Apologies for the newbie question but as I understand it lumens are the total light output and candella is the intensity of the central beam which means in simple terms the higher the candella the further it will throw? Does this mean that for a given lumen output a higher candella would mean a narrower beam with less flood/spill and lower candella would mean a wider beam with more flood?
For example if I had two flashlights outputting 1000 lumens but one had 30,000 candella and one had 12,000 candella would the one with 12,000 candella be more of a flood type light?
That’s not a newbie question, it’s a good question, and you figured it out correctly, yes. Candela is the intensity at the most intense spot (center, unless the flashlight has a very weird beam) and lumen is the “integrated” brightness over the entire output.
For the most part, lower candela at the same lumen just means more flood. But different beam profiles can skew a bit how floody it actually appears.
For example, 2 lights can have the same candela and lumen, but one has a larger hotspot, and barely any spill while the other has a tiny hotspot and a large, brighter spill - same integrated brightness (lumen), same peak brightness (candela), but still appears visually very different. But usually it’s pretty straightforward as you described in your original post.
