How Is Brightness Measured?

By LED Lighthouse

There are a few factors that affect how bright a bulb is.

Firstly, it depends on how much light it produces. This is called the Radiant Flux. You will rarely read about this measure because…

It also depends on the colour of the light. Some colours seem brighter to the eye than others, so although exactly the same amount of light is being generated, the apparent brightness is different. This subjective measure is the Luminous Flux, and is the normally-quoted figure, measured in Lumens.

That’s how bright the bulb is: the number of lumens it emits.

But you are as likely to be concerned about how much light it casts on the thing you are lighting. This is called the Illuminance, and is measured in Lux.

One lumen is the light needed to illuminate a square metre at a brightness of one lux.

The brightness of the pool of light from a bulb depends on how big an area the bulb is lighting up. So it depends on how wide or narrow the beam of light is, and also on how far away the bulb is.

A floodlight has to light a much bigger area than a spotlight, so for a given light output, the spotlight can be brighter, simply because its light is more concentrated.

You should normally aim at something between 50 lux for leisure/sitting areas, through 500 to 750 lux for offices up and 1000 to 1500 lux for close, fine work. A bright cloudy day is about 1000 lux. Bright sunshine is about 50,000 lux.

LED Driver Calculator

By LED Lighthouse

Try our LED Driver calculator to work out the size of the LED power supply required for your LED installation.

More Resources

By LED Lighthouse

Below are a few useful guides to helping you choose the right LED lighting for you project. Please feel free to contact us with any questions.

About LED Lighthouse

Specialist supplier of quality LED lighting

Established in 2011, we are dedicated to supplying quality LED lighting at an affordable price. We offer LED Lights and components from some of the best manufacturers including Integral, Samsung, Epistar, Meanwell and Ltech.
Due to customer demand, in recent years we've grown to specialise in LED Strip Lights and associated parts, developing many of our own products.