What is your favourite compact (pocket carry) light?

[witness]

Re: I should have phrased my question differently.

One is a screw driver, one is a hammer. There are some situations where you need a screw driver, as a hammer won't work as well, and some situations where a screw driver won't work as well as a hammer....but its unfair to say that all you need is a screw driver unless you want to impress your friends with your hammer.

Good points. As with anything, one can try and imagine all the angles (which never works) or one can go out and try things in the field. I guess I'm going to have to get a good "thrower" and see what that will do...a Klarus or Deft maybe. :thinking:

 

[witness]

On second thought...

There are no long lists of 750 lumen lights under 4" in length...its a fairly exclusive club.

As for the "why would anyone want throw"....well, its all a question of what we're trying to see, and, at what range.

For example, I do disaster response work, and, I need to see if someone might be out there in the darkness 400-800 yards away.

So, sure, a giant flood light that could light up a football field sized area 600 yards away might be nice, but, to have enough LUX on target, that requires a LOT of lumens at that range...and THAT requires a lot of POWER, and THAT requires a lot of battery, and THAT requires a large battery tube, and so on and so forth.

So, THAT means that I can use a smaller form factor to reach out 600 yards, and search a smaller patch at a time, at a longer distance, with a smaller light.

If I am night fishing on a large lake on a moonless night, and I have no freekin CLUE where the dock I need is...I can use a small light with a lot of throw to scan around and try to find it off in the darkness.

If I am hiking and am trying to find a trail up a mountain on the other side of a ravine/valley, etc...to avoid hiking into a dead end...I need to see across it.

An SC600 would be fairly useless for that. At Photon Fest 18 for example, we were in a quarry, and my SC600 lit up a great pool of light, and I could see that there was a path through two large rock formations, but the path was dark from where I was looking. I then lit up the Klarus XT11, and I could now see that the "Path" was the edge of a large hole, and not really a "Path"...and that there were trees on the opposite side of the hole. The pocket sized DEFT edc LR+ also lit up the trees on the far side of the hole, and I could see even more details, like the path through the trees meandering off around a bend.

On second thought I'm not sure that I buy that you are going to wander into a hole because the SC600 doesn't throw far enough. I've had the SC600 down at the park in pitch blackness and I'm lighting up trees on the other side of the field. How do you risk falling into pit when you can light up 100 meters in front of you (that's just a ball park estimate of distance but it's a LONG way).

 

[Raze]

Compact.

Rechargeable.

519 lumens on High, 155 on Med, and 25 on Low - regulated with memory.

Built like a tank..a beautiful, artsy tank.

Ice-blue trits the icing on the cake, Ti clip completing it.

That's my fav EDC compact pocket flashlight, the Prometheus Alpha 'Shorty'.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk, please pardon typos.

 

[wollie88]

Definetly my olight tc15ss, one of the cheaper lights i own. But its my favorite pocketlight.

-Stainles steel, so no worries about dropping it.
-Nice and shiney.
-Modded with hcri xpg.
-Nice beam balanced between throw and flood.
-Runs of aa's, so easy spares.

 

[y0urm0msname]

I have an EagleTac T100C2 and it makes for a good pocket light.

 

[AMD64Blondie]

At the moment,my Ti Preon 2. Fairly bright,very tough..and fits perfectly in my pocket.It's my main EDC light. (I carry about 4 other lights in my backpack when I go to work,with my UK Vizion included.)

 

[JohnnyBravo]

Olight i1 EOS on an AW IMR 16340...

 

[Labrador72]

So far I only have lights that very easily fit in a pocket. The one with the best size/brightness/runtime ratio is definitely the Fenix PD30.

 

[Tete]

The Klarus X5 that hangs in my keyloop. Gives enough light and has all the necessary functions. Wouldn't like to carry anything larger all the time...

 

[JWRitchie76]

My man love for my warm Haiku is well documented! Over a year strong carrying that light. It is with me 24/7. I just picked up a ZL SC31Fw and I have to say I haven't been impressed with a flashlight since buying McGizmo but this little thing rocks! I like it so much I'm definitely going for a SC600W and a SC31W for my wife. She won't leave my SC31Fw alone!

Raze, that Alpha Shorty is really cool! What do you power it with and what LED did you have built in?

 

[TEEJ]

Re: On second thought...

On second thought I'm not sure that I buy that you are going to wander into a hole because the SC600 doesn't throw far enough. I've had the SC600 down at the park in pitch blackness and I'm lighting up trees on the other side of the field. How do you risk falling into pit when you can light up 100 meters in front of you (that's just a ball park estimate of distance but it's a LONG way).

LOL

Just noticed this...

The point was to avoid walking into a dead end because you can see the REST of the path, not that we'd fall into the hole, more that you'd continue in a straight line towards the "obvious path", and THEN find you have to turn around and try to find ANOTHER path...

BUT, because you can't see far enough at a time...you are progressing along like those toys that bump into walls, and randomly change direction, and try again...until they find a way through.

Its like being nearsighted...its not that you will fall into a hole, you'd see the hole, its just that you have to get CLOSER to the hole TO see it.

The SC600's useful range is closer to 50-60 yards than 100 yards though...at night, things look further away, which can be deceptive (And why you feel like at the same speed, you're going faster at night...). A somewhat reflective/white, etc, target can be made out at the 100 yard or so distance, but I consider a light's range to be the range I could spot someone wearing dark clothing laying in the grass at. To me, that's a useful range...because finding a reflector, or a white wall, is not typically on my to do list.



For comparison, here are some close range shots with two lights with various throw capabilities taken at the same spot:

Surefire 6PX Pro:

Zebra Light SC600:

I purposely chose a light WORSE than the SC600 to compare it with...and to show, one, how nice the SC600 is close up, and, how it kicked the SF's ***, and, to show how useful it can be to see FURTHER.



In real ife, you could see a bit better than the pic's indicate...the pics look dimmer here, a flickr thing I think....but the concept holds.

That twin trunked birch to the left of the concrete structure is roughly 120' from the light. By ~ 150', you can't make out much at all in real life, in the pic, it looks even worse than that, but ~ <150-200' is about it for the SC600's useful range depending on what you need to see. If a guy was on the ground by that tree, you'd see him...if he was ~ 50' further out, nope.

 

[kj2]

Thrunite T10

 

[fishndad]

LumaPower IncenDio V3U Limited Edition (XM-L T5) Neutral

today mine is the bc10 but the v3u will be soon LOL.does the tail cap actually glow in the dark?cuz i could use that on my nightstand as well.