What are the reasons for carrying low-lumen lights?

[RogerToo]

I've never experienced leakage of fresh cells either, always been things I've left sitting around for extended periods and forgot about. I do use eneloops in my good flashlights, just to avoid the problem altogether. Still use alkalines in cheap flashlights and appreciate that I can use them in the good ones in an emergency.

Wayne

18 years at the same very hot and dirty foundry using nothing but AA batteries and my experience is the same. Never have I had or seen anyone have a leak with daily use. The only time I have seen that is from old remotes or clocks that had old batteries in them for years.

 

[bykfixer]

I've had good service from Rayovac alkalines in all sizes. I use them in my 100 year old flashlights. I no longer store them in antique lights due to parasitic drain in them. I did for a while until I kept finding the batteries were dead after a year or so.
It's kinda cool carrying a 1919 miners light while walking around the grounds of an old inn at night. Kinda like being back in time. Or using a WW2 era military issue with a magnifier bulb (#222 type) in dark woods pretending nearby street lights are a burning buildings after a bombing raid. My 1940's Olin 2C has a clear red plastic bezel ring to act as a safety wand so walking around a well lit neighborhood with it dangling by my side shows approaching cars a red glow in an attention getting motion.

Like someone said before "dark aint getting any darker" so what worked way back in the stone age still works today.

 

[Monocrom]

Must admit, Rayos are underrated. I buy them all the time. Ironically, if more folks knew how good they are; the prices would jump up.

 

[The Hawk]

I use a low lumen LED torch every morning when I get up. It's still dark outside, and I don't want to flip on a light in the house as that would cause wifey to wake up. I use that LED flashlight to navigate my way into the kitchen. If you have ever stepped on pet discharge, you can relate.

 

[FPSRelic]

Before Surefire's, people got by with Maglites, which were rated at about 22 lumens output. When Surefire came around, their claim was that you needed at least 65 lumens of eye searing brightness to blind an opponent, which is put to shame by your 500 to 600 lumens output. Personally, I find that I can do 85% of my tasks in the dark with older throwier XRE based emitters at 5 - 15 lumens when compared to the fatter new LED's.

Also, lights from that era tend to use flat regulation, where you would actually get 200 lumens for 2 hours, as opposed to the loophole aiming ANSI standard step down regulation pretty much all new lights use. That 500 lumens your current light uses for example - I bet it runs at 500 lumens for exactly 2 minutes from switch on, after which, it'll step down in power to about 300 lumens, and then tail off after that as the battery gets tired, to try and increase that runtime before it hits the magical 10% of maximum output of 50 lumens. So in reality, you're probably working with outputs way below 500 lumens all the time and just don't know it.

 

[Swedpat]

I have several single mode lights in the 30-60L range and I love them for regular use.

I don't want a light to surprise me, and multi-mode lights always have that posibility.

I think the same and have and like single mode lights in different brightnesses. But that is also the reason I like Thrunite/Wowtac and Acebeam. Some other brands have memory on all modes. This means next time you turn it on, if you don't remember what level you used last time(or accidently changed the mode) and want low mode: oops! turbo mode! And if you want instant turbomode the risk is that the light puts on at lowest mode and you need to cycle through the modes(the same with multimodes without memory).

Thrunite/Wowtac and Acebeam have direct access to firefly and turbo and memory on the regular modes.
This means that you can always have direct access to turbo and firefly but never accidently. And you can go direct from firefly into the regular modes if you want to be sure you get low instead of mid or high. I really like this user interface!

 

[Lynx_Arc]

I think the same and have and like single mode lights in different brightnesses. But that is also the reason I like Thrunite/Wowtac and Acebeam. Some other brands have memory on all modes. This means next time you turn it on, if you don't remember what level you used last time(or accidently changed the mode) and want low mode: oops! turbo mode! And if you want instant turbomode the risk is that the light puts on at lowest mode and you need to cycle through the modes(the same with multimodes without memory).

Thrunite/Wowtac and Acebeam have direct access to firefly and turbo and memory on the regular modes.
This means that you can always have direct access to turbo and firefly but never accidently. And you can go direct from firefly into the regular modes if you want to be sure you get low instead of mid or high. I really like this user interface!

I know my A2S has memory but when you bump to the next mode after turning off/on it goes to low which is ideal for me. If it was on medium (memorized) and turned off the next "mode" bump is Low. I also like having Turbo a direct mode too that you don't regularly access as I don't use Turbo a lot but when I do need it I need it NOW not 2-3 modes later.

 

[Olumin]

What are the reasons for carrying a high lumen light? With 15 Lumens of output I can see anything I want 90% of the time. Out of the remaining 10%, 9% of the time I do not require more then 50 - 80 Lumens.

Now this is for a carry light, an EDC sized torch. I do not use EDC Lights outside. Almost never. For that I have other, more capable and bigger torches, with better brightness and more throw. I do not carry full sized 18650 lights on a daily basis.

For a carry light, I'd gladly trade brightness for better color temperature and better runtime. Or simply for not having to deal with a complicated interface and many modes. Now I, for a long time, believed myself that for that remaining 1%, I would need a torch that can output 300 or more Lumens, but I have given up on that philosophy. When it comes down to it, a dual-output 15-80 Lumen light is all I need on a daily basis.

 

[greenpondmike]

Well Olumin, I agree with you. I prefer lower lumens myself but I can see how higher lumens can be useful though. High lumens can give a person a since of security though when it comes to dealing with the unknown but also the known human kind. Sometimes you just have to disable someone's night vision if they are trying to hurt you- that's about the best thing you can do to keep yourself from a future lawsuit or even jailtime while trying to protect your own life seeing how the law is on the criminal's side now.
People that work night construction sometimes need bright lights in many different situations. People in the city need higher lumens that are unnecessary in the country.
All lights are fun in the country though, but...sometimes I wonder if I'm going to see something I really don't want to see- something I can't easily unsee.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Well Olumin, I agree with you. I prefer lower lumens myself but I can see how higher lumens can be useful though. High lumens can give a person a since of security though when it comes to dealing with the unknown but also the known human kind. Sometimes you just have to disable someone's night vision if they are trying to hurt you- that's about the best thing you can do to keep yourself from a future lawsuit or even jailtime while trying to protect your own life seeing how the law is on the criminal's side now.
People that work night construction sometimes need bright lights in many different situations. People in the city need higher lumens that are unnecessary in the country.
All lights are fun in the country though, but...sometimes I wonder if I'm going to see something I really don't want to see- something I can't easily unsee.

I work construction not at night but early in the morning and when there is thick clouds and storms it can be very dark and the lights on site can either be non existent or spotty at best leaving areas that are pitch dark surrounded by bright light sources often they are in the way and pointing downwards you need a lot of light because your eyes are shut down. I often have to inspect lines running up near the ceiling and having 300+ lumens on a more floody light makes quick work of it you don't need to constantly focus your light on the lines as everything is lit up in a larger area. Sometimes 5 lumens works, other times it takes 100-200 and on occasion 300-1000 lumens.
Having 2 lights would work in this effort but I prefer to use only a headlamp which mine is not as throwy as some lights and not too floody as some lights so to make up for it I need less and more lumens, less when you need flood in a small area and more when you need focused light in a distant area to make up for less throw.

Essentially in familiar terrain lower lumens may suffice but in unknown terrain with odd lighting you can find a low lumen light neutralized totally when you need it by light pollution.

 

[idleprocess]

Essentially in familiar terrain lower lumens may suffice but in unknown terrain with odd lighting you can find a low lumen light neutralized totally when you need it by light pollution.

For most use cases multimode LED lights have been able to hit both extremes with ease for a decade plus.

 

[lunas]

for me i have a number of lights i could carry but I dont feel the need right now i have 5 on me 2 in my bag a 2x aaa led mag a solar force body with a 1800 lumen cree hp35 led in it my maglight is a loaner and for use when i don't want to turn night into day for less than 3 minutes... solarforce gets HOT pumping out those photons... then the other 3 i have with me are a thor fire TG06s a nitecore tube and a fenix E05 I use the tube or fenix most honestly the two factors that matter to me is which ever is most handy to grab followed by runtime i grab my bright one sometimes but i find myself wishing it did not get so hot.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

For most use cases multimode LED lights have been able to hit both extremes with ease for a decade plus.

I agree that is why I've gone to multimode lights with lows and decent high modes for my "best" and most used lights.