200w 5in away vs 300w 7in away vs 400w 10in away

I have a dimmable ballast with three setting 50, 75 and 100 percent. Its a 400w light

Im kind of confused on this...I thought the main goal was to get the most lumens out of your light?? But according to the chart, id be getting the most lumen out of 200w 5 inches away with roughly 32,000 lumens? Correct?

200w 5 inches away = roughly 32,000 lumens

300w 7 inches away = roughly 25,000 lumens

400w 10 inches away = 16,501 lumens

So the 200w would be the best for the grow? Seeing how I can get more lumens?? or am I not fully understanding something?...

EDIT: I have no problem with heat at these distances

just put that sucker as close as you can hold hand under light for 30 seconds if its ok its ok for plants i run my 400w hortilux super hps around 10 inches no problem whatsoever hell when they were lil i had them 6 inches away and now lookView attachment 3035800

It's about an equilibrium of distance,and light spread.

Ahhh I see, thanks guys for the input appreciate it

This is very interesting. I just started a grow, and I can tell already I'm going to have a hard time keeping temperatures down. So it occurred to me that if I run my 400 watt bulb and digital ballast at 50% (which is actually using 275 watts according to my Kill-a-watt) but kept the light closer than if I kept it at 100%, that could help reduce the temps. And it has worked just enough to make me consider running my light at 50% for the entire duration of the grow, albeit at the cost of reducing the life of the bulb some. I have a very small space (2'x2') so I'm not worried about losing overhead light coverage by keeping the light lower. So, any opinions? According to that chart FourZeroTwo posted, this plan would seem to work, unless there is something I'm not understanding. One possible disadvantage at running the light at lower power is the loss of some color spectrum, but I don't know much about that. I really hope this is a viable plan because the summer hasn't even started and temps are already a bitch.