Red, blue or yellow filter to keep me "less visible" at distance ??

[KiwiMark]

im actually unconvinced by the whole red/ green nite vision stuff and prefer dimmest possible white .

That should work just fine, as long as:
It is dim enough (only just barely enough for you)
and
the light is shrouded so that no direct light reaches the person you are trying not to be detected by.

Not all lights are dim enough for this, but there are some that are. A dim enough light of any colour should not have much impact on the night adaption of your eyes.
Some lights have a bright flash of light as they turn on before going to the very low output, if you use such a light then it is important that you cover the front of the light when you turn it on.

 

[LowFlux]

For the red vs. green crowd - has anyone ever seen a traffic light from the distance at night? I have a straight stretch of highway coming into town and at night I can see a light which is almost 3.5 miles away. Ditto for the red flashing railroad crossing lights. Dim is the way to go, followed by shielding your light source. I've seen my moonlight mode light reflected from windows that are 50' away, so where you point your flashlight head is important.

Using a monochromatic filter is advantageous for night adapted vision as you only stimulate one spectra.

 

[beerwax]

Not all lights are dim enough for this, but there are some that are.

i used to carry a maglite solitaire with a flat battery. i see some new lights have been given the thumbs up here for there ultra low modes.

cheers

 

[shao.fu.tzer]

Based on popular theory, I've always used red filters and leds to help preserve my night vision. There definitely seems to be a difference between red and white light. Now I'm just speaking from personal experience, but even the moonlight mode on most nights will screw up my night vision, while a visibly brighter red light, after being used and turned off, will still keep me seeing like I was beforehand... Just my two cents...

Shao

 

[MikeAusC]

Based on popular theory, I've always used red filters and leds to help preserve my night vision. There definitely seems to be a difference between red and white light. Now I'm just speaking from personal experience, but even the moonlight mode on most nights will screw up my night vision, while a visibly brighter red light, after being used and turned off, will still keep me seeing like I was beforehand... Just my two cents...Shao

That's not just from intuition, that's because the red part of the visible spectrum is where there's the biggest difference between scotopic and photopic sensitivity i.e. you can see at high resolution using monochromatic photopic vision, but compared with other colours, red light has the lowest leaching of the chemicals in the eye that's needed for scotopic night vision. These chemicals in the eye build up very slowly, once leached by light.