WadeF
Flashlight Enthusiast
This week I took the family to two different local caves. Lost River Caverns and Crystal Cave, both in my state of PA. Anyway, I noticed the tour guides used LED based flashlights, either maglites, or just other generic brands. They were all very dim, even the maglites (probably old maglites with the old style maglite LED). I was surprised that they didn't have either brighter LED lights, or incan based lights that would do a much better job rendering the colors in the cave. These caves have incan lighting to begin with, so the cool LED lights clashed with them.
So I was wondering, is there any reason why they would use dim flashlights? One tour guide had what looked like a 3xAAA based LED flashlight and even commented how it was over powered by the cave's built in lighting when he was trying to light up a feature that was back lit and the flashlight failed to do so. I had a Surefire E2e with a 350 lumen bulb in it, and a Quark Mini 123 warm, but I didn't see anyone else using flashlights so I didn't bring them out. I did flash the Quark at one point, but I wasn't sure if they wanted us using our own flashlights.
I really wanted to say "Why do you use such a dim flashlight?"
So I was wondering, is there any reason why they would use dim flashlights? One tour guide had what looked like a 3xAAA based LED flashlight and even commented how it was over powered by the cave's built in lighting when he was trying to light up a feature that was back lit and the flashlight failed to do so. I had a Surefire E2e with a 350 lumen bulb in it, and a Quark Mini 123 warm, but I didn't see anyone else using flashlights so I didn't bring them out. I did flash the Quark at one point, but I wasn't sure if they wanted us using our own flashlights.
I really wanted to say "Why do you use such a dim flashlight?"