Sola buying help

[tbone1004]

@EvilOtter it's not something you'll notice because the lowlight on the Gopros is quite good. Had a professional UW videographer say the same thing and was rather adamant about it. He then took them and set them up with his camera on manual mode and had it take a timed photo throughout the burn. Lo and behold he ate his words. In something like a gopro it's not really an issue because the camera will adjust, but in professional videography it's a bit more important.
As long as you are OK with and understand that the BB 2600 is really only a ~1300 lumen light, they're great inexpensive lights, just don't expect them to ever actually produce 2600 lumen, and certainly not maintain it.

all Big Blue lights that were tested had curves that looked like these. Their marketing is exceedingly deceptive, so as long as you read between the lines, and are OK with it, then it's fine, but do not believe the specs. On the 4000 below, they claim 4000 lumen for 120 minutes. That implies that it will produce 4000 lumen for 30 minutes. Not only was it not able to actually achieve 4000 lumen *it got 3500 which is close enough*, but it was only able to exceed 3000 lumen for 8 minutes, then rapidly declined to about 1200 lumen which is what it maintained for the rest of the burn.

 

[EvilOtter]

Interesting data @tbone1004. I note that the tests are on the older TL series lights. I wonder if the issue persists with the newer VL series. For reference, my lights are the AL2600XWP Black Molly 3s.

 

[tbone1004]

@EvilOtter I didn't post this one because it was a bit outside of the realm of discussion in terms of brightness. While it isn't stepped like the others, it shows constant degradation of light output as a function of time

 

[Wicket]

@EvilOtter I didn't post this one because it was a bit outside of the realm of discussion in terms of brightness. While it isn't stepped like the others, it shows constant degradation of light output as a function of time

View attachment 397717

Funny you posted that one as I was looking at them last night. So I'm by no means a professional but what would your thoughts be on one VL15000? Am I still better off with 2 less lumen lights or one vl15000?

 

[tbone1004]

Funny you posted that one as I was looking at them last night. So I'm by no means a professional but what would your thoughts be on one VL15000? Am I still better off with 2 less lumen lights or one vl15000?

always better with 2 lights vs. one due to shadows

 

[EvilOtter]

@tbone1004 Thanks for sharing. Do you have any similar data for Sola, Keldan, Fix Neo or any of the other well known brands? I am curious if this is just an issue for BigBlue or if it is something to look out for across other products.

@Wicket I hope you don't mind the de-rail but it seems to be somewhat germane to your original post!

 

[_Ralph]

Check out We Test Lights | Dive Tests and Teviews


_R

 

[Wicket]

@tbone1004 Thanks for sharing. Do you have any similar data for Sola, Keldan, Fix Neo or any of the other well known brands? I am curious if this is just an issue for BigBlue or if it is something to look out for across other products.

@Wicket I hope you don't mind the de-rail but it seems to be somewhat germane to your original post!

Not at all looking for the most info I can anyway before buying.

 

[tbone1004]

@Wicket data was pulled from the wetestlights website that is owned by Light and Motion, manufacturer of the Sola lights. I do not have data on other brands. Lumen testers are extraordinarily expensive *$100k+* which is why you don't see tested results often, especially from smaller manufacturers who typically go off of the rated specifications of their emitters. Some will factor in planned efficiency losses, most do not.

Sola to my knowledge uses fixed output drivers on all of their lights, I believe Keldan does as well. I know UWLD does on their lights, but I am unsure about Neo.

 

[EvilOtter]

Thanks for the great info @tbone1004 and @_Ralph. I learned a lot in this thread!