Idea/suggestion to make ALL reviews more helpful!

I just had an idea...

When people post reviews, they often have pictures of the beam and dot because, well, it's cool and everyone likes to see those pics

But the problem is no two beam shots are created equal! Depending on the environment (light/dark, was there smoke, fog or dust around, etc) someone could very easily make a 5mw green look more powerful than a 500mw blue!

Not that people do this on purpose, but without a frame of reference beam and
dot shots in a review don't really tell you a whole lot.

So I have a solution!

If possible, whenever you post beam or dot shots of your review laser, also switch on a 5mw green right next to it for comparison. Pretty much everyone has owned a 5mw green at some point, so we all know how they look in real life.

By taking a picture of your review beam next to a 5mw green beam, even if the room is full of smoke we will have the 5mw as a sort of "baseline" and being able to see the difference between them will much more accurately inform readers of the capabilities of the review laser.

What do you think? It would be a great way to make beam shots a lot more helpful so users can really see how strong (or weak) the laser you are reviewing really is!

The idea in concept is good, but there are other major contributing factors; camera exposure,f/stop, etc.

Then ambient lighting like you said, and not everyone HAS a 5mw green laser. I certainly don't anyway.

That's why there are LPMs which not everyone can afford nor have access to. I see what you are getting at for sure. But even on an individual level, not all 5mw lasers are created equal

One of my "5mW greens" is over 100mW....

ive never owned a 5mW green. and anever been interested in one either haha.. can you even see the beam in pitch black dark?

Great idea in theory, but there's just too much difference from camera to camera. ><

-Trevor

twhite828 said:

Great idea in theory, but there's just too much difference from camera to camera. ><

-Trevor

Click to expand...

and from LCD to LCD...
it would be better if there was some "standartized" camera and LCD settings, like everyone should include a pic taken with 0.5s, F5.6, ISO250 and everyone should calibrate their LCD using the same calibration pattern

I own a DX 5mW, it takes her 5 minutes to warm up and reach 5mW, after that it's slowly going up to anout 20-30mW... damn chinese quality

a 5mW green. ... can you even see the beam in pitch black dark?

Click to expand...

Why, of course you can. Seriously.

Trouble with the cheap "5mw" pens is, their power and brightness are all over the place.
Some very dim, some actually kinda bright, most somewhere inbetween.

So unless we all had certified 5mw from Optotronics, the "5mw" pointer is a bad standard,
because it varies so wildly.

Then all cameras are different too, not all of them have a lot of options in their menus.
Some of us have to get by with casual cameras that don't allow for a lot of manual control.

My point is:
everybody loves beamshots, but they should always be considered subjective to a lot of factors.
They should only be regarded as "something nice to look at", and by no means a way to determine
the output power of a laser.
The only thing I suppose you could in fact get away with, would be to compare the brightness
of two or more lasers, side by side.

anselm said:

My point is:
everybody loves beamshots, but they should always be considered subjective to a lot of factors.
They should only be regarded as "something nice to look at", and by no means a way to determine the output power of a laser.
The only thing I suppose you could in fact get away with, would be to compare the brightness
of two or more lasers, side by side.

Click to expand...

Right there.
Nothing more really needs to be said.

If someone wants their review to be helpful they will purchase an LPM. Without one you can only guess the output.

Well part of the point is using a 5mw green as a visual comparison is that it wouldn't matter what camera you used or the environment. Lets say someone does a review of a 50mw red and has a beamshot that look really bright and spectacular - something rare for a red. So someone buys that laser and wonders why the beam doesn't look as good as in the review pics, only to discover that guy had smoke in the room, whatever.

But if in the same pic of the red beam, the guy also had a 5mw green showing, we would see how bright the green beam was under the same conditions. This way the guy looking at the review would be able to say "oh well sure, the red looks great, but if that 5mw green looks good too then the guy must have a setup to take good beam pics."

It provides a reference which renders things like camera and exposure time and smoke moot. On the other hand, if in that same pic the 5mw green had a faint beam and the red was really bright, then you know the red truly is a good one and it's not from a trick picture - if the camera is what made the red beam look good, it would do the same thing to the 5mw green.

I hope I'm not confusing anyone, but this would really help give a baseline reference most of us are familiar with.

And yeah, I know specs are hard to trust and that 5mw green might actually be 15mw, but at least it's an attempt to level the playing field. We've all seen how one guys review of a 100mw blue has a faint beam but another review of the same laser might have a really bright beam - it's not because one laser is better than the other, its because of the photography. If they both had a 5mw green running at the same time, in the first pic BOTH beams would be dim and in the second both would be bright. The difference between the two is the important factor.

I suppose the best we can ask is that if you're reviewing a laser and have a 5mw green handy, try out my suggestion and let's see how it goes. I still think 5mw green is the best baseline we can have, since MOST people have owned one and know what that beam looks like, so when they see another laser next to it they have a frame of reference (and yes, you can see the beam from a 5mw green in the dark - that's why they are so popular, its the most bang for the buck in laserville