# Surefire P60 Xenon stands up to a 170 lumen LED...Beam shots.



## PinarelloOnly (Aug 6, 2008)

Beam shots are at 82ft give or take an inch or two from my SF C2 to front
of shed. Doors to shed are open to also show how well these D26 lamps
can still light up a room at distance. 65 lumen Xenon wins. IMHO. BOGUSA
Prem. Plus LED seems to drop off in throw after 60ft. 

Note: I am not a fan of smooth reflector LED lights, although some have
outstanding throw, the tight hot-spot beams have a lot to be desired
when using them outside. So, I can see why OP reflectors are the choice
of most manufactures and after market vendors. 

Notice the 65 lumen Xenon (1st pic) is throwing a touch more light. Very Impressive.:wow:

Camera settings:

Nikon D50
2008/08/06 08:11:56.4
JPEG (8-bit) Fine
Image Size: Small (1504 x 1000)
Lens: 18-55mm F/3.5-5.6 G
Focal Length: 55mm
Exposure Mode: Manual
Metering Mode: Multi-Pattern
1 sec - F/5.6
Exposure Comp.: 0 EV
Sensitivity: ISO 1600
Optimize Image: Normal
White Balance: Incandescent
AF Mode: Manual
Flash Sync Mode: Not Attached
Auto Flash Comp: 0 EV
Color Mode: Mode IIIa (sRGB)
Tone Comp.: Auto
Hue Adjustment: 0°
Saturation: Normal
Sharpening: Auto
Image Comment: 
[FONT=&quot]Long Exposure NR: On

Pic #1 Surefire P60 Xenon








Pic #2 BOGUSA 170 Lumen Premium Plus

[/FONT] Nikon D50
2008/08/06 08:12:44
JPEG (8-bit) Fine
Image Size: Small (1504 x 1000)
Lens: 18-55mm F/3.5-5.6 G
Focal Length: 55mm
Exposure Mode: Manual
Metering Mode: Multi-Pattern
1 sec - F/5.6
Exposure Comp.: 0 EV
Sensitivity: ISO 1600
Optimize Image: Normal
White Balance: Flash
AF Mode: Manual
Flash Sync Mode: Not Attached
Auto Flash Comp: 0 EV
Color Mode: Mode IIIa (sRGB)
Tone Comp.: Auto
Hue Adjustment: 0°
Saturation: Normal
Sharpening: Auto
Image Comment: 
[FONT=&quot]Long Exposure NR: Off





[/FONT]


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## KeyGrip (Aug 7, 2008)

The torch lumen value of the two lights is probably similar. Nice beamshots.


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## ampdude (Aug 7, 2008)

Great pictures, that's about what I expected. Besides it being obviously brighter, look at all the detail in that picture compared to the LED. The P60 rocks.


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## Paul520 (Aug 7, 2008)

Nice shots! Yes, with the LED, colors appear washed out.


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## Outdoors Fanatic (Aug 7, 2008)

That's pure Incan power baby!


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## roymail (Aug 8, 2008)

Very interesting... thanks for posting this comparison.

Have you noticed what these P60 modules sell for on BST? I saw 3 of them go for $12.00 not long ago. I have several set back but they're not for sale.


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## ampdude (Aug 9, 2008)

People all over buy the incan Surefires and then dump the lamps for next to nothing so they can run out and buy the latest binned led drop-in, sometimes for as much or more than they payed for the SF to begin with. It's a great time to be an incan fan!!!


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## EV_007 (Aug 9, 2008)

Preachin' to the choir, but amen to that. Nice demo.


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## Fizz753 (Aug 9, 2008)

Stole your images and animated them, hope you don't mind.


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## Illum (Aug 9, 2008)

your LED has a very beautiful tint to make _this _kind of comparison:huh:


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## mdocod (Aug 9, 2008)

I hate to say this but:
Due to the characteristics of emission patterns on an LED, a larger percentage of emitted light escapes as spill light rather than concentrated into the beam when compared to an incandescent bulb configuration. 

As a result, taking a beam shot that illustrates the difference between the performance of just the concentrated beam alone does not *always* accurately compare an LED and incan. 

While I personally love incans, I have also become very fond of the stronger spill light found in LED lights in similar output categories. 

I can almost guarantee that for every apparent lumen that LED lacks compared with the P60 in the photos above, it is being emitted into spill light that the camera has not captured but eyes would see. 

Sorry,
Eric


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## ampdude (Aug 10, 2008)

That's cool Fizz, you should label which is which though.


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## KeeperSD (Aug 10, 2008)

Fizz753 said:


> Stole your images and animated them, hope you don't mind.


nice work with the animation, i think it does well to illustrate the different beam patterns and the difficulty of comparing the output of the two.


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## Fizz753 (Aug 10, 2008)

ampdude said:


> That's cool Fizz, you should label which is which though.




I sorta cheated, I used this nifty program to do the animation for those who are curious. Not sure if it can do text haven't really looked yet. (err just reading the program description it can  )

Beneton Movie GIF - Free program btw 

Beneton Movie GIF is a free animated GIF editing tool. It is simple, quick, and effective. 

*Features*
Supports 48 file formats such as BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, and AVI
Multiple frames selecting
Drag and drop frames for a quick editing
20 different effects, divided in 2 big categories: normal and animated
Supports individual frame properties: delay and transparent for each frame
Save and load a batch of frames (frame1.bmp, frame2.bmp, etc.)
A complete built-in image editor with many tools (pencil, shapes, airbrush, alpha brush, fill, selection, text)
A simple preview window that previews individual frames or the animation with options such as zoom, loop, etc.
Many others!
http://www.benetonsoftware.com/Beneton_Movie_GIF/

Add image 1 add image 2 set delay, push the button. That is pretty much it.


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## DM51 (Aug 10, 2008)

According to the camera data given, the white balance for the P60 shot was set at "Incandescent", and for the LED shot the setting was "Flash". 

For a more accurate comparison, you need to use the same settings for both shots.


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## mdocod (Aug 10, 2008)

Hello DM51,
not sure if that's a good method or not when comparing the 2. If you set it to "incan" for both, the LED will look in the picture FAR more blue that it looks to our eyes in actual use. And if you set it to "fluorescent" or other high color temp setting, the incan would look like a red filter was installed over it in the picture, drastically different than it looks in real life. If you choose only one setting, it would severely favor one light or the other.

The reality is that the eye works much like the auto setting on the camera, and is very capable of adjusting for different "white" light sources. With this in mind, it makes sense to try to use a white point setting close to the light source for comparisons. Even with the white point adjusted properly in the photos above, we are still seeing the richer contrast provided by the incandescent as expected. 

in my experimenting with beam shots, i've personally found that locking in a white point is best when you want to compare lights in the same category, incans vs incans, or LEDs vs LEDs. It can be used to illustrate how overdriven a particular bulb really is compared to another (white vs yellow appearance, etc etc). Or show tint variations from one LED to another. But a "blue filtered" or "red filtered" shot of either doesn't do much good. 

Eric


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## eprom (Aug 10, 2008)

Hi,

I am not a Photo Expert but i see that noise reduction (NR) is On at first photo. So this gives a non foggy/noisy seem. And i see that Sharpening is set Auto, so sharpening over a foggy/noisy photo makes things uncompareable.

Just my opinion,

Led vs Incandescent will go on forever....


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## ampdude (Aug 10, 2008)

DM51 said:


> According to the camera data given, the white balance for the P60 shot was set at "Incandescent", and for the LED shot the setting was "Flash".
> 
> For a more accurate comparison, you need to use the same settings for both shots.



Yep, in this case the LED would look even worse. I noticed it was whiter looking than it should be.


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## PinarelloOnly (Aug 10, 2008)

mdocod said:


> Hello DM51,
> not sure if that's a good method or not when comparing the 2. If you set it to "incan" for both, the LED will look in the picture FAR more blue that it looks to our eyes in actual use.
> 
> Eric



+1 for Eric, at least someone else understands the camera.

This is correct in that; if I left the white balance set to incandescent for
the LED shot, the end result would be with the LED shot being blue
because the camera is looking for incan light and adjusting the tone
accordingly.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
To the rest of the "expert" opinions out there,

The two shots you see took about 30 min of prep getting the settings
to where the final shots look as if you were standing there when they
were taken. Also, remember this is all over a distance of 82 ft with the
lens fully zoomed in (D50 kit lens and Bogen tripod w/fluid head).

If anybody is reading into the settings as some are, the settings in "auto"
actually produced the best results (more accurate). The in-camera settings
that I posted for each picture are mainly for the many other Nikon D50
users out there to use as a "guide" for night shots and not to be judged,
read into or used if you own a different DSLR.

Posting the full in-camera settings is the norm on the camera forums and
I wish others would do it here too because sometimes you do not know
what your looking at as far as accurate lighting bouncing off of a subject.

AND FYI: The "flash" setting does not mean the flash was used...ONLY the
white balance setting was adjusted to "flash" which is the closest light
definition that the Nikon D50 will recognize for LED light.

It turns out the Nikon D50 did a very accurate job at taking the LED photo
knowing what light it was "seeing" (modern flash/LED) and adjusting it with
very very accurate results. Again the settings in "auto" did the rest of the
work with no flash actually used. 

The purpose of my post was to show the incan power of "throw" and
to show it somewhat accurately at a distance between two different light
sources with functionally the same OP reflectors and not against some wall
which others here find is the way to tell the story of flashlight
performance through a camera lens. Some here I am sure will a test that,
accurate results of a light beam, at night, through a camera lens is a very
trying and difficult task.


Fizz753. Awesome animation!!! Thanks.


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## DM51 (Aug 10, 2008)

No need to fly off the handle. I was not suggesting your results were wrong. The exposure times and apertures were the same, so the relative brightness is accurately compared. 

I was merely suggesting that the color balance settings, being different for the 2 shots, renders them more similar in tone than they would actually appear to the eye. And of course I wasn't suggesting that you actually _used_ the flash.

I think if I had done the test, I would have set the color balance to daylight for both shots. The contrast in color temperature of the lamps would then be more clearly seen.

You succeeded in showing the relative throw of the two lamps, which is what you set out to do. My comments were in no way intended to discredit your findings in that. I have taken a few beamshots at night myself, so I am aware of the attendant difficulties.


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## CM (Aug 10, 2008)

Oops, someone already said what I was going to say.


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## davidt (Aug 11, 2008)

I noticed BOG has more spill. You can see more objects around the shed using the led compared to the the p60. You can see a bush to the right of the shed plus what ever is on top of the shed using the led. Although the p60 does illuminate whatever is on the left of the shed very slightly better than the led.


Although the color on the p60 is very nice:thumbsup:


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## CampingLED (Aug 11, 2008)

Pls don't understand me wrong, and I do not want to be over critical, but:
It seems like the hot spot of the LED beam was aimed about one meter higher than the P60 pic. If I mask the bottom half of the merged pics by Fizz753 the LED pic is brighter, but if I mask the top half the P60 pic is brighter.

I also support the daylight setting for all beam shots. :ironic:


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## mdocod (Aug 11, 2008)

CampingLED,
I was noticing the same thing when comparing the shots but dismissed it, thinking that maybe it's "just me" or something... now that there are 2 of us, I think it's worth me speaking up on that.... 

Was an apparatus used to control the aim of the light from one shot to the next?

Eric


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## ambientmind (Aug 11, 2008)

The _biggest_ problem with these beamshots is...a *Nikon* took them! :shakehead I'm just messing around, I'm a Canon guy. :nana: 
Nice work, but I agree with using daylight white balance for beamshots, its a nice neutral place to start. 
One thing I don't think was mentioned is runtime! The P60 may run for an hour at most, at anywhere from $3-15 a pop, whereas the BOG will run for longer and can be run on rechargeables. I'd like to see what these two would do in a sphere for total output comparison.


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## ampdude (Aug 18, 2008)

ambientmind said:


> The _biggest_ problem with these beamshots is...a *Nikon* took them! :shakehead I'm just messing around, I'm a Canon guy. :nana:
> Nice work, but I agree with using daylight white balance for beamshots, its a nice neutral place to start.
> One thing I don't think was mentioned is runtime! The P60 may run for an hour at most, at anywhere from $3-15 a pop, whereas the BOG will run for longer and can be run on rechargeables. I'd like to see what these two would do in a sphere for total output comparison.



That's why I use P90's when I want rechargeable free runtime.

I use P60's for extreme weather conditions like extreme cold or heat and times when I want a long runtime from lightweight lithium primaries.

If you want free lumens just use a rechargeable compatible lamp assembly.


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## zipplet (Aug 20, 2008)

This thread caused me to buy a 6P. That will be my 3rd surefire when my A2 aviator turns up...


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## zipplet (Aug 22, 2008)

Already posted in another thread, but I got my 6P today and I'm very impressed, this being my first decent incan (and my second surefire). Can't wait until night to compare it to LED...


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## divine (Aug 22, 2008)

It looks like the CRI might be affecting how we see the results, too. Everything that is being illuminated is brown or red or green or yellow or gray. You can see the colors being washed out by the LED. If this were another white wall test, I am sure we'd see the LED as brighter.


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## ampdude (Aug 23, 2008)

divine said:


> It looks like the CRI might be affecting how we see the results, too. Everything that is being illuminated is brown or red or green or yellow or gray. You can see the colors being washed out by the LED. If this were another white wall test, I am sure we'd see the LED as brighter.



But washed out light is worthless light.


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