Best dive light?

[agill236]

Hi, has anyone heard of Intova lights? I think Intova mostly makes diving cameras but they have a couple dive lights as well. I have a nova wide-angle (http://www.intova.net/novawide.html) and I like it a lot, and you guys seem to have quite a bit of experience with flashlights, so I figured someone might have more extensive knowledge than "I like it a lot." Put another way, do people have favorite dive lights for saltwater scuba diving? I dive in California a lot, so my lights also take a fair bit of abuse. I use the Intova and also an underwater kinetics light cannon (http://www.uwkinetics.com/product/5). Any thoughts are appreciated!

 

[ntalbot]

Your UK looks like a much better light, imo.
Never heard of Intova. By the specs (4.7 watts for 130 lumens) looks like they are using an out-dated LED.

If you are mechanically inclined, you might want to try swapping out your HID bulb for a 4300k one. It will make what you are looking at much more colorful underwater.

 

[grinsefalle]

How about Barbolight?
Dive rated to -200m, different options..

Just take a look in Barbolight Sub-forum here

Michael

 

[sonrider657]

Other than extreme water-proofing, is there anything else unique about dive lights?

 

[sol-leks]

Other than extreme water-proofing, is there anything else unique about dive lights?

I'm no expert but I think it is also about the resistance for pressure especially in the switches.

 

[GPB]

You may want to check with your local dive shop. If they have any kind of instruction going on, they probably rent lights for night dives. They'll usually let you test dive one of their rental lights with the hopes that you'll buy one of their new lights. Your selection will be limited to whatever product lines they carry, but it's still nice to try one out before you drop the cash on it. I have always had good luck with UK and Pelican products.

 

[DM51]

Welcome to CPF, agill236.

I'll move your thread to our Diving Lights section, where ingenious rubber-clad members can suck air from bottles and blow illuminating bubbles of information in your direction.

 

[kwkarth]

Other than extreme water-proofing, is there anything else unique about dive lights?

Heat conduction from the LED to the water. You would think it would be a no brainer, and indeed, it should be, but most dive lights you find in dive shops are still made out of poly, so all the heat is kept internally. :thinking: The output and color rendering I've seen from the likes of UK for example is pathetic compared to rather pedestrian conventional LED lights we take for granted. I wonder if that means there's room in the market for good dive lights????

 

[agill236]

You mean there's a whole subforum devoted to dive lights? Oh man, I'm not gonna have any money left...

Thanks for the advice!

 

[gcbryan]

Intova makes good lights in the sense that they're machined aluminum (I think, I haven't actually seen one in person), they use a magnetic switch to operate and they're small. So they make decent, easy to carry backup lights.

They may even be adequate as your only light for good viz, tropical night diving. In the tropics you could carry both the wide angle and the narrow models.

I have, but no longer use very often, a Light Cannon as well. The bulbs are expensive ($100), the light is bulky, and the color of the output is a bluish white and not especially natural looking but still it's a good light for the money/performance in my opinion.

There are other ways to go. Many here will buy a cheap flashlight with a good waterproof design and modify it (remove the original emitter) and replace that with a much brighter version.

There are also some lights that right out of the box are cheaper, brighter, and much smaller than a Light Cannon so they can be used hands free.

There are many different options. Having said all that your combination of Light Cannon and an Intova backup is not bad at all. It's just that by the time you've made it to CPF you're likely to start to want to tweak your gear a bit and you can always come up with something a little better.

 

[gcbryan]

Heat conduction from the LED to the water. You would think it would be a no brainer, and indeed, it should be, but most dive lights you find in dive shops are still made out of poly, so all the heat is kept internally. :thinking: The output and color rendering I've seen from the likes of UK for example is pathetic compared to rather pedestrian conventional LED lights we take for granted. I wonder if that means there's room in the market for good dive lights????

Then again many of the led lights you see in dive shops aren't bright enough to generate excessive heat anyway.

 

[gcbryan]

Your UK looks like a much better light, imo.
Never heard of Intova. By the specs (4.7 watts for 130 lumens) looks like they are using an out-dated LED.

If you are mechanically inclined, you might want to try swapping out your HID bulb for a 4300k one. It will make what you are looking at much more colorful underwater.

It's kind of an expensive solution though given that the most expensive part of the light is the bulb.:thinking:

 

[Packhorse]

The intovas are a good light for the $$. The latest ones use a magnet push button on the tail cap. Just dont believe the hype about 4.7 watt LED's. They use cree XR-E's and looking at the run time spes they are underdriven not over driven.

 

[kwkarth]

Anyone have the new WolfEyes Pilot Whale Dive light yet? (Dive rated version of Pilot Whale.)

 

[agill236]

GCBryan, you are definitely right - reading this forum makes me want to start tweaking all my stuff. Especially considering I dive in Northern California, where I often run into the bottom before seeing it.

I assume all the discussion on replacing pills and LEDs and what have you is what you mean by modifying. Is there a website or something you can direct me to that has like a learner's section on how to do it? Thanks!

 

[gcbryan]

That is what I mean and although there isn't really a beginners section or forum on here all or most of the information is already in one forum or another.

I'm just a beginner in this regard myself. It's more or less a matter of just finding a cheap light to experiment with for learning purposes and when you have specific questions you will find someone who can and will answer them.

I'm sure our diving conditions are similar! I do half of my diving at night which compounds the problem even more in some ways and makes it better in other ways.

GCBryan, you are definitely right - reading this forum makes me want to start tweaking all my stuff. Especially considering I dive in Northern California, where I often run into the bottom before seeing it.

I assume all the discussion on replacing pills and LEDs and what have you is what you mean by modifying. Is there a website or something you can direct me to that has like a learner's section on how to do it? Thanks!

 

[agill236]

Ha, that's awesome! I used to teach scuba diving and we would take the advanced students for their night dives in Florida. That was something else... I'll tell you what, the blue color of that light cannon (and the fact that it was about 10 times as powerful as anything else at the time) sure made it easy for the students to tell who I was! I could have skipped the glowstick!

I think I'm going to jump in on a cheap flashlight or two and see what a little fiddling does. Thanks for the advice!