Firefly/sub lumens?? Why?

[eaglemax]

When I first got interested all I wanted was a pocket searchlight and then I realised in actual use 100 lumens was fine and the abilty to go higher was a bonus which I liked.Down at the other end I use moon mode often in the early hours and the very lows on some lights are just not low enough.

 

[RickZ]

I'm not seeing uses that 1 lumen can't do. Moonlight is over 1 lux. Without some 1-2 lumens flashlights are useless to me. Moonlight modes especially on unprotected cells are also dangerous.

 

[eh4]

The usage I'm talking about, with clear full moon I wouldn't turn the light on at all except for shadows, to look in a bag, or to read something.
Covering a 1 lumen light with fingers and adjusting how much light got out would be just about as good as firefly modes, irrespective of mAh.
I've never heard of moon mode dangers with unprotected cells. Sounds interesting.

 

[LGT]

I'm not seeing uses that 1 lumen can't do. Moonlight is over 1 lux. Without some 1-2 lumens flashlights are useless to me. Moonlight modes especially on unprotected cells are also dangerous.

Curious as to how it's dangerous using moonlight mode with unprotected cells.

 

[mcnair55]

I'm not seeing uses that 1 lumen can't do. Moonlight is over 1 lux. Without some 1-2 lumens flashlights are useless to me. Moonlight modes especially on unprotected cells are also dangerous.

How do you work out the dangerous bit ?

 

[bykfixer]

He's baaaaaak!

 

[herektir]

My most important actual use for very low light levels. Telescope is outside equalizing to outside temperature for half an hour, all indoor lights get turned off and moonmode pointed at ceiling becomes enough light so i get dark adapted vision. After that half hour I'm ready to start using it. I live in the country, one street light is about 3/4 of a mile away past some trees to the nw towards town, another one is something over a mile away over the backyard, past 2 hay fields along with a cow pasture to the east. Needless to say, i can easily see the milky way here on a moonless night.

Second potential real use is i am in tornado alley(for others hurricanes, earthquakes whatever), so if power is out for days if not a week +( ask sandy victims, ask katrina victims) i KNOW i can have atleast a little light even on one battery if lord forbid i lose everything. One aa battery running low and moonlight only i can get many days of use out of my quark. Those tornados that wiped away towns in oklahoma are less than 200 miles away from me. Last spring a confirmed rotation went directly over my house which dropped down to the ground only 3 miles later. I have use for moonlight.

Dangerous bit i think he refers to li ions being run too low and venting.

 

[dc38]

How do you work out the dangerous bit ?

Nice anorak

 

[jon_slider]

Hey, wait, what is this? Calm, rational discussion? Mature, responsible debate on a topic of some dispute, sans name-calling, ad-hominen attacks, raised voices, or personal insults? THIS IS THE INTERNET, we don't DO that sort of thing here!!!!
:twothumbs :grouphug: lovecpf

Thank you for a moment of sanity

Don't worry, my cynicism is about to kick in and turn it up a notch...:devil:

One of the things that I've always - and I literally mean always- laughed at
...
Anyway, it's been a funny read, this thread. Different strokes for different folks, right? Keep 'em coming.

thats more like it!

… Now, people cannot even navigate their own house without needing a sub lumen level.

Silly.

definitely ad hominem.. back on track

I would have to disagree with you there….

LOL, you have been trolled (someone who posts bait designed to arouse a response that is unproductive)

… Glad we amuse you. It's what we live for.

lacking anything better to do, here I am too.. for the record, I use sublumen modes to do things I wont discuss on the internet.. LOL

Curious as to how it's dangerous using moonlight mode with unprotected cells.

another point for the Trolls of the net.. unprotected cells are dangerous at any mode if the operator does not perform like a protection circuit

did I mention I prefer lights that start on Medium.. LOL

how low is too low.. for me my Thrunite Ti3 low is too low most of the time, same for my L11c. I like the 0.5 low of my olight, including that it comes on Last (I have special skills to prevent flashblindness when operating an MLH sequence.. LOL!)

the 0.8 low of the Nichia Lumintop Rey Lights is quite useful to me, but I wish it was not first.. most of the time I have to multi tap the switch

its come to this
I have a 3000k light with a nightstand low I like
a 4000k light with a high CRI medium I like
and a 4500k light with a high CRI high I like
I dont use my 6000k lights (maratac and TiXmas)

I could get it all done with just my 4500k nichia L11c, but, its not warm, its not copper, and its not as small as my modded Maratac with 3000k XPG and Rey Light driver (below left).. now THAT is a great light . And I still love me a good 4000k nichia Worm lego

stock configurations, left to right 4000k nichia tool, 4500k nichia L11c, 6000k XPG2:

the beamshot of the above lights.. can you see why I dont appreciate the 6000k option?

what was the question?:devil:

 

[bykfixer]

Its debateable whether Henry Ford ever said that a customer could buy one of his vehicles with any color they wanted as long as it was black

In the book "the seven men who changed the automotive industry" Henry Fords grandson Henry II cleared up that myth by stating "that particular model was available in 12 colors, none of which were black". lol

I suppose at some point some marketing guy after WWII said Henry said it. Same guy who introduced monthly payments to boost slumping sales.

Firefly mode may have made the difference between make it or break it as Americans clamored for cheap titanium lights that outshine a headlight with 1 battery for 9 hours.

Firefly I can see, but I still wonder whose bright idea it was to include strobe...

 

[KeepingItLight]

moonlight is 100% useless for me.

Does this mean that you think no flashlight should have a Moonlight mode?

Does it mean that you will never buy a flashlight that has a Moonlight mode?

Do you accept as fact the statements of owners who do find a use for Moonlight mode? Or do you think they are wrong. Even though they say Moonlight mode is useful to them, in fact, it is not.

Are you okay with a Moonlight mode that is hidden, such as the ones on the Olight S1 and the ZebraLight?

 

[NoNotAgain]

In the book "the seven men who changed the automotive industry" Henry Fords grandson Henry II cleared up that myth by stating "that particular model was available in 12 colors, none of which were black". lol

I suppose at some point some marketing guy after WWII said Henry said it. Same guy who introduced monthly payments to boost slumping sales.

Firefly mode may have made the difference between make it or break it as Americans clamored for cheap titanium lights that outshine a headlight with 1 battery for 9 hours.

Firefly I can see, but I still wonder whose bright idea it was to include strobe...

I don't use strobe, but I do use beacon. I've used it to signal a location for helicopter landings in foggy weather.

As for Firefly or moonlight mode, guilty as charged. I leave a compact florescent light on in the living room all the time.

 

[bykfixer]

I don't use strobe, but I do use beacon. I've used it to signal a location for helicopter landings in foggy weather.

As for Firefly or moonlight mode, guilty as charged. I leave a compact florescent light on in the living room all the time.

I like my light with beacon mode. Rarely use it. But have if I need it.

I also like being able to do a routine to reach strobe on a couple of lights. Again rarely used but still there.

I own lights with so-called firefly...if they were 3rd generation raised in a nuclear power plant fireflies I'd say yeah...because they would be some show-nuff bright fireflies...

And I'll say it again, that incan Solitaire makes a mighty fine moonlight mode light.

Same with strobe.

 

[eh4]

Yes bykfixer, I grew up with something like a Maglight solitaire, it was one of my favorites for reading pulp fiction into the wee hours. Along with a few others that spent most of their working life as moonlight or firefly lights, after their batteries' brief, brilliant beginnings.

Galaxy S5 with Image Stabilization turned on, which is also low light mode. The resolution is lower but it's pretty close to what I'm seeing except that the camera is representing the tint to be quite a bit cooler (+500K? +1000K?) cooler than it looks to my eye. If this was somehow vital information I'd mess with the white balance and do them over but you can use your imagination.


What I'm looking at.


with flash


.01 lumens H600w MkII, plenty of light.

 

[Tre_Asay]

Yes bykfixer, I grew up with something like a Maglight solitaire, it was one of my favorites for reading pulp fiction into the wee hours. Along with a few others that spent most of their working life as moonlight or firefly lights, after their batteries' brief, brilliant beginnings.

Galaxy S5 with Image Stabilization turned on, which is also low light mode. The resolution is lower but it's pretty close to what I'm seeing except that the camera is representing the tint to be quite a bit cooler (+500K? +1000K?) cooler than it looks to my eye. If this was somehow vital information I'd mess with the white balance and do them over but you can use your imagination.

/snip
What I'm looking at.


with flash

/snip
.01 lumens H600w MkII, plenty of light.

Well now we know what you get up in the wee hours of the morning for. :buddies::nana:

I also grew up using a maglite solitaire, It was pretty cool but at the time I would have chosen a brighter light to go camping.
If maglite came out with another solitaire that used tightly binned warm white LEDs, and had only a single output of 1-5 lumens...
Of course they would have to find a tiny die sized LED to get the same focusing abilities as the original.
It makes a great dog toy with that tiny hotspot and lack of spill.

 

[eh4]

Tre Asay,
I bet that these can be made to be extremely tiny, like point-source illumination... as well as highly durable and efficient.
http://news.mit.edu/2016/nanophotonic-incandescent-light-bulbs-0111
There's a complementary tech in development which will reflect the IR heat back to the filament, while allowing the visible light to pass. This will overcome one of the main inefficiencies of incandescent -heat loss, while leveraging the advantage that incandescent has over led, -that heat kills led efficiency, and then more heat kills led itself, while incandescent Loves heat.

My ideal light would be a nearly perfectly reliable, almost microscopic incandescent nano carbon filament, which could be heated to 1/100 lumen red, or less, with a mAh or less, ramping to a 1/10-1/2 lumen orange with a few more mAh, and steadily progressing upwards in brightness and color temperature as a natural black body should, tuned to the human eye. I see no reason to go much past sunlight intensity at a few hundred meters at 6000-7000K, not for an EDC anyways. ;-)
-besides along with, there may well be 20,000+mAh 18650 batteries, and 5000+ mAh AAA batteries for that matter by then.
Power supplies always seem to lag behind other developments, re: hover boards, ray guns. and jet packs.

 

[FRITZHID]

Anyone who doesn't appreciate a low lm light....has never stepped on a lego bare foot.

 

[mcnair55]

Don't worry, my cynicism is about to kick in and turn it up a notch...:devil:

One of the things that I've always - and I literally mean always- laughed at are those folks that post in the WTS section of the forum when they post an ad for a light that they claim to have...wait for it...had placed in a safe its whole life. A safe. Something that was meant to contain the most necessary of items in case of a catastrophic event; a will, your passport, birth certificates, money, bonds, etc. Flashlights? No.

So while I'm laughing at their expense, I find this whole "sub-lumen" thing to cause the same reaction from me...shaking my head and quietly laughing while thinking, "only in America." Lighting the way to the bathroom? Really? Who doesn't know the outlay of their own house? Who has crap lying in the floor so at night, when one needs to get up to urgently go, they need a light to illuminate the way so they don't trip over something that just happens to be in the way? I find some merit with the post about using such low level lighting to cut a child's nails while sleeping, but that, of course, begs the even bigger question about the problem with the nail cutting while awake. Lol! I have a six year old daughter, so I'm not just speaking out my backside. The best response though has got to be the one about using the low level lighting in the hotel room. What kind of hotel are you staying in? I really did laugh out loud at that. Because of work, I've traveled to and stayed in many different hotels - the layout cannot be that mysterious and dangerous that one needs a light to "illuminate" the way to the bathroom.

I figured out long ago with my HDS lights that the most wasted setting for me was programming it to some sub-lumen level; what the hell good does squinting do when one needs to see something? And in the 20 years that I've been married, I've never once had to worry about my wife complaining about a light I was using being too bright...after I've long gone to work, she still gets to lay there and (maybe) go back to sleep. I'm very considerate of her, but I don't do anything that I wouldn't normally do to get ready for work; if it really were an issue, I personally would get my crap together the night before and place it out of the room - forget about using some sub-lumen level to squint to try to find a matching shirt and tie for work.

Anyway, it's been a funny read, this thread. Different strokes for different folks, right? Keep 'em coming.

Loved the above even more,gave me a good laugh...Must go getting a new anorak today to complicate the hobby sorry should have said enjoy the hobby.

 

[SV_huMMer]

The whole notion of sub-lumen lighting was rather alien to me, until my recent purchase of Nitecore SRT3. While reportedly not the dimmest among all fireflies, it still is VERY low in its lowest setting. 0.1lm, as they say (I have skill nor patience to do any measurements myself ).

And I can tell you - the more I have it, the more I love it!

First, it's WAY more comfy to unadapdted vision, than, say, the low of my other (otherwise excellent) home backup Fenix MC11.

Second - regarding many complaints here that a mode with arguably limited use "takes up" a valuable slot in the user interface - this is where IVR (infinitely variable ring) truly shines!!! I have absolutely no issues with my SRT3: I developed a habit to always return the ring to the firefly position before turning the light on or off, and now I think I have the best of both worlds - the ultralow firefly mode when I need it, and the unaffected user interface efficiency when I don't

 

[Lumencrazy]

Humans always want more. I recall when 200 lumens was awesome. In two years CPF will be full of discussions of why 2000 lumens are barely sufficient.