Surefire Saint Minimus

[freq18hz]

Is it just me, or is this headlamps brightest setting not all that bright? It's rated at 100 lumens, but I'm finding that it's not quite as bright as my Surefire G2. Also the Minimus seems to have not much throw, just a complete flood. Kinda sucks that for this price there is no beam adjustability.

EDIT: Does anyone have any information on how this compares to the Zebralight h501 (and the upcoming H31's) ? Specifically, which is brighter the H501 or the Minimus? What about reliability/battery life etc?



Thoughts?

 

[Launch Mini]

Like you said, the light is over a larger area rather than a tight beam.
Mine is plenty bright enough for it's intended purpose.
I don't want a headlight with a tight beam, as then I would be constantly sweeping my head side to side.

 

[freq18hz]

But without a brighter beam, isn't it harder to see farther down the trail? The Minimus has a good flood, but really poor throw. I would have figured that 100 lumens would look really bright, but its barely brighter than this 60 lumen petzel. Maybe because the beam isn't as focused?


-Freq

 

[BigHonu]

A light with a beam biased toward flood is meant for close range stuff. Even a 500 lumen flood light will not project light adequately for spotting something down the trail.

Also, because the way the eye and brain works, you need quite a big bump in output (IIRC around 4x more lumens) to make a light appear twice as bright, assuming they have similar beam patterns.

 

[freq18hz]

Does anyone have any information on how this compares to the Zebralight h501 (and the upcoming H31's) ?


-Freq

 

[carrot]

100 lumens is bright, yes, but I suspect that any belief of shortcomings with the Minimus lies in sticker shock. Take it out and play with it, I suspect you will find it is quite useful on the trails. You will have plenty of light, and combined with any reasonable pocket light you will be quite fulfilled in your illumination needs.

 

[Woods Walker]

Is it just me, or is this headlamps brightest setting not all that bright? It's rated at 100 lumens, but I'm finding that it's not quite as bright as my Surefire G2. Also the Minimus seems to have not much throw, just a complete flood. Kinda sucks that for this price there is no beam adjustability.

EDIT: Does anyone have any information on how this compares to the Zebralight h501 (and the upcoming H31's) ? Specifically, which is brighter the H501 or the Minimus? What about reliability/battery life etc?



Thoughts?

If yea don't like flood the H501 isn't your headlamps. I would get a Fenix HL20 1XAA headlamp for throw if looking for single cell/throw light. Though I would play around more with the SF first in the woods etc.

 

[Ska-T]

Freq, most of the ZebraLight headlamps are floods, but the new H31 and H313w are not. They have a 8.6 degree hot spot and 76 degree spill beam. By comparison, the ZL H50 is a 120 degree flood (no hot spot). The H501 and H30 are 80 degree floods (no hot spot).

The H31 isn't due out until April 15, so I don't know who has seen a comparison of the H31 and St Min beams.

 

[hopkins]

Surefire Saint Minimus may have a design flaw, common
of this style of headlamp of illuminating a persons nose
with reflected down scattered light from the plastic housing around the LED
.

 

[BigHonu]

Surefire Saint Minimus has the common design flaw
of this style of headlamp of illuminating a persons nose
with reflected side light from the plastic housing around the LED
when tilted even slightly down from level straight out beaming.

Whoa, that is a bummer! Thanks for the post!

 

[carrot]

Surefire Saint Minimus has the common design flaw
of this style of headlamp of illuminating a persons nose
with reflected side light from the plastic housing around the LED
when tilted even slightly down from level straight out beaming.

I don't wish to imply that you have a big nose or anything, but I certainly do not experience this when using the Saint. But maybe you have a big nose.

 

[Flashlightboy]

I don't have this problem with my Saint. I mean it's not your fault your parents made you incompatible with some Surefire products.

 

[hopkins]

Interesting. Wonder if some Saints are being shipped with a defect that allows
that down spatter of light?

Pics show a bright bar of light hitting
the upper bridge of the guys nose and the area between his eye brows, also the table pic almost at a right angle
downward from the beam direction. Hard to miss.

Those that do not think they have this defect, please could you check again by
looking into a mirror (while in a dark room etc) and see if there is any
down scatter light onto your face? Have the light tilted as you normally would for use.

(angle the beam of course so it misses you as it comes back from the mirror)

 

[mntnrnnr]

My Saint definitely has that ring of scatter light at 90 degrees from the light. I called Surefire on it and they said it was "normal" "prismatic reflection." I was disappointed in that... if they could fix that it would be an ideal headlamp! As it is it's annoying to see it out of the corner of your eye...

 

[carrot]

I have used the Saint for over a dozen hours without getting such a problem. I also wear glasses on occasion, so if I experienced that problem I would also get backscatter of light reflected off my glasses.

It may also have to do with the fact that I have the Saint sitting right above my eyebrows and not all the way up my forehead.

There was some rumbling that the very first Saints to roll out of the factory had lenses that stuck out slightly more than the current production ones, due to the interesting corona/rings on the outer edge of the beam on some and the lack of said rings on others.

 

[SilverFox]

Hello Carrot,

Does that mean that you don't have a nose...? :devil:

Just kidding.

Back scatter can be a problem with some headlamps, but with others it doesn't seem to be noticed. I have found that I have to wear the light for a night before I can decide if it is a problem or not.

Tom

 

[Woods Walker]

My Saint definitely has that ring of scatter light at 90 degrees from the light. I called Surefire on it and they said it was "normal" "prismatic reflection." I was disappointed in that... if they could fix that it would be an ideal headlamp! As it is it's annoying to see it out of the corner of your eye...

For some people glare is a bigger problem than others. I am in the fear-o-glare group as it drives me nuts though don't own a SF headlamp.

 

[freq18hz]

I notice no glare with the Minimus.


-Freq

 

[hopkins]

Some more images of the Saint headlamp showing how it throws light
downward towards the face.

Worn high enough on the forehead seems
to allow a hat or bulging eyebrows, or helmet brim to shield the light from getting to the lower face.

A glare shield should have been incorporated into the design like on certain Petzl headlamps to shade the face.

(Pics from the Surefire web site) Think they know.

 

[umc]

I just picked up a minimus and brought it home and tested to see if I have the "scatter effect" and I do. It's annoying but I'll have to try it for a bit to see how annoying.