Long Throw Distance

fushi17

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Jul 18, 2017
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Looking for input on some flashlights, using single LED, with great throw distances -1,000 meters and above. Any suggestions?
 

chartmarker

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Nov 25, 2009
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Tucson, AZ.
What do you want to see at thousand meters? I have a single Surefire LED flashlight rated 900 m. But I can't see the detail I need or want to see at 400m. So now I'm looking at a hid light. I'm wanting to see more detail at 400m I would like to see what kind of animal it might be down the trail or if I'm looking at a person if it's man woman or child and what they might be wearing. I'm taking the numbers I see on spec sheets listed and taking a third of that and hoping that will give me the Lux I need at 400 m to see the detail I'm looking for.
 

Mr Baz

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Dec 24, 2016
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I have a Klarus G35 coming in for review (not arrived yet so can't give an opinion), rated to 1000 metres range. On paper it looks pretty nice seems to meet your requirement.
For most there are less powerful more compact torches capable of hitting a good range (300-400 metres) depends what you want and budget?
 

seery

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Feb 10, 2006
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Check out the Acebeam K70 or the Thrunite TN42.
 

Modernflame

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The ANSI/FL1 standards for beam distance are fairly close to useless, at least in my opinion. In the real world, a flashlight rated for 1,000 meters may only be useful to about 300 or 400 meters, depending on the veracity of the manufacturers specifications. Pesky inverse square law!

From Wikipedia: " The distance in meters at which the flashlight produces a light intensity of 0.25 lux. This is not very bright, about equal to a full moon. This distance is not actually measured. Instead the value is calculated by taking the peak beam intensity measured above, dividing by 0.25 lux, and taking the square root of the result."

One thousand meters is no small span. Despite having good vision, I can't see much of anything at one kilometer at night, even under the brightest moonlight.


 

Jay R

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Bracknell, England.
Thrunite TN 42.
I always found the usefulness from throw mostly depends on how clean the air is. You could probably spot the side of a mountain at 2,000 meters in the Artic with a TN42 but in the city or the countryside with air filled with pollen you would only see a grey haze after a couple of hundred meters.
 

rickypanecatyl

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Nov 2, 2009
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913
My eyes aren't that great but I'm constantly looking at things (and seeing them well) at a mile, 10 miles, 100 miles away. Heck - even things millions and billions of miles away! :)

Sometimes the new throwers open up new worlds of possibilities/uses for flashlights we didn't have access to before. For example, recently I had a Vinh thrower (can't remember which one - about 500K lux) and was between a couple islands. It was a semi familiar place and in the day time I'd know right where I was based on the other islands around me but normally at night I wouldn't be able to catch land on either side.
I could follow (just barely) the mountain line on the island west of me (it was probably about a kilometer away) and knew exactly where I was because of that. The island had a radio tower at the highest point and when my light hit that it was very obvious as there was reflective painting in some parts.

Also there were lots of boats in the water sitting in the dark people sleeping in many of them. SOME of the boats had reflective paint or stickers on them which makes a massive difference for how well you can see them from a long ways away. If you knew right where to look, in the complete dark I could barely make out a large fishing boats with no lights/reflection from a kilometer away with a 500K light. BUT with a large reflective sign on it it jumps out at you from the same distance...
 

Modernflame

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My eyes aren't that great but I'm constantly looking at things (and seeing them well) at a mile, 10 miles, 100 miles away. Heck - even things millions and billions of miles away! :)

I can see at those distances quite well with proper lighting and/or magnifying. The point is that I can't see an object one kilometer distant at night under moonlight. Since the equivalent of moonlight (0.25 lux) defines flashlight beam distance under the FL1 standard, a flashlight rated for 1000 meters is not likely to effectively illuminate an object at 1000 meters. It would be like trying to view the object unaided on clear night with a full moon. That's why the effective beam distance is always less than what is listed by the FL1 standard.
 
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