I'd like to thank those guys that helped with this, without their knowledge,help and lights of course I couldn't have put this together.
After reading different performance claims on many of the lights on the market I preached in numerous posts on several forums that those are nothing but personal opinions and not a true comparison or evaluation of a light. How can one guy claim to identify an animal at 250 yards and another guy struggle with the same light to identify an animal at 150 yards. Many factors play into these discrepancies. Weather conditions, moon light, optics, ones own vision and estimation of what is 150 or 250 yards. The only way to evaluate a lights performance is side by side comparison.
There seems to be lots of confusion around lumens. Lumens is a measure of total light. If you remove the reflector from any of these lights it renders it useless as a hunting light yet the lumen measurement with or without the reflector is the same. To get an accurate reading of the lumens produced by a light an integrating sphere is required. It is my belief that none of these lights has ever been measured. The lumen claims are calculations based on the LED manufacturers specs. These are readily available from Cree and I assume others. More lumens is better but you have to focus those lumens to make it perform as a hunting light.
Lux is the most accurate metric of a hunting light. That value is lumens per square meter. It's easily measure with a hand held lux meter. Those that have a focusable light can easily see how lux values change. A broad flood will have a lower lux value than the tight beam from the same focusable light.
The throw of the light depends on the size of the emitter (smaller is better), the surface brightness of the emitter, and the size/design of the reflector (large and smooth is better). Flashlights are usually measured for throw, by measuring the LUX falling on the center of an object placed 1 meter away [note that it may be a pencil beam or a large beam; for lux measurement, that doesn't matter].
LEDs and lux values measured at 1 meter. These meters are calculated for white light. The white and red lux readings may not correlate but the readings for each individual colors do.
SkyRay...........................28000
HS802............................25000
G4.................................23000
Predator Lite..............4300
Ebay Headlamp...............10000
Ebay Headlamp wratten 24.....1600
Ebay Headlamp Rosco Fire.....1500
Night Eyes Headlamp..........2000
Night Eyes Gun light.........10000
XLR250 Green.................13000
XLR250 Red...................9000
Light Malls HS802 red........4700
501B red/aspheric lens......6000
Cabelas with red filter......2500
A lux number of 3 is about the same illumination you see on an object at civil twilight. Full moonlight has a lux value of about 0.3.
For throw comparison purposes you can to calculate the throw distances for an illumination of 1 lux (something I can see clearly in a good scope). It also makes the calculations easier.
Lux varies as the square root of the distance. Therefore, the SkyRay puts 1 lux of illumination on an object at 167 meters (182 yards) [square root of 28000].
After reading different performance claims on many of the lights on the market I preached in numerous posts on several forums that those are nothing but personal opinions and not a true comparison or evaluation of a light. How can one guy claim to identify an animal at 250 yards and another guy struggle with the same light to identify an animal at 150 yards. Many factors play into these discrepancies. Weather conditions, moon light, optics, ones own vision and estimation of what is 150 or 250 yards. The only way to evaluate a lights performance is side by side comparison.
There seems to be lots of confusion around lumens. Lumens is a measure of total light. If you remove the reflector from any of these lights it renders it useless as a hunting light yet the lumen measurement with or without the reflector is the same. To get an accurate reading of the lumens produced by a light an integrating sphere is required. It is my belief that none of these lights has ever been measured. The lumen claims are calculations based on the LED manufacturers specs. These are readily available from Cree and I assume others. More lumens is better but you have to focus those lumens to make it perform as a hunting light.
Lux is the most accurate metric of a hunting light. That value is lumens per square meter. It's easily measure with a hand held lux meter. Those that have a focusable light can easily see how lux values change. A broad flood will have a lower lux value than the tight beam from the same focusable light.
The throw of the light depends on the size of the emitter (smaller is better), the surface brightness of the emitter, and the size/design of the reflector (large and smooth is better). Flashlights are usually measured for throw, by measuring the LUX falling on the center of an object placed 1 meter away [note that it may be a pencil beam or a large beam; for lux measurement, that doesn't matter].
LEDs and lux values measured at 1 meter. These meters are calculated for white light. The white and red lux readings may not correlate but the readings for each individual colors do.
SkyRay...........................28000
HS802............................25000
G4.................................23000
Predator Lite..............4300
Ebay Headlamp...............10000
Ebay Headlamp wratten 24.....1600
Ebay Headlamp Rosco Fire.....1500
Night Eyes Headlamp..........2000
Night Eyes Gun light.........10000
XLR250 Green.................13000
XLR250 Red...................9000
Light Malls HS802 red........4700
501B red/aspheric lens......6000
Cabelas with red filter......2500
A lux number of 3 is about the same illumination you see on an object at civil twilight. Full moonlight has a lux value of about 0.3.
For throw comparison purposes you can to calculate the throw distances for an illumination of 1 lux (something I can see clearly in a good scope). It also makes the calculations easier.
Lux varies as the square root of the distance. Therefore, the SkyRay puts 1 lux of illumination on an object at 167 meters (182 yards) [square root of 28000].
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