Hello Peteybaby,
Let me start off by saying that I love headlamps...
Years ago I learned the art of flashlight use from my dad. At the time, headlamps were not as available as they are now. We used 2 D cell lights most of the time, but I also had a couple of penlights.
I learned the art of working in the dark and how to cradle a light so you could free up your other hand. Since the lights we were using were D cell lights, this did not involve mouth holding. I also learned that you really don't need much light to get around at night, but you need a lot if you are trying to hike out. We would generally hike with a destination in mind. If we didn't make it to the destination, we would hike until dark, set up camp in the dark, then leave at first light to make it to where we were going.
When I joined the Boy Scouts, my dad gave me a 2 D angle head light. I still have it and it still works. This light had a hook on it and it became very easy to hook it in your pants or on a belt for hand free use. It also didn't roll when you set it on a table. Reading at night involved sipping a sock or shirt over the light and you ended up with a nice diffused reading beam.
Now if we skip ahead to when headlamps are readily available and I have some money to spend on them, I pick up a headlamp to try out. Wow, there are some things that a headlamp is great for, but it isn't the solution for everything. Its flat diffused beam is good for reading and general area lighting, but I often found myself removing it from my head to shine it at an angle to find things dropped on the ground.
I gave my first headlamp away, favoring my angle head 2 D light that I used in Boy Scouts.
When Mag Light introduced the 2 AA Mini Mag, I thought I was in heaven. You could pull the head off and use it in lantern mode while playing cards or reading inside the tent. It is dim enough that you really don't loose your night vision, yet still have some light to see what is going on.
Moving ahead to LED headlamps. I decided that I wanted a headlamp for use in my car. Picked one up and tried using it. It worked great for checking the oil and making sure the fan belt was still on, but when working on the car, I often found my head was not in the right place to let the light shine on what I was working on. In this case I ended up with a magnetic light.
I find it interesting that in our Boy Scout troop, several of the boys have headlamps. The boys with headlamps tend to fall down more when tearing around the camp at night. The dads and I have thought that it had to do with the spectrum differences with LED lighting, but I also speculate that the angle of the light also has something to do with this. Mountain bike riders have noticed a similar thing. If they only have a helmet mounted light, they find themselves having problems identifying how deep holes and ruts are. If they add a handlebar mounted light, the problem seems to diminish.
Another "issue" I have with headlamps around camp is that when you sit down to chat or play cards, you end up with lights flashing in your face. This destroys your night vision and seems to take away from the cosiness of camp. For playing cards we usually get the boys to lower their light and wear it around their neck, but I don't have this problem with the boys that are using hand held lights.
All in all I think it comes down to a preference. If I had to choose between a headlamp and a hand held light for camping, I would go with the hand held light. As it is, I carry both and use both, but tend to favor the hand held over the headlamp.
Tom
