Pitt Lake: Light-painting and beam-shots...

A few weeks back, I was at Pitt Lake to do some light painting. The above was my favourite shot, the last frame of the evening, a 12 minute exposure with my Fujifilm X-E1, 14mm lens at f/4 and ISO 200. I did less than 2 minutes of light painting at the beginning of the exposure using my Sunwayman D40A light to illuminate the trees and foreground while walking along the dike just outside the frame to the right. Too bad there was haze and some high clouds since the only really clear sky was near the top right of the frame.

I also took the opportunity to do some controlled flashlight beam-shots, which can readily show the differences in output and beam pattern between different lights. I assembled them into a little animated GIF here...

Following are higher quality versions of the three shots in the above animation...

First my tiny little Zebralight SC52 at 500 lumens max output with a 14500 Li-Ion battery (it is 280 lumens with a single NiMH AA). After a minute, it has to step down to 280 lumens since it would otherwise overheat. It is tiny enough that you could easily cram a 1/2 dozen of these lights in blue-jeans pocket! It has the nicest beam tint of the three tested lights too with no excessive blue in the beam's spill, but it is very "floody" so it has a wide beam with a very large hotspot and not much throw…

Next, the Sunwayman D40A at its max of 980 lumens and yes, I accidentally labeled the animation incorrectly as far as the rated lumen output of that light. The D40A is the one I used to light-paint the first exposure since it has the most tightly focused beam of the lights I owned at the time, and also had the least peripheral spill to help avoid overexposing the foreground...

Then there's the SupBeam X40 - wow what an amazingly bright light. It is certainly not ideal for distant precise light painting, but it's totally awesome to use when walking around and just lighting up the world around you. Its lower power levels are still more than bright enough for closer work and it really has a very nice combination of spot plus flood, slightly more floody than the D40A, but when you want to illuminate something far away, just crank up its variable control-ring to the max! The shot is a little overexposed, since I originally set the camera for a decent exposure with the much dimmer SC52...

The variable control ring on the X40 proved so much nicer to use than the discreet mode selector button on the D40A that I decided to replace the D40A with a Nitecore SRT7. It has roughly the same output and beam pattern as the D40A but with an infinitely variable control-ring like the X40. It also has red, green and blue LEDs in addition to white, which might occasionally be useful, however their output is nowhere near as focused or anywhere near as bright as the white LED. With a beam diffuser, the fairly dim red light would probably be perfect for preserving night vision when trying to read maps etc.

Here is a flashlight comparison, showing all my lights side by side, although I no longer have the D40A that is shown here...

Starting from the left and listing their respective maximum outputs, we have a glow-in-the-dark locator-fob for a keychain (0.2? lumens when freshly "charged"), then a 4Sevens Quark 123 (190 lumens), the Zebralight SC52 (500 lumens), an ArmyTek Wizard Pro headlamp (1010 lumens), the Sunwayman D40A (980 lumens), a Nitecore SRT5 (750 lumens), a Nitecore SRT7 (960 lumens) and finally the SupBeam X40 L2 (3480 lumens).

Quite a line-up and yes, one might soon label me a "flashaholic" if I acquire any more lights! Nevertheless, I am actually intending on buying one more light though, something with a very narrow beam and minimal spill, something even more focused than my SRT7. I am extremely impressed with the neutral and consistent beam-colour, as well as the control and the build quality of that ArmyTek headlamp but it has a very wide "floody" beam, making it totally inappropriate for light-painting. However, ArmyTek also makes a very tightly focused light, the Predator Pro v2.5 and it might just be what I'm looking for.

It is difficult to make a compact light with a very tight beam and excellent throw, and even though the Predator Pro is about the same size as the SRT7, it has a far more tightly focused beam. Although its total output (670 lumens) is quite a bit less than the SRT7, at any given distance the Predator Pro's hotspot is brighter and the peripheral beam spill is narrower and dimmer. For precision light-painting at a distance with a relatively compact light, the Predator Pro might just be the ticket. For general use as a flashlight though, both the SRT5 and SRT7 are likely better choices in comparison.

My favourite overall light at the moment is actually the SRT5. It has an even better implementation of the SRT7's variable output magnetic control-ring,  a dimmer 0.5 lumen "moonlight" mode and a dimmer red LED for better preservation of dark-adaption. It is also lighter and more compact than the SRT7 and along with its smooth 0.5-750 lumen continuously variable output, like the SRT7, it still has tons of useful modes too: slow bright beacon, bright SOS (not on the SRT7), red/blue alternating fast "police" strobe, continuous red, continuous blue, 0.5 lumen white "moonlight" mode and lastly, a fast bright white "tactical" strobe. Its rock-steady 750 lumen output is also very impressive for a light of that size and the wider and more floody beam is great for general use. It is going to be the one light I always carry with me in my camera bag I think...

At some point, I will do another beam-shot comparison of all the above lights, perhaps borrowing back my D40A to include it as well. For now, I hope that some of you, at least, enjoyed this geeky flashlight comparison!