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Illuminance
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In photometry, illuminance is the total luminous flux incident on a surface, per unit area. It is a measure of the intensity of the incident light, wavelength-weighted by the luminosity function to correlate with human brightness perception. Similarly, luminous emittance is the luminous flux per unit area emitted from a surface. Luminous emittance is also known as luminous exitance.
In SI derived units, these are both measured in lux (lx) or lumens per square metre (cd·sr·m−2). In the CGS system, the unit of illuminance is the phot. One phot is equal to 10,000 lux.
Illuminance was formerly often called brightness, but this leads to confusion with other uses of the word. "Brightness" should never be used for quantitative description, but only for nonquantitative references to physiological sensations and perceptions of light.
The human eye is capable of seeing somewhat more than a 2 trillion-fold range: The presence of white objects is somewhat discernible under starlight, at 5×10−5 lux, while at the bright end, it is possible to read large text at 108 lux, or about 1,000 times that of direct sunlight, although this can be very uncomfortable and cause long-lasting afterimages.
| Quantity | Symbol | SI unit | Abbr. | Notes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luminous energy | Qv | lumen second | lm·s | units are sometimes called talbots | ||||
| Luminous flux | F | lumen (= cd·sr) | lm | also called luminous power | ||||
| Luminous intensity | Iv | candela (= lm/sr) | cd | an SI base unit | ||||
| Luminance | Lv | candela per square metre | cd/m2 | units are sometimes called nits | ||||
| Illuminance | Ev | lux (= lm/m2) | lx | Used for light incident on a surface | ||||
| Luminous emittance | Mv | lux (= lm/m2) | lx | Used for light emitted from a surface | ||||
| Luminous efficacy | lumen per watt | lm/W | ratio of luminous flux to radiant flux; maximum possible is 683.002 lm/W | |||||
| Units-interrelation diagram (full page) | ||||||||
- Knowledgedoor, LLC (2005). Library of Units and Constants: Illuminance Quantity. Retrieved 2006-07-21.
- Illuminance Converter. Retrieved 2006-07-21.
- A Kodak guide to Estimating Luminance and Illuminance using a camera's exposure meter. Also available in PDF form.