Optical variety - the right measuring instrument for your individual task

2018/09/10
German article by Dr. Günther Leschhorn

There are two measuring procedures for determining the photometric and colorimetric values of light radiation: One is the integration method based on a photometer or imaging colorimeter. The other one is the spectral resolution method based on a spectroradiometer. Their advantages and disadvantages are detailed discussed in this article.

One of the functionally simplest devices to measure light is a photometer. This is a detector, usually a silicon photodiode, with a filter designed such that the combined system response mimics the perception of the human eye. Such detectors are used to measure luminance (e.g. the emission from a computer monitor or TV), illuminance (e.g. the light illuminating a sheet of paper), luminous intensity (e.g. light seen from small or distant light sources) or luminous flux (the total light emitted by a source). Several types of photometers exist and their quality depends, among other things, on how well they match the human eye response…

published in Elektronik Journal 7/18