Hi all!
A few words about how I ended up here..
I've recently moved to the countryside and was one night sitting on a chair on the balcony and heard some heavy cracks & noise from the forest nearby. I thought I'd have a look on what's in there and searched through the drawers and finally found
out what I was looking for: a crappy ((*previous word modified by Greta... this is a family forum... please use language that would be rated "G"*)) (which I at that time thought was pretty decent) plastic flashlight branded by the battery manufacturer Varta. Clicked the thing on and was disappointed at the result: a dim yellowish light around the target
area, couldn't really see anything. Distance was about 50 meters (~160 feet).
Then I recalled buying a small LED flashlight from the local electrical store. The small light had impressed me with it's brightness and shook my presumptions of flashlights: bigger = more batteries = more light! ;-)
Managed to find it quickly, returned to the balcony and expected to put her royal elkness on the spotlight. Click -- Wrong. The small bugger had maybe a bit more overall power than the plastic one but no way to focus it so it spread the light so wide that it was absolutely no use here...
That's when it occured to me: "I need a good flashlight". First thing that popped in my mind was to go buy a MagLite from the local supermarket - one of those big ((*another word removed by Greta... even though you used your own form of censoring, it is still not appropriate... "G" rating please?*)). Fortunately I ended up doing some googling that lead me here on the forums.
After some reading I ended up ordering Fenix TK40. I hope it'll do it's job in the elk spotting. Wife started moaning a bit after hearing the price on the thing but I did a quick defensive maneuver and bribed her silent with
a purple Fenix E01 matching the color of her purse. By accidental double-click I also ordered a black one for myself.
Now.. I thought I'd need a good all-around flashlight , "EDC" if you like. I've thought of some requirements:
- AA- based preferably. This is just because I've bought a bunch of quality Eneloop batteries of this size and already have a charger for AA/AAA. Not a must if some other battery sizes are much better... I don't know much about batteries..
- Length should be less than 15 cm (~6 inch) and diameter maybe an inch or less, small enough to carry in a jacket pocket comfortably.
- Few options to change the power level
- Focusable to a tight spot in the distance and also able to spread it wide to light up a large area close up, for example car engine bay. "Wide" lighting performance close up would be the priority here..
- Price hopefully less than $70
I'd appreciate if you guys could give me some recommendations based on these requirements as there seems to be loads of flashlight in this category..
A few words about how I ended up here..
I've recently moved to the countryside and was one night sitting on a chair on the balcony and heard some heavy cracks & noise from the forest nearby. I thought I'd have a look on what's in there and searched through the drawers and finally found
out what I was looking for: a crappy ((*previous word modified by Greta... this is a family forum... please use language that would be rated "G"*)) (which I at that time thought was pretty decent) plastic flashlight branded by the battery manufacturer Varta. Clicked the thing on and was disappointed at the result: a dim yellowish light around the target
area, couldn't really see anything. Distance was about 50 meters (~160 feet).
Then I recalled buying a small LED flashlight from the local electrical store. The small light had impressed me with it's brightness and shook my presumptions of flashlights: bigger = more batteries = more light! ;-)
Managed to find it quickly, returned to the balcony and expected to put her royal elkness on the spotlight. Click -- Wrong. The small bugger had maybe a bit more overall power than the plastic one but no way to focus it so it spread the light so wide that it was absolutely no use here...
That's when it occured to me: "I need a good flashlight". First thing that popped in my mind was to go buy a MagLite from the local supermarket - one of those big ((*another word removed by Greta... even though you used your own form of censoring, it is still not appropriate... "G" rating please?*)). Fortunately I ended up doing some googling that lead me here on the forums.
After some reading I ended up ordering Fenix TK40. I hope it'll do it's job in the elk spotting. Wife started moaning a bit after hearing the price on the thing but I did a quick defensive maneuver and bribed her silent with
a purple Fenix E01 matching the color of her purse. By accidental double-click I also ordered a black one for myself.
Now.. I thought I'd need a good all-around flashlight , "EDC" if you like. I've thought of some requirements:
- AA- based preferably. This is just because I've bought a bunch of quality Eneloop batteries of this size and already have a charger for AA/AAA. Not a must if some other battery sizes are much better... I don't know much about batteries..
- Length should be less than 15 cm (~6 inch) and diameter maybe an inch or less, small enough to carry in a jacket pocket comfortably.
- Few options to change the power level
- Focusable to a tight spot in the distance and also able to spread it wide to light up a large area close up, for example car engine bay. "Wide" lighting performance close up would be the priority here..
- Price hopefully less than $70
I'd appreciate if you guys could give me some recommendations based on these requirements as there seems to be loads of flashlight in this category..
