Please recommend headlamps!

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Newly Enlightened
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GVRD, BC, Canada
Please bear with me, it's a long post!

Scenarios: Camping, hiking in possibly rainy/snowy conditions. Needs to be water resistant and able to take accidental knocks and drops. Light and compact so it can easily be slipped into pants/shorts pockets. I do not want a headlamp with an external battery pack and wires sticking out.

I've been looking up and down, left and right for the perfect headlamp. I have a Petzl Tikka 2 and liked using it last summer during camping and touring, but now it's time to get a new one. I discovered very quickly that I *need* red or green light in order to preserve night vision and not annoy people around me who wish to keep their night vision intact. I've looked at several options, listed below:

1. Petzl Tactikka XP: This thing comes pretty close to ideal for me with multiple coloured diffuser options, long runtimes and nice compact size, easily pocketable and a meagre weight of less than 100gr including batteries. Con: restricted to non-lithium AAA batteries, I would like either lithium AAA option or CR123a. But having just this one issue, it is my top contender for now.

2. Petzl Tikka XP2: Main problem is that it's coloured mode is restricted to a little red LED which ONLY comes on after you have cycled through the various white light modes, starting with the brightest... there goes the night vision. I would like the option of being able to go straight to red/green from OFF. Advantage it has is it DOES take lithium AAAs, unlike the Tactikka XP.

3. Zebralight H31FW: Despite NOT having a coloured light option, I imagine a very low level of neutral white diffused light would be able to preserve night vision like red/green would, also it's very compact and takes a single CR123a. Cons: Electronic soft switch with parasitic constant power draw. I really want something with a physical/mechanical switch. Also I was going to order one recently when suddenly goinggear.com stopped carrying them, this now gives me pause.

4. Surefire Saint Minimus Vision: I like the concept and UI of this light but my main gripe here is the very dismal runtimes. 50hrs at 1lumen brightness, are these guys serious? Price is a con too but it's surefure we're talking about so that comes as part of the package and excellent build quality is offered in exchange so I'm OK with that, but I am NOT paying 130+ dollars for something that will run for only 50 hours at 1 lumen on a CR123A, that is very inefficient.

I've looked at Spark headlamps as well, and while they appeal, they also seem to have soft electronic switches as opposed to physical ones, but please correct me if I'm wrong about this. Other manufacturers I should be looking at?

Thank you much for any input.
 
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The only thing annoying about the Storm (which I have) is that it automatically toggles between flood and spot every time it's powered on. So no memory in that regard.

It does have a lockout mode which is nice for throwing it in your backpack and not worrying about it accidentally coming on. It also has a battery capacity indicator.

Regarding the Zebralights (which I also have...H51f) you can prevent any parasitic drain or accidental powering on by a slight turn of the tail cap and I mean very slight. I do this by habit now.
 
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Well I'm awful happy with my little AA zebralight headlamp. It weighs about the same as an AA battery, and the parasitic drain really isn't anything to worry about. If you want to load it up with a lithium battery and forget about it in your bag then just untwist the tail cap about 10 degrees, put a piece of tape on it to keep it from possibly moving and replace the battery every 10-15 years ;-). The parasitic drain for my H51Fc is listed as 16 years anyways... pretty much a non issue.
Just don't leave an alkaline battery and forget about it.
The electronic switch is rated for 200,000 cycles. That's about 10 clicks on the switch every day for 50 years. Good luck with the rubber on any light switch lasting that long. I figure I'll use up maybe 1/5 of the switch life messing with it for the first year and then just use it when I need it and it'll eventually be one of those tools that lives in a drawer decades from now. Still working and rendered obsolete by crazy technological improvements.

Being so small it will be much stronger per unit of mass than a larger light. I've been EDC carrying it since I got it and my only concern is losing the thing, I've misplaced it a half dozen times already clipped to my ball cap, I pretty much forget it's there.

The lowest setting is a fine substitute for a red light, 16 days on a fresh AA Eneloop (nominal). I've used a dim red CMG Infinity for the last decade and this light has now replaced it.
 
Looks like I will *have* to get a Zebralight as well as the Black Diamond Storm!

Now that goinggear doesn't sell Zebralights, where else is a good place to order them from? The retailer has to be able to ship to Canada.
 
I got mine from GoingGear so I'm was surprised to read that they don't carry them anymore. I know you can order directly from Zebralight however.
 
i think Going Gear is just out of stock on them for the time being. Zebra's site seems to have several models out of stock as well. you can try Illumination Gear, they have some models in stock, but i'm not sure they ship to Canada. if that fails, you can try HKEquipment.net. they ship out of Hong Kong, but they ship pretty fast, at least to the US. and from what i understand shipments from HK to Canada aren't subject to the same duties as shipments from the US to Canada... or something like that.
 
I would like to clarify one point since I stated that the dim white makes a good substitute for red light...
For viewing at a distance (looking down to the bottom of my basement stairs in pitch dark middle of the night) my old red CMG gives a much better spot than the floody Zebralight. Details and shadows are much more distinct with the red.
Part of this is the spot vs flood and part of it is the red cone receptors at the center of the eye's field of view -which can receive red light without causing night blindness.
So for squeezing the most performance out of your dark adjusted eyes there's no substitute for deep red light, but in practice I am seeing everything that I need to with ZL's lowest white light setting, with no noticed loss of night vision.
 
robostudent5000 said:
i think Going Gear is just out of stock on them for the time being.
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I confirmed with them via e-mail and they said that they will indeed stop carrying Zebralights, I also asked them about the reason why, they said it was "just a business decision" on their part. *shrug*

I'll give HKequipment a try, cheers!
 
eh4 said:
I would like to clarify one point since I stated that the dim white makes a good substitute for red light...
For viewing at a distance (looking down to the bottom of my basement stairs in pitch dark middle of the night) my old red CMG gives a much better spot than the floody Zebralight. Details and shadows are much more distinct with the red.
Part of this is the spot vs flood and part of it is the red cone receptors at the center of the eye's field of view -which can receive red light without causing night blindness.
So for squeezing the most performance out of your dark adjusted eyes there's no substitute for deep red light, but in practice I am seeing everything that I need to with ZL's lowest white light setting, with no noticed loss of night vision.
Click to expand...

Interesting, thanks for the clarification. Do you have any experience with green light and night vision preservation? I hear green is the light of choice for pilots and others in aviation.
 
Going gear web site shows this one (with red LED) in stock, but might be good to call and confirm but I saw it there when I as their store about a week ago.

Zebralight H51r Red LED 110 Lumen Headlamp -

Zebra light also has the H31 headlamps with red LED, both regular and frosted lens, if you prefer CR123 over AA battery format.
 
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I've played with a green led light before, but I don't have one.
The green light is supposed to be near the peak of our eyes sensitivity, so each lumen of green light (actually TEAL is supposed to be the peak sensitivity) will give more useful brightness to human eyes, this is also supposed to be why night vision screens are in green, greater distinction with less light. But green will bleach out the optic purple in our eyes, unlike red. Also green light stands out in an observer's peripheral vision while a red light will only be noticed if the observer is looking right at it.
There are a couple good night vision threads on CPF if you search.
Here is the best article I've read on the subject: http://stlplaces.com/night_vision_red_myth/
 
clip_point said:
Interesting, thanks for the clarification. Do you have any experience with green light and night vision preservation? I hear green is the light of choice for pilots and others in aviation.
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Green doesn't preserve your night vision. Military pilots may use it (or anyone else) if they are using night vision googles. Your eyes are most sensitive to green light. For preserving night vision you want a wave length that your eyes are less sensitive to.

You can use green or any other color if you keep the brightness level down but you're not doing anything that a low level white light wouldn't do just as well (or better).

In reading your original post you don't really need a red LED in the sense that you aren't trying to use your cones for reading fine detail and then going back to a low level of light. In other words one "needs" a red when it's necessary to have a brighter light to trigger the cones to read fine detail. Then when that red LED is turned off the rods aren't impacted and you therefore preserve night vision.

You are just trying to not annoy others when you need a little light to move around by. Any low level of light will work in that situation.

I'm not suggesting that you not use one however. Just pointing out the logic of red LEDs and preserving night vision.
 
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clip_point said:
Interesting, thanks for the clarification. Do you have any experience with green light and night vision preservation? I hear green is the light of choice for pilots and others in aviation.
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Read MIL-STD-3009. The ONLY reason green lighting is used in aircraft is for compatibility with Night Vision Systems.

If you want to operate in very low light levels and you still need to be able to see any detail, just use dim white light - at least you can recognise all colours.

Using Green LEDs for low-level lighting is a hangover from before White LEDs were available - you HAD to choose between Blue, Green, Yellow or Red LED.
 
BarryH said:
Going gear web site shows this one (with red LED) in stock, but might be good to call and confirm but I saw it there when I as their store about a week ago.

Zebralight H51r Red LED 110 Lumen Headlamp -

Zebra light also has the H31 headlamps with red LED, both regular and frosted lens, if you prefer CR123 over AA battery format.
Click to expand...

Interesting, but it's a relatively pricy light and I wouldn't want to get stuck with a dedicated red lamp.

I don't really prefer CR123s over AA, it's just that my outdoors light is a 4Sevens 123-2 Turbo X and I'd like to have battery commonality so it's easier to carry backups... although I'm not sure how important that is? Still brainstorming on this.
 
Green light

Thanks guys for clarifying my misconception about green light. Seems more and more to me that a really dim neutral white light would work just as well, and in my case, probably even better than any colour option.
 
clip_point said:
Oh yeah... that is a very valid point! Say I wanted to go with red, what would be better, flood or throw?
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i've only had experience with red lights that were floody. i've only used them to walk around camp or look for stuff in my tent so i didn't need throw. i can't think of a camping/backpacking situation where you would want a throwy red light, but that's just me. others may disagree.
 
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