Casual Flashlight User, I sincerely apologise.
I took with me;
LED Lenser David 15
Fenix P1D-CE
MagLite 6D with MagNum Star Xenon bulb
My grandad brought with him an Eveready 2D torch too, which was soon put away.
Firstly, the LED Lenser is still my favorite 'go to' torch. The belt holster and convenient 'forward' rear clicky make one handed operation a doddle. Using optics, you don't get a typical 'spot and flood' beam, you get just a tight-ish flood. This is excellent for close-work, for example, reading in the tent. It puts out ample light, which is not too much that it would draw too much attention. Outdoors, it is perfectly adequate for finding my way, but not good at detail retrieval.
The Fenix is bright, very bright, even too bright, even in low modes. It is the best 'shock and awe' flashlight ever. This attracts attention, and lots of it. People are expecting a clumsy handheld searchlight, and are pleaseantly surprised when they realise it is my keychain flashlight. Outdoors, detail and colour rendition is excellent up to about 25 metres. Beyond this, colour rendition is lost, but detail retrieval is still good.
MagLite 6D with Xenon bulb. This is what the trip was about, testing the MagLite in stock guise, albeit with the MagNum star bulb in place of the stock bulb. Many people complain that the 6D is too heavy and clumsy. Fair enough, it will not fit in a shirt pocket, but it has a reassuring size and weight. It even doubles as a personal protection device if necessary. It is the MagNum Star bulb that brought me back to incandescents, after a long run of LEDs. Colour rendition and detail retrieval is excellent, even at range. The greatest let-down is the beam quality. However, this was very much a 'benchmark' test to commit to memory. Waiting at home for me was all the parts for a 6D ROP, and I want to FEEL the difference.
