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Awesome, @JohnnyC!
I have a couple of thoughts. I'm sure you are shocked. LOL
- Why are you going to do it underwater? I don't see how that contributes anything to the purpose of the test. If one is brighter and tighter than another, when pointed at a wall, in air, it's going to be brighter and tighter in the water, right?
We use the lights in water. Depending on the design of the optics, their performance changes in and out of water. I want to know what it looks like in the water. The purpose of the test is to compare how the lights look in the water. Shining lights at garage doors is super lame and gives no context to the user. Unless your primary use of diving lights is to light up garage doors. Then sadly, this test will absolutely be of no use to you.
- Because so many lights are not constant output, to me, the test is almost (but, not totally) useless unless you do some photos with the lights having been on for, say 1 hour, or 2. I mean, a test like this could really help me in deciding what light I might want to buy. But, I would feel foolish choosing a light that is going to dim steadily based on how it looks compared to a constant output light, when I have only compared them when they are both fully charged.
That's fine, if you feel the test is useless, feel free to ignore it. I understand your concern. Feel free to do your own test with a bunch of lights you've left burning for an hour. Considering the performance of those lights without constant output will relate directly to the cells used to power those lights, that part of the test would be more even more useless than one within the first few minutes. I have no desire to get some bitchy pm from someone because the light looked great when I showed it, but their ****** ChinaFIRE batteries made it look like an old Seahunt prop 10 minutes into the dive.
- If you did the test in air, and put a tub of water nearby to keep the lights in, and turned on, only pulling them out to shine on the wall and take a photo, I would think you could cycle through photos of all the lights pretty quickly. Thus, doing a 0 hour, 1 hour, 2 hour set of photos might not be TOO onerous.
I'm not doing the test in air, I'm not waiting for 2 hours to pass to take a picture, and I'm not shining it against a wall. I get that all the light weenies over on CPF love to take photos of their garage doors and their picket fences. That's not this comparison.
- Personally, what they look like at lower Brightness levels is of no importance to me (for purposes of a comparison like this). I would only care about how they compare at full brightness.
The comparison will be at full brightness, as well as lower levels. If I waited an hour, those lights without constant output drivers will won't be at full brightness anyway. Again, feel free to compare your lights in a situation that is of importance to you and post those results. I'd love to see them.
- Will you put a sign in the photograph with the model of each light, so each photo will show what light was being used?
Yes. Each light will be identified and each mode or level will be identified. As an example, the Focus 2.0 will be identified at its High Wide, High Narrow, Low Wide, and Low Narrow setting. The Light Monkey 32wVF will be identified as wide and narrow at each of the output levels.
- I will send you a DGX600, Xtar D26 Whale, Xtar D26 1600, and possibly an Xtar D36 5800 to include. I'll PM you.
