This is the first video of yours I watched and you are a very effective presenter--at least in the top 1% of everyone on RU-vid. And when it comes to this subject matter, you've become my Go-To on flashlights and illumination. Impressive!
I feel like it would hold people's attention to watch the whole video more, if you tested everything from large to small. Right from the start the smallest was visible, so most won't bother watching the rest. Just my thoughts. Great test though.
Not surprising that the LEPs, SBT90.2, SFT40 and W1/2 based lights would perform the best in this condition, especially from the dunes as opposed to from the butte side. Without light pollution, the smaller EDC lights can still function as beacons from the side of the butte. So, as long as line of sight is clear at night in the wilderness, even a cellphone light should be visible for miles out... The more interesting bit here is that the higher candela you go up, the more important directional line of sight becomes, while the higher lumens you go up, the more visible it's going to be from wider direction... In pragmatic terms, lost in the wilderness, you're better off with a floody signal.
Assuming there aren't any other lights around, a floody flashlight will definitely be easier to signal with. ON thee other hand, if you're trying to manually flash out a pattern like SOS, it would be easier with a throwy light as long as you know where the target is. Throwy lights are also going to be much more efficient for the same range, so there is a tradeoff. I didn't even think of testing the cellphone lights that when we were up there! I don't think it would have worked at that distance since they are extremely low candela, but it would have been cool to test!
You might be able to make the cellphone light out from the butte, but probably not from the dunes. But I know for a fact that it does work under 2 miles. We have done it from the top of Glacier Point to the Yosemite Village in Yosemite National Park, and that line of sight is about 1.5 miles.... Who knows for how much farther. Something you can test out later.
👍👍 THANK YOU !!! For making the video !! I feel campers and hikers can better choose a light that will give accurate results in an emergency. That took a lot of planning and $$ and work to do. Great Job !!
That would have been pretty cool, I didn't even think of that! We did have diffused video lights illuminating my face, we probably could have aimed those outwards too
At 8:00 I actually think the apparent color is much less to do with any camera filters than it is simply due to the intrinsic color of air. 18 miles is a very significant chunk of lower atmosphere to be looking through and the blue end of the spectrum from any light source at the opposing end of an air column that thick is going to be seriously Rayleigh scattered out of the beam (the reason for blue sky and the blue color of bright flashlight beams near the source), leaving the source looking much more orange and red than it would at closer distances. Note the silhouette of the mountain itself on the horizon appears blue for the same reason (the probable origin of the line "purple mountain majesty").
This is a great point, blue light does scatter faster. However the effect was probably strengthened by the particular lens used on that camera - it was wide open @ f1.7, which causes a distinct reddish fringing around bright objects due to its coating and design.
I was thinking the same. A layer of more hazy air was visible. For communication thorough light experiments at long distances, is better to use red light due lower scattering.
Being somewhat of a collector of tactical flashlights this was a very informative and entertaining test... Even considering the brightness of these lights I was somewhat surprised at how noticeable they were at that distance.... Also interesting is how much difference it actually made when there were no other lights around on the mountain as opposed to when there were in the dunes.
Excellent video! If you ever decide to do a part 2, it'd be interesting to see different colors and color temperatures compared to see how much of a difference that makes.
I would think that green would be best as the eye is most sensitive to that colour. Especially if you are in a forest of white light something obvious to distinguish you from the background would be better for signaling. I would like to see a video like this too out in the field. So... back up that mountain 😀
I was very impressed by how even the smallest light was visible. I think a lot of this has to do with the nature of LED being so intense when looked at straight on. What I loved most about this video though was the impressive arsenal of flashlights including some that i've never even heard of. I may want to add some of these to my collection. 😁
It has more to do with the nature of the eye. It is capable of detecting a few photons of light per rod, its crazy. The same can be done with an incandescent flashlight.
Now this was a test video but the real question is , would someone come for help? In my country even if they see the light signal , i doubt anyone would even care
To effectively signal with a flashlight you sweep it moderately *quickly* across the horizon line 3 times then *slowly* 3 times then *quickly* 3 times again. This gives any observer on the horizon line an S.O.S. pattern signal of 3 "dots" 3 "dashes" and 3 final "dots" (...- - - ...) wait 5 seconds and repeat the 3 quick, 3 slow, and 3 quick pass sequence again. Do this for 1 minute out of every 10 min to conserve battery power if you think you need to or do it constantly until you run out of power if you know people are actively searching for you.
Ah awesome video I always wanted to try my high power throwers at far distances, you should have brought a weltool w4 pro or imalent sr32 to the mountain that would have looked awesome from the ground view
Considering you can read a book by the end lux at 4km out with the W4 Pro, it wouldn't surprise me if you can spot the light pointed at you from 200km out.
This is part 1. Part 2 is setting up a flashlight that can connect to your phone with usbc or bluetooth, and can flicker the beam to send data that's picked up by the phone on the other side. You can blinkyblink SOS all you want but nobody's gonna DO anything unless they understand what your emergency is. Imagine a phone camera app where you point it at a bunch of lights and it checks to see if any of them are modulated with data in one of a few different standards, and then prints the text on the screen, with a little arrow to which light is doing it. (and yeah I know there's apps for this already but I want them to A: connect to a strong light not just blink the led phone light or the screen, and B: tries more than one modulation scheme on every light because you need to be able to rescue people you never met)
Great video, glad to be seeing more content! I really wanna try this with my Maxa Beam or 2x W Pro's now, just gotta find friends for the receiving end...
Great information! Maybe next time try pointing the light at a wider white surface like your coat to see if that is more or less visible. Also using the SOS and beacon modes.
I always wondered if a torch is impressive when I shine it from a conservation park to beach areas 2-3km away. Considering how bright street lights are I assumed correctly that it wouldn't be blowing people away.
It's ok to test for just 2 sec! I use to do strobe light pointing at the base camp of Mount Kota Kinabalu from the ground hotel. The people over there are reacting back with strobe too 😂
@@nicholaslance9529 why did you think this was a relevant comment? this is a long edited video with around a dozen-plus torches... why didn't you bring up "test for 2 sec".
How, on God’s green earth, did that tiny little light make it that far? I mean, you said it: street lights and house lights were visible. I guess it shouldn’t have been too surprising, but that’s still somehow amazing! I guess light, and eyeballs, are amazing, is all that means.
1 amazing test, at far tent didn't matter all them look yellow at least in the video. 2 would've been great if you did this test after a heavy rain. Cuz I see Alot of dust and fog
I own more then 70 flashlights which at least twelve of them were in your review right now. This is how reviews are supposed to be done, best review I have ever seen. Thanks for all your hard work on this greatly appreciated! By the way was this in South California or Arizona?
All Stores Please Lower the price of all Military and Local for all Brands of Flashlight Products & Accessories and Production Cost Now That's too much $$ The Whole World Now 🙏🙏🙏
The Nightcore P35i has a great turbo boost function which can be accessed in any current mode by holding the selection button down for a second which activates both laser and flood, I'm not sure if this feature was tested or it was just the laser? In that situation, having the ability to just throw as much light would be beneficial..... I would expect that the Nightcore P35i would have been much more visible! Something definitely I would have loved to see! On the mountain top in the darkness it looked like there was a fire from my side of the screen, definitely in a remote location with no other lights around and the annoying flash and SOS function would finally pay off! Honestly, I would have thought that you guys would have been using the normally annoying flashing functions which would have been easier to spot in and amongst the rest of the lighting..... Although this is the first test that I have seen where someone actually tested flashlights at a distance.... It's definitely a great test and should be done again but this time, if the flashlight has more lights that can run at the same time, then it should also be tested and definitely test the flashing modes.... I mean, that's what they are there for! To be noticed! It's possible that you have already done a video with these suggestions but this is the first video I'm seeing on this matter and will be looking for more like this.... Thanks for getting out and having some fun doing this.... Looking forward to seeing more like this in the future....
Man, how amazing it would be to see one of those 800 million candela ww2 searchlights from this perspective... Quick calculation gives just about 1 lux from this distance, thats more than enough to actually read lol
For the smallest flashlight no wonder that they could see it, human eye has quite nice night vision, I know that lit cigarette is visible from >100m away... But nice video
A given light will always be more noticable at the target than its effect will be from the point of origin. 100% of the output that can make it to the target will and it will be seen mostly as a point source of light with some degree of dispersed effect depending on the output of the light. The light comming back to the origin point will be little to nil for obvious reasons. I remember when super bright keychain led ljghts started being a thing about 25 years ago, there was one called the asp sapphire that was essientially just a coin cell in a handle with an led sticking out out it. It claimed it was visible from a mile a way. And im sure they meant that in best conditions line of sight with no confounding light sources or obstructions. And i havent tested it in controlled conditions at a mile, but it wouldnt surprise me if it was discernably visible at 1 mile in complete darkness.
What's more interesting is, most of the flashlights shown in video are made in China. Many countries just "rebranded" it by carving or slap their brand onto the flashlight.
I'm not shocked at all.. You see aircraft in cruise in the sky at night and those position lights aren't all that bright. Even airline landing lights aren't all that bright compared to the high-power flashlights available today.
I wish that you could run this same test but use the ace beam w30 lep flashlight and the ace beam k75 and the ace beam k70 that would be really appreciated
You can use this same idea inches above and across large bodies of water showing that the water and the earth are lacking curvature. Bring a green laser next time as they are crazy thowers!!.
Danke, sehr interessant und eindrucksvoll. Das sind Einblicke die man sonst nicht bekommt. Besonders da viele (zumindest ich) sich sicherlich die Frage gestellt haben wie weit man überhaupt gesehen wird ( ob man jetzt gesehen werden will oder nicht) Anders herum wäre es auch interessant zu wissen wie viel Licht man machen kann ohne entdeckt zu werden. Mit verschiedenen Lampen Varianten (COB?) Auf kürzere Distanz.
So I am confused? You say the Acebeam is the brightest in the world at 80,000 lumens 🤔 but Imalant has the 100,000 MS 18 and their now 120,000 luman SR 32. So why prop the Acebeam?
Would love to see Astrolux MF04 non s version, Amutorch DM90, Wuben A1, Acebeam K75, Lumintop GT90, and the Astrolux MF05 from a farther distance. These are currently the the longest throwers in the order they are in. I do have the MF04 and its insane
I am sorry men but you need to update your knowledge the most powerful flashlight in the world was Imalent MS18 so far and now SR32 But by no means a great video and a very good idea, I wanted to do such a test personally some time ago but unfortunately I can't gather the crew
This is only the second video of yours that I've seen, I subscribed from the first video. I think I'm going to have way more than the seven flashlights I already bought in the last 3 months
Good test thank you. Now can you redo the test with the flashlights in strobe mode? Because if I wanna signal somebody that’s the mode I would use yes? And one question why did you NOT use the very flashlight Matt had designed and made in china that you sell I bought one and I love it. I use it every Night on my 10 acres of property in The middle of nowhere Texas.
That’s why the strobe and SOS features are prominent in thrower designs. I bought an Olight Marauder Mini for emergency 🆘 purposes. Thanks for promoting these emergency 🚨 items.
You should redo the test with a variety of lights including some side body lights from rovyvon and this time tie the lights to a small cord and spin them in a circular arc to get peoples attention. Note. The amber rovyvon A8 would make an excellent signal light when spun on a cord due to the various flashing modes. It would be good to find a light that does sos code and spin it in a circle too. Great video.
Do an experiment with a maglite ML300L 4D LED 1002 lumens flashlight i wonder what that light would look from that far away even thought mags are old school nowadays.
