light question

[Jasoncassanova]

So it's been my second time to do a night dive, this time i brought with me my own light "Pinceton Tec 95 Lumens LED", it's a bright light for checking crevices and using as a spot light when you're taking a pic of a creature and you don't have a strobe on your point and shoot camera.

one thing i noticed is that this light when pointed out in the open, only lights up probably 5 feet of space in front of me, compared to a yellow light that just cuts through water and goes a long way, probably around 20 feet away.

so my question is... do white lights behave this way? is it because it's LED? is it because it has only 95 Lumens? does it mean that the brighter/hotter the light it's more scattered?

 

[gcbryan]

It's not the color of the light. White light generally means that you can pick out more detail. How far it shines depends on the light/reflector/power.

In other words it depends on what you are comparing your current light to. It's not even necessarily the 95 lumens because 95 lumens concentrated in a small spot with be brighter and therefore shine further than 95 lumens disbursed in a larger flood. Lux is the measurement for how far it will shine.

My dive light uses a led and puts out approximately 500 lumens and does so in a 6 degree beam and compares favorably with a 10 W HID. So, it all just depends on the light.

 

[Jasoncassanova]

It's not the color of the light. White light generally means that you can pick out more detail. How far it shines depends on the light/reflector/power.

In other words it depends on what you are comparing your current light to. It's not even necessarily the 95 lumens because 95 lumens concentrated in a small spot with be brighter and therefore shine further than 95 lumens disbursed in a larger flood. Lux is the measurement for how far it will shine.

My dive light uses a led and puts out approximately 500 lumens and does so in a 6 degree beam and compares favorably with a 10 W HID. So, it all just depends on the light.

oh ok, so 95 lumens in a 3 degree beam will go father than a 95 lumens in a 10 degree beam?

 

[knowone]

It's all about angles, refraction and reflection off particulates.