Halogen Vs LED Cree spotlights, playing with light colour…
2 million candle power spotlight:
It’s been a while since I last posted anything, but there is a fair bit in the wings, including a post that outlines some of my most used light-painting kit, what it does and why I use each one for a specific purpose, my most recent addition (toy) is a LED spotlight, so I thought it might be interesting to see the differences it can make.
On recent outing with Stu Hyland to Glasgow, messing about in an urban environment at night with fairly significant light pollution from street lamps in the surrounding area, it is quite easy to see that the light from a 2 million candle power searchlight is very similar in colour to the light pollution and therefore the whole scene is pretty much one colour of light.
220 Lumen LED Cree spotlight:
Enter the new TOY, a 220 lumen LED Cree spotlight, I had originally bought this torch to mix up the light on remote locations, but I can see how useful this maybe for town/city work too. A much different light colour and thus maybe an interesting tool for urban light painting where you have a lot of light pollution.
So that just leaves the question of how bright is 220 Lumen’s compared to 2 million candle power? A very non-technical explanation, it’s brighter for sure, from 1 meter about 1.5-2 f stops, once you add some atmospherics and a bit of distance, also allowing that the camera is less sensitive to a cooler light colour, there isn’t a huge difference.
Shooting info:
Tripod mounted camera, both exposures approximately 50 seconds +/- 2, 100 ISO and f5.6, shutter fired with a radio shutter release.
Open an image and click on it to toggle back and forth to get a better idea of the difference.