Originally Posted By: pmackOriginally Posted By: Victor_TNVC Effective range out to 700 yards+ with the 850nm diode.
Victor I asked thegoodlife to quantify his IR lights and got no response.
I pose the question to you, how do you quantify or put a metric on IR lights?
Visible light has several metrics, Lumens, Lux, Candela and there is an actual calculation for "Throw". Probably the most meaning full metric to a hunter trying to identify and shoot as far as he can.
http://flashlightwiki.com/Light_Output_Measurements
With a $10 light meter, a few google searches, and a calculator anyone can find the "Throw" of their flashlight. What and how far each individual sees is specific to what their eyes and optics allow them to see with that light. Throw is defined as the distance illuminated by .25 lux. For my needs I need a little more, I would say around .5 lux to be safe, my son on the other hand with eyes half my age can probably get by with .25.
How does IR light correlate to visible light in terms of throw?
Your claim of "700+ yards effective range", is that with any NV unit, would my Photon be as useful at 700 yards as high end GenIII unit using your Torch Pro?
Of course (I should have mentioned) this that our Torch and ranges is based on a Gen 3 NVD which is the most sensitive light amplification device in the IR. Most know this, BUT I should have reminded everyone about this. With a digital device, the ranges are SEVERELY diminished due to sensitivity or lack there of in the IR spectrum vs. a I^2 NVD.
With that said, you cannot correlate measurements white light to IR in the fashion you are trying to. Even though though our Torch Pro is only rated to approx 300mW, it's not all about power, it also about the design of our glass magnified lens which this design allows the extended ranges I talked about along with the frequency of the IR and the NVD being used. Of course the Chinese lights and others use this mW power as a marketing tool that "we have the biggest Johnson contest", where we do not even bother talking about specific power with our Torch as our Bezel design is the key to our outstanding performance. But there are MANY variables measuring an IR light performance and it's NOT just power of the unit.
I can also say our Torch Pro will also reach out to 1200 yards with a 3x PVS-14 Magnifier attached to it. Which some do with the threaded lens we have machined into our bezel. With a 5x, over 1600 yards.
So it's a bit more than mW power and also visible glow of the emitter based on the design of the bezel and IR emitter depth which our Torch Pro buries the emitter deep into the cavity to mitigate the IR LED glow. We and Surefire probably do this the best to mitigate the glow in the 815nm - 850nm range. Hope this helps a bit.