How Bright Is a Dual LED Flash?

For those of you who haven’t played around with the HD2 the flash is pretty crazy on it. There are two LED lights on the back next to the lens. There’s a flashlight app on the phone that lets you turn on the LEDs and use them as a flashlight and it toggles from low, medium and high. Even in the daytime, with bright light, if you point the flash on high at someone it’s obnoxiously bright. I’ve used the camera in the dark a number of times and was very impressed by it. So I decided to put it the test for you guys. Nighttime with all lights off and no substantial ambient light (just what makes it through the windows and into a kitchen). A regular camera (DSLR, pocket camera, etc) will not detect any light and the image is just black. So, how does the HD2 fare in this setting? Take a look for yourself.

FYI all the photos are treated the same way. The background is blurred except for a bag of Animal Crackers which I zoomed into and set in detail so you can see the actual photo size relative to the inset.

Let’s start things up with a picture that’s 5 feet away.

Pretty nice. I doubt anyone would know that was taken in total darkness. Let’s kick it up to 10 feet.

Still pretty solid. You can see that the light still fills the entire area. Want to try 15 feet?

The light levels seem to be holding up. There’s more noise, but also remember that each time I need to increase the amount of zoom so noise is expected. So, let’s go 20 feet.

For a little bag blown up that large from 20 feet away it’s very impressive. The light levels are pretty close to those at 10 feet. I was expecting a lot more of a dropoff. Remember, this is total darkness and you can see the amount of light that’s generated by two LEDs.

Now just so you can do a comparison of distance/noise, in full light from 20 feet away this is what you get:

Ok well that’s clearly beyond the pictures without any light but anyone expecting to have a cell phone produce the same amount of light as overhead lights with ambient light is crazy. Still, I think the HD2 more than handles itself. The light on the Fuze is good and it’s a great flashlight but it can’t hold a candle to the HD2’s dual LED flash. If you have any concerns about going out at night and missing the shot because of a poor cell phone camera (maybe you even have a phone without a flash at all) if you’re carrying the HD2 you won’t have anything to be nervous about…except blinding your friends:)