Depends on the beam. My MH20 (reflector) has a pretty nice wide beam with no artifacts, but it also has spill, of course.
My TS10 has a nice wide beam because of the small diameter TIRs.
My S2+ that i swapped in a 60° TIR also has a nice clean beam, and that’s with my “warm sunlight” 4C XM-L in it.
I found that most wide-angle TIR lenses have artifacts. My 90° TIRs have a visible ring near the periphery.
Nothing beats diffusion film if you want a nice even clean flawless blanket of light. It’s brighter in the center and has a very even and smooth fade to the periphery, so there’s a natural “look here” factor, unlike aspherics where the beam’s so even it looks like ceiling bounce.
It’s a matter of “use the right tool for the job”. I got my Cometa right here, and tried it right now. Light up the wall, look at, say, the clock. Aim it high, low, left, right. The intensity of light at the clock hardly varies at all.
Repeat with a DFed light of any kind, and you’ll know what it is the light’s aimed at, even though it’s a nice smooth wall of light.
And DF fixed all my LuxPro lights with those hateful little G3s in 'em. Took each light from being a thrower with horrible fried-egg beam, to a really smooth area light whose beam is now pretty nice (albeit a bit chilly).
Best thing about it? If you stick it on the outside vs behind the glass like on my Tacklife and LuxPros, it’s 100% reversible. Don’t like it, just peel it off, vs, say, swapping out a 90° TIR lens for a 60° one by having to take apart the entire light.
And, oh, man, drawing a blank here… the lights that are practically mil-spec, the AA/14500 has the little finger-notches on the side, annoying MLH-nomem sequence? E3 or E03, I think. Bah. Well anyway, I didn’t have any stick-on film for that, and cut a circle of no-stick DF for it, and it just stuck to the lens by kinda wedging under the lip somewhat. Never fell off, so I left it. Anyhoo, that was a bit throwy for an AA light, but I left the DF and that too became a pretty kick-ass area light.
Ah! Xeno! Sumbich, they’re still available on amazon for <20bux. I thought they were long discontinued. Unless they’re NOS…
Anyhoo, a 2700K area-light in an AA form-factor? I’d love to know where I buried that light, because I know I didn’t give it away, and used to use that around the house all the time for precisely the beam I described.
Thinking about it now, it’s probably why I instantly took to my TS10 as my around-the-house light.
Anyway, the whole point if the above tome is that sometimes nothing beats some slapped-on DF for a nigh-perfect close-range beam, that beats aspherics, TIRs, and certainly reflectors.