Ok, so if there were more shops selling good quality torches, or existing shops selling more torches, what would be the general consensus about buying higher quality lights? Would the above arguments still count for Australia, all these things considered? I know the percentage of people reading/covering this forum, is only a handful out of the few million inhabitants of Australia or South Africa, or any other country for that matter, so each of us can only speak for oneself, but what do you guys think? I personally think that even in South Africa where there are many hunters/campers/bikers/hikers, etc., there is huge room for expansion in this specific field. These same arguments are actually applicable to South Africa, of which I have knowledge, unlike Australia... Your ideas/input?
I think that it would be the other way around. If there was the demand, there would be more shops selling high end torches.
The thing is, you don't really
need a high quality torch to do the sorts of things most of us do. As flashaholics, we like to
think that our lives will sometimes rely on these things, and that they need to be high quality, otherqise we light
die. But consider the two torches at the top of this image:
These are Australian Army Issued flashlights. They use the same incandescent bulb as the 2AA Maglite shown below them, and as such their output is about the same. They have heads with
plastic lens covers (Oh the SHAME!) with green cups on them, that can be pushed forward to turn the beam from white to green. You can see them a little bit better here (the two on the right):
I would consider the quality of these lights to be, if anything, poorer than that of the maglite sitting next to it, yet these were used by Australian troops in the field, in Iraq as late as 2005:
http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/REL34697.006
http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/REL34508.005
You can buy those things from time to time on the bay of e for about $10AUD more or less.
The Torch on the end is a brand new aquisition of mine. It's an Energizer Vision HD 2AA Performance metal light I just picked up from Coles for $29AUD (I'm sure it could be had cheaper elsewhere). It's a triple unknown LED light that claims on the packet that it will output up to 300 lumens worth of "natural daylight like" light on high, with a high runtime of 4 hours. Although I doubt it's consistance of output with that runtime, I don't doubt its max output. Here it is compared to my 200 lumen HDS EDC Rotary on high. HDS on the left, Energizer on the right:
Now I can't vouch for it's reliability, it has a plastic lens (ZOMG plastic! Be careful with that! It could poke your EYE out man!) and it intermittently vibrates on low mode, but it does have a metal body, the output is up there, and it has a tint that most tint snobs would find pleasing. No it's not a Surefire, or Fenix, or Zebralight, or even LED Lenser when it comes to it's quality, but you can buy one of these in a Grocery Store, and with the change left over from the price of say, a Surefire E2L AA Outdoorsman, you could fund an entire weekend trip away.
If you're a professional door kicker or spelunker, these lights would not be suitable, but 99.999% of Australians aren't. For hiking, camping, fishing, and hunting, these lights could do the job, and as such, the need for high quality flashlights just isn't that high.