuse beam spread, smooth even lighting out to 30 or so feet, and very little lumen loss. (and +1 to clean up XM-L color separation)
If you like diffuse lights, DC-Fix should be in your tool box.
