Help getting started, understanding mesh emitters

[surreal]

Ok so i'm using Maxigo 1.09.6 and Indigo 2.06

I have a simple back drop with a sphere in front, just made so i can start testing materials out and learn settings.
I have a Sphere in the top right of my scene, with an emitter material on it.
Here is where i get confused. No matter what setting i change on the emitter material
BlackBody, RGB, Emitter Efficiency (btw spelling mistake there in the material) Power, lm/W

the only thing that has any effect on my rendering is the color temperature, that shows so i have to change the white balance, other then that it gets no brighter or dimmer. Even if i change the f/stop from f/2.8 to f/16, or film speed from 100 to 1600. It's all the same brightness!

I have constant background and Skylight disabled so it should only use mesh emitters.
My scene is in Feet scale, 10ft tall back drop, 1ft diameter sphere. 2ft mesh emitter sphere.


Am i doing something wrong, missing something, just something no clicking in my head?
Thanks!

[pixie]

You're using reinhard tonemapping, try changing it to camera

[surreal]

Well that works! Thanks Pixie!
So should Reinhard be used for exterior? or is there times when it would be smarter to use that?

[CTZn]

You certainly don't want to use reinhard while you are setting lights up. For this matter you need a static film sensibility, be it linear or camera. For a moment I for one am sticking with camera tonemapping

Beside, it is important to give the camera parameters real values as this conditionates the film response. Use this reference ! (wikipedia)

Don't come to believe that reinhard is allowing you to bypass these steps for production... Reinhard tonemapping is handy but holds no physical reference by itself.