I'm looking for a new headlamp for use when backpacking. It will be used on trails in densely-forested areas and also back at camp. I always carry an HDS and Tiablo A9 in my chest pack so throw is covered.
I'm thinking Zebralight but would be open to any other reliable headlamp. Question:
1) Is the AA format more practical in the event I'm in a grab-and-go in a remote area?
2) Is high CRI preferred?
3) Is the ZL flood a better choice than the floody?
Any advice is appreciated.
here's the short advice i wish i could have read all in one place when i was trying to select a ZL headlamp:
battery life is very important to me. i can go a long *** time with one or two spare 18650s in my pack. most of my advice directly relates to battery life.
regardless of which light you get, it's important to play around with all 12 brightness levels and try to pick ones that work well for you (in the G6/G7 programmable modes). not using modes that are brighter than you actually need makes a huge difference.
1) definitely go 18650 unless you absolutely cannot bring/use extra batteries (they don't take up much space) and/or a charger. the 18650 lights are already plenty small.
AA sucks, but if you only want to power your light on stuff you can buy in a convenience store or whatever, then i guess you gotta do what you gotta do.
NiMH batteries also suck, even eneloops.
i'd probably only use AA if i were homeless and couldn't plug in a charger somewhere. then again, if i were homeless, i probably wouldn't give a crap about which ZL to buy. i'd have bigger problems.
2) assuming you like the tint / color temp, then of course get as high CRI as you can.
3) neither. in ZL speak, get spot and spill (not frosted). you get more throw, and you're not wasting precious battery life illuminating things you're not looking directly at. the headlamp automatically points at what's in the center of your vision. that's the point of a headlamp. nifty, right?
also, the low modes aren't useless.
if you get unfrosted/spot-spill, you can always add a diffuser (look up d-c-fix film) to turn it into a floody on-the-go. i've never done it personally, but i've heard good things.
conversely, you can't make a floody into a spot-spill.
imo, the three ZLs to look at are:
h600w: my preferred lamp. decent tint. i like it because it has the tightest beam, but honestly it's still
plenty floody. the CRI's high enough for me.
and then you have the high-CRI options.
these are slightly floodier than h600w. i'm not sure if the reflector is any different, but the emitter is bigger (5mm vs 3.5mm), so that makes for a wider beam with all other things equal. these are also the 2nd gen XHP emitters (indicated by the "2" part of XHP50.2). they're a little more efficient compared to gen 1 (which h600w has), but they also have a greenish color cast at the edge of the beam perhaps due to the new extra yellow phosphor style. that issue can be mitigated by a frosted optic which would blend the beam, but i'm not into that as i explained above. honestly, it's fine in use.
h600c: 4000K
h600d: 5000K