Got Lucky - Right Place at the Right Time

[ma_sha1]

Looks like Mega Ray is positioned on the left & higher of Maxa Beam from the last photo, its not crossed.

The MagaRay 150W in Ken's beam shots had much less throw than Gen II Maxa Beam, zoomed-in photos clearly showing them hitting the same objects were critical in his long distance beam comparo.

In theses shots here, on the 1300yards, it is not clear if the MagaRay 175 & Maxa Beam are hitting the same tree? Zoomed in images would be very helpful.

Would like to see Lux at over 100 meters measured between the two.

I am also surprised to see that there apears to be some spill or corona that light up some path around the Maxa beam hot spot? When it's perfectly focused, I would not expect that.

In my experience, I see corona when I focus maxa beam pass its highest cp position while the cp start to reduce. At the highest cp position, it's a pure spot with no visible corona to light up the surrounding of the spot.

 

[DM51]

Great stuff! Well done for acquiring these!

 

[angelofwar]

Awesome BVH! Now you have Street Fighter cred!

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?321629-Ok-had-to-chuckle-when-I-saw-this-thing......

 

[LuxLuthor]

Be interesting to find out where those 3 have been, and how used.

 

[BVH]

For the photo people....I sometimes notice that beamshot photo posters talk about "cropping" their photos before posting. Would this allow the important center portion of the photo to retain its' original resolution and look when posted on CPF within the limit of 800 x 600? And if so, how do I know how much to crop off to end up with a final center image that is not zoomed or reduced when uploaded to Photobucket then CPF?

When I looked at these images again this morning, I again, am very disappointed. They are really poor representations of what I see.

Lux, I was told they saw service in Afghanistan.

 

[Patriot]

Looks like Mega Ray is positioned on the left & higher of Maxa Beam from the last photo, its not crossed.

In theses shots here, on the 1300yards, it is not clear if the MagaRay 175 & Maxa Beam are hitting the same tree? Zoomed in images would be very helpful.

Would like to see Lux at over 100 meters measured between the two.

I am also surprised to see that there apears to be some spill or corona that light up some path around the Maxa beam hot spot? When it's perfectly focused, I would not expect that.

I think that would still mean that they're crossed albeit vertically instead of horizontally. Phil Ament was making a reference to the first Ghost Busters movie where the character Egon Spengler says with regards to the "unlicensed nuclear accelerators" on their backs, "Don't cross the streams" because "it would be bad" Character Ray Stantz acknowledges this truth by saying, "Total protonic reversal!" Peter, played by Bill Murray says, "Right, that's bad. Okay. All right, important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.


I'd like to see lux numbers as well but I'm guessing that the MB is still substantially higher even though the MR is producing far more light.

I was wondering if the corona that you're seeing might just be scattered or reflected light at the target area due to the intensity of the hot spot from the MB. Not sure though, just guessing.

 

[Patriot]

For the photo people....I sometimes notice that beamshot photo posters talk about "cropping" their photos before posting. Would this allow the important center portion of the photo to retain its' original resolution and look when posted on CPF within the limit of 800 x 600? And if so, how do I know how much to crop off to end up with a final center image that is not zoomed or reduced when uploaded to Photobucket then CPF?.

Yes, this would retain its original resolution. Since I don't know what software you're using and since everyone has is MS Paint, open the selected photo in Paint, choose the rectangle shape cutter. Pull / Stretch the rectangle to 800 x 600 and save the crop. It will remain at its original pixel size. Whether or not you'll be able to crop the desired image to only 800 x 600 will depend on how large/small your target is. In the case of those little trees at hundreds of yards you should be fine. In the case of a large tree at short distance, where the tree fills a significant percentage of the frame, you probably won't be able to crop the whole tree and fit it into an 800 x 600 frame. You'd have to resize in this case.

 

[Lips]

I used to do allot of beam shots and have forgotten must of the tricks.

Tons of little programs out there that allow you to right click on a photo and re-size it very quickly. All the old ones I used in the past would degrade the photo's substantially. I'm sure something better has come along. I use firefox browser now and I bet there are some good add-ons for this available. For me the full blown version of Photo Shop would allow you to re-size and keep the quality of the image. It's a pain and takes way more time to do... It's sooo much nicer just to right click on the photo and re-size. Photo Shop allows you to do the rotating images fairly easy but it can be a pain too. I'm going to try some firefox add-ons and see what I can find...

Alternatively LuxLuthor and others used the small image up front and the full size image behind. It's a little code trick (have to look at one of his photos to see the simple code in image posting to do it). Click on image posted and it goes to the full size megapixel image hosted somewhere. Quote the post to see the code...



Example from LuxLuthor post. CLICK PIC for full size


BarnBurner Rains on DEFT Parade:

 

[ma_sha1]

You can also use MS Power Point, paste a picture into ppt, click on the picture, one of the icon says crop when you mouse over it,
older PPT version, the icon might be in the Format tab. After cropping, right click the image will allow you to save picture as jpeg.

Doesn't matter what size/shape, uploading to image shack will allow you to re-size the image during uploading to comply with various forum policies.

 

[Phil Ament]

I think that would still mean that they're crossed albeit vertically instead of horizontally. Phil Ament was making a reference to the first Ghost Busters movie where the character Egon Spengler says with regards to the "unlicensed nuclear accelerators" on their backs, "Don't cross the streams" because "it would be bad" Character Ray Stantz acknowledges this truth by saying, "Total protonic reversal!" Peter, played by Bill Murray says, "Right, that's bad. Okay. All right, important safety tip. Thanks, Egon..

Patriot, thank you very much for explaining this in a much more comprehensive manner, and for also including all of the very important operational safety details. It's just that I would of hated to think that either BVH or Lips would experience a "Total protonic reversal" situation as I believe that the results would be extremely catastrophic and I wouldn't wish that on anybody, especially BVH and Lips.



Phil :wave:

 

[BVH]

Both the MR and MB were on the Sonata roof about 2' apart. When viewing the target, the MR is on your left, the MB on your right. The camera was about 5-7 feet to the left of the MR. Beams were not crossed, no danger of a Klystronic event!

I have Photoshoppe Vers.7. I've used the crop tool but have not investigated to see how I can tell when I'm at 800 x 600. Once I've done the crop, I can go back and see what the size is but this requires trial and error to arrive at near 800 x 600 reso. So how do I see it dynamically and ensure that target remains centered? I'll investigate.

 

[BVH]

An experiment with cropping, enlarging, cropping again then posting to Photobucket with fetch link in CPF. Last nights images used. So, yes, I did hit the same bush! Cropped to about 750 x 560 initially, then enlarged to 1400 x ???? (linked proportionately), then cropped again to approx 760 x 560. Used a ruller on the screen to crop as evenly as I could. there MUST be an easier way!

MB - 1355 Yrds

MR - 1355 Yrds

 

[get-lit]

I've had the same issue with the intensity getting lost in the pics. They seem fine up until they're saved as a JPG. I think the JPG compression algorithm has a hard time retaining subtle intensities in dark images.

Lux readings!!! I sampled the hotspots in Photoshop and the MB seems to be about 20% brighter.

 

[BVH]

The difference between MB 1 degree vrs the MR 2 degree beams is clearly visible in these enlargements. The extra Wattage in the MR is in the much larger area illuminated. I can add that in-person, you can see the brighter spot of the MB in the 1355 Yrd shot but because the spot is so small, it is much, much more difficult to find and identify what the target is. I think I said before that on the first night, I could not find the target with the MB until I found it with the MR instantly. Unfortunately, pics do not tell a lot of the story of performance. I've also said before that much beyond 700 yards, without binocs or a scope, none of these lights are of much use.

I've also noticed that when starting from flood and moving all the way to max spot on the MR, the spot continually gets smaller. It is not possible to go too far such that the spot begins to grow again as you can with the MB. It's travel is limited by a simple molded-in stop on the telescoping extension. My guess is that there's a bit more focusing that could be done if one were to want to do some mods to increase travel outward.

 

[LuxLuthor]

Lips, all I do for those...after making smaller thumbnail image is upload both to my photobucket. Use the "insert image" icon and enter URL for thumbnail which then appears in my composing response. Next, I click on that thumbnail to highlight it, and go up and choose the "Link" icon and enter the URL for the full size image. That results in the thumbnail taking you to the full size image, just like linking highlighted text would do.

I do my quick editing, adding labeled text, cropping with Paint Shop Pro. I was never willing to pay the outrageous price for Adobe Photoshop, which is also a pretty complex program for most users. The original JASC Software Program Paint Shop Pro that worked with Windows 3.0, included "Animation Shop" to customize gifs. Back then it was really cheap...like $12 shareware, and I got updates up to the 7.04 version which I still use to this very day. After that JASC sold to Corel who broke PSP apart, and selling at much higher $$$. I think you can still find the old 7.04 version for free now.

Patriot/BVH, I always thought the idea presentation of long distance comparisons would be to have one guy manning the lights, and the photographer being way down up close to the trees/bushes with his camera on a tripod. You have to try various timed & f-stop settings to capture the light. You could communicate back and forth with cell phones. This technique would eliminate the dust particle illumination trail, and just give an actual photo of light hitting the tree.

 

[BVH]

I like the two person idea but in my case, it's private property with no access. It would be a great way to do it. Heck, I'd like another person along just to help stage the lights and keep track of what order everything was shot in and all of the cam settings.

 

[Phil Ament]

I like the two person idea but in my case, it's private property with no access. It would be a great way to do it. Heck, I'd like another person along just to help stage the lights and keep track of what order everything was shot in and all of the cam settings.

I don't mind helping you at all and as a matter of fact it all sounds like a real lot of fun, but as I am around 8000 miles away it may take me a little while to get there. Also as my wife currently has our car I am going to have to ride my bicycle, so you will just have to be a little more patient.



See you soon
Phil :wave:

P.S. I was going to ask you to please leave your front light on, but there is a very small chance that I may not make it there before sunrise, but you can rest assure that I will pedal as fast as I can.

 

[Patriot]

Gosh Lux, what a great idea!

Once I found myself going 100m downrange to measure lux numbers until I thought to set up the spotting scope and read the numbers from the light and camera position. I remember once thinking, "I wonder if I should bring the camera down here and take a picture of the target with the light up range. The reason I didn't was because it was flat and there was a huge shadow cast no matter where I stood. With two people though, the right dip in the topography and the right lens and angle to keep the photographer's own shadow out of the picture, it would really be the ideal beamshot.

I'd love to help with this Bob, just too bad we're a state apart.



BTW, I just wanted to say that despite you own dissatisfaction with the way some of the pictures came out, they're really very useful and I find the differences in the beams pretty easy to discern. Even with the first set of pictures, I wasn't looking at them thinking, 'oh man, I wish he'd have done this or that.' Everything you posted was really great!

You have more experience with the beamshots than I do but as a rule I always try to take the series of pictures slightly over exposed by 1-2 stops. This seems to make up for some of the jpeg and resizing darkness. I've learned that dark beamshots, that is darker than what I remember seeing, always disappoint me. It's easy to darken them but impossible by any non-artificial way to increase the amount of light.

Thanks for putting forth so much effort Bob. I'm really enjoying your thread tremendously.

 

[get-lit]

I don't mind helping you at all and as a matter of fact it all sounds like a real lot of fun, but as I am around 8000 miles away it may take me a little while to get there.

Well if we keep at it, maybe you won't have to travel the 8000 miles to take pics of the end of the beam :wave:

 

[Phil Ament]

Well if we keep at it, maybe you won't have to travel the 8000 miles to take pics of the end of the beam :wave:

Well considering who it is that we are talking about, and some of the weapons that he has in his arsenal, I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised.


Phil Ament :wave:


P.S. Sent from my mobile whilst still pedalling! :sweat: