Moonlight mode--any good or just marketing?

[Etsu]

I have one other use for moonlight mode I haven't seen mentioned: I use it to spot the reflective eyes of animals at night. This lights up animals even better than higher modes, because moonlight doesn't cause their pupils to constrict. Thus, you get wide eyes which reflect back a lot of light. You won't see anything else of them... just their eyes, but they will be bright!

To do this, hold the flashlight up to your forehead or between your eyes, and shine it toward the woods or wherever you are looking. You need to hold the flashlight as close to your eyes as possible, because the light will reflect directly back from the animal's eyes. You'll see it best when that light is reflected directly back at your own eyes.

You can see glowing eyes a long way away.

 

[cland72]

5 year old thread back from the grave!!!!

I always though moonlight mode was a gimmick, until I bought a light with moon mode. It is THE perfect output for when you wake up in the middle of the night and need to go to the bathroom, check on your kids/baby, or make it to the kitchen for a glass of water. I really was surprised at how useful moonlight was when my eyes were 100% dark adapted.

 

[wjv]

One light I have has a 0.09 lumen mode which I find rather worthless

Another light has a 0.45 lumen mode which is great for around the house or reading menus in dark restaurants.

Another light has a 1.5 lumen mode which is great for around the house, but almost too bright for reading menus in dark restaurants.

Another light has a 3.6 lumen mode which is great for around the house, but in a dark restaurants looks like I'm waving a spotlight around.

Oh. . When I travel I take the one with the 0.45 lumen mode (EagleTac D25A Clicky in NW) with me because on moonlight, it makes a great nightlight in a dark, unfamiliar hotel room. But with a quick twist of the head I can go to 110 lumens. I can also easily disable/enable the moonlight mode on the D25A so I have a light that has 6 light levels, so it is very versatile. And it tail stands.

 

[TMedina]

Heh - a multi-moonlight mode flashlight. Talk about a niche target market.

 

[Etsu]

Heh - a multi-moonlight mode flashlight. Talk about a niche target market.

The Zebralights have 3 different levels of moonlight. IMO, the dimmest is pretty useless (only good for seeing shapes), but the other two are pretty good.

 

[sampson2269]

I use the moonlight mode all the time at night, this way I don't wake my wife when I get up to go to the bathroom. I think Zebralight has one of the best moonlight modes on the market.

 

[zespectre]

Moonlight is awesome. It's funny, when I first got my Quark, I said "0.2 lumens? I'll never use that!" Long story short, I have grown to love it; sometimes even low modes (around 5 lumens) are too high, 0.2 lumens is actually pretty bright under the right circumstances (sometimes I wish it was even lower if that's even possible).

I'm FIRMLY in this camp.

Item one, I have to get up at O-God thirty in the morning and it doesn't take much light to wake the wife. I have akeychain light with a 1 watt "moonlight" mode which is just PERFECT for getting stuff out of my dresser and getting ready without waking her.

Item two, use as a nightlight or marker light during a blackout. Hours and hours and hours of light and it's amazing how little you need to find your way around once your eyes are dark adapted

Item Three, CAMPING. Many times it's been pitch black inside the tent, but well lit by the actual moon outside. I love having a very low power mode to find my socks/shoes inside a dark tent without utterly destroying my night vision or waking the wife.

 

[Charles L.]

Agree that ZL moonlight is really good, with (as at least one other poster has already mentioned) a lowest setting that is probably too low. My 4 year old Quark's moonlight now looks too bright -- perhaps the newer ones have a lower setting? Also agree with the poster who revived this thread -- the nicest moonlight I have is on my SRT3, which also goes from too low to… well, whatever you want

 

[TMedina]

Oh, don't get me wrong - I am a fan of moonlight/firefly modes. For most, if not all, of the reasons stated.

I just found the idea of a more than one moonlight mode on a flashlight amusing. Given that a Zebralight has *three*, it only reaffirms my refusal to ever own one.

 

[LightOnAHill]

i use a few quark turbo lights as my primary EDC and nightstand light next to my sig 229 elite stainless. Actually, I have the quark turbo x burst (800+ lumens, pretty sweet), and I like that I can program one mode to max and one mode to moonlight.

this is advantageous, especially as a defensive flashlight, because programmed to that mode, each time i press the button on the light, it only gives me moonlight. it doesn't cycle through the modes. This is important because then I don't lose my night vision, and I'm using a minimal amount of light so as to not overtly announce my presence and blind myself.

also, moonlight mode is plenty of light (maybe too much in some situations, such as shining it on a sleeping baby (i use the flood portion, not the hotspot). Plus, if I need more light, I can program the other mode for low pretty quick, or throw it to max, or whatever.

I think moonlight is a great feature.


I really want a preen 1 with a clicky that has moonlight and the full brightness available. that'd be sweet.

 

[radiopej]

I love it, but I wish mine was lower. I like it for in cinemas, but it turns out 0.5 lumens is rather bright in a dark cinema.

 

[Etsu]

Agree that ZL moonlight is really good, with (as at least one other poster has already mentioned) a lowest setting that is probably too low. My 4 year old Quark's moonlight now looks too bright -- perhaps the newer ones have a lower setting?

I have all the latest Quarks, and no, they do not have a lower setting. The XPG2's moonlight (on the Quarks) are brighter than the brightest ZL moonlight mode, and the XML2's moonlights (on the Quarks) are significantly brighter than the XPG2's. Even so, I don't find them too bright, as I tend to use the brightest ZL moonlight mode anyway.

 

[GregY]

I'm FIRMLY in this camp.

Item one, I have to get up at O-God thirty in the morning and it doesn't take much light to wake the wife. I have akeychain light with a 1 watt "moonlight" mode which is just PERFECT for getting stuff out of my dresser and getting ready without waking her.

Item two, use as a nightlight or marker light during a blackout. Hours and hours and hours of light and it's amazing how little you need to find your way around once your eyes are dark adapted

Item Three, CAMPING. Many times it's been pitch black inside the tent, but well lit by the actual moon outside. I love having a very low power mode to find my socks/shoes inside a dark tent without utterly destroying my night vision or waking the wife.

I was a little different, but not too much. Before I bought my Quark I thought moonlight seemed interesting but I wasn't sure.... Once I used it I was sure- moonlight mode is awesome. It's the mode I use most often at home.

As everyone else says, getting around in a dark house/apartment without losing night vision, getting ready for work without waking anyone (I don't do o-hell-no-thirty, but I get up before anyone else), checking on the kids without waking them up... I also use it for reading in bed without keeping the wife awake- bedside lamp is too bright and keeps her awake but moonlight mode? No problem.

 

[N_N_R]

In fact, the only moonlight mode I have is on my Olight i3s. I didn't use it when I bought the light, but I've started recently. I use it at home when I need some light and as it's not just me in the room, I need something low so that I don't bother the other person. I also use it when I'm almost half asleep and need to turn off the TV or set the TV timer or sth, i.e. play with the remote. I figured even the 3 lumens of my Fenix would blind me when the light reflected off the remote or bed sheets. When you're used to the darkness, it takes just a few lumens to make you squint and not being able to see well because of the LiGhT. And since the moonlight mode of my i3s comes only last and I didn't want to spend lots of money on another light just for the occasional "moonlight use", I ended up buying one incandescent Solitaire... It's so dim that it works pretty well as an instant-moonlight-on flashlight

 

[mcorp]

+1. Didn't realise the importance of moonlight mode till I got the L3 Illumination L10 219 version 4 mode. Now even 3 lumens is a little too bright when I awake halfway through the night to visit the toilet. The firefly mode is just perfect and am gonna get more lights with true moonlight modes of less than a lumen!

 

[Swedpat]

Almost 4,5 years have passed since I wrote the previous post(#15) in this thread. I still have the Quark with 0,2lm moonmode, but it's not still the lowest mode light I have. Armytek Predator and Viking have far lower modes. The lowest firefly mode of Viking I would guestimate is 10-20times dimmer than Quark 0,2lm, likely somewhere around 0,01-0,02lm. It's so dim it hardly shines up the bedroom even with dark adapted eyes. And at daytime I can stare into the beam at close distance without any discomfort. Yes, it's so dim it's mostly not useful. But in a case of emergency in total dark place it would be useful at close distance.

 

[reppans]

I love moonlight and nearly exclusively buy sub-lumen lights.

Interestingly, I didn't see much mention of the runtime advantages, which is perhaps the primary benefit to me as a camper that uses a light continuously at night. But in order to realize the multi-hundred hour per AA runtime benefits, it needs to be "bright" enough to use as a general purpose low (for most close task work) with dark-adapted eyes. For me, that's ~ 0.3-0.5 lms and from a floody XML in small head - this brightness level and large low-lux hotspot strike the right balance between massive runtime and bright enough for close task work and comfortable book reading. For the few moments I need it dimmer to check on a baby, or a middle of the night bathroom run, I prefer to just bury the bezel in my fist and use my pinkie as an aperture control.

Oh, don't get me wrong - I am a fan of moonlight/firefly modes. For most, if not all, of the reasons stated.

I just found the idea of a more than one moonlight mode on a flashlight amusing. Given that a Zebralight has *three*, it only reaffirms my refusal to ever own one.

I thought the multiple choice on the SC52 would be the answer to getting moonlight just right (I'm not fan of infinitely variable rings - magnetics are inefficient and QTC is finicky) but all the L mode specs are so over exaggerated - the "0.34" lm mode measures ~0.08 lms by my lightbox, and so all the sub-lumen levels are useless to me. I also test my lights' sub-lumen runtime side-by-side on AAAAs (results in days vs weeks) and was surprised to find the SC52 to be the least efficient (lumen*hour basis) of my sub-lumen collection. Don't know what happened - my first gen H51w 0.18 lm sub-lumen mode is ~ 3x brighter/more efficient.

 

[NorthernStar]

I think moonlight mode is extremely useful. Among other things, it´s great to use at night to preserve the nightvision.

 

[JedSmith]

Glad to see this old thread was revisited. Its interesting to read that the OP wondered if moonlight/firefly mode might be nothing but a marketing gimmick when he posted 5 years ago in 2009.

I have a flashlight with a .09 lumen setting and I find it very useful. Its amazing how little light you really need when your eyes are dark adapted. I like extending runtime on a battery, so I get more use out of them & it costs less over the long term. Why use any more than needed ?

P.S. - the lights I'm talking about are the L3 Illumination L10. The 4 mode Nichia 219 version has .09, 3.0, 30.0, and 120 lumen settings. I would like to play around with some high CRI flashlights that have settings between that .09 firefly and 3 lumen low. That's quite a jump when your eyes are low light adapted.

 

[mcorp]

Glad to see this old thread was revisited. Its interesting to read that the OP wondered if moonlight/firefly mode might be nothing but a marketing gimmick when he posted 5 years ago in 2009.

I have a flashlight with a .09 lumen setting and I find it very useful. Its amazing how little light you really need when your eyes are dark adapted. I like extending runtime on a battery, so I get more use out of them & it costs less over the long term. Why use any more than needed ?

P.S. - the lights I'm talking about are the L3 Illumination L10. The 4 mode Nichia 219 version has .09, 3.0, 30.0, and 120 lumen settings. I would like to play around with some high CRI flashlights that have settings between that .09 firefly and 3 lumen low. That's quite a jump when your eyes are low light adapted.

Haha yeah I tried increasing from 0.09 to 3 lumens during this morning toilet visit and ended up squinting a little instead