What lumen?

[f22shift]

At what output do you use the most?

i feel sometimes we are looking for the brightest or the most efficient but i think generally even the worst performing circuit offers more than enough runtime for a particular task because a high lumen output is not needed.
maybe an eo1 is all we really need..

thoughts?

 

[Badbeams3]

My eyes are not so good anymore. You know, my grandmother used to tell me to read under bright lights or my eyes would go bad...along with one other thing I should not do. Not sure which one gave me bad eyes...but here I am.

Things are much easier to see under bright lights at this point in my life. So, I think young people can buy 10 lumen lights, and see...and older people like me need 1000 lumen lights to see

 

[Flying Turtle]

Not needing a light for a job and having no dog to walk most of my flashlight use is just around the house. For that I really don't need much. 5 to 10 lumens is usually more than enough. Actually I'm probably using closer to 2-3 most of the time.

Geoff

 

[metlarules]

I think 5-10 lumens is plenty for what I use them for. I'm more concerned with beam shape.reflector design, and tint.

 

[danpass]

5-10 / 40-60 for me. therefore an A2.



there is a "first time camping flashaholic" thread around here somewhere that extols the virtues of dual/multi output lights with a great low end.

 

[PhantomPhoton]

Outdoors while searching, or just walking home at night I use as many as possible. So I'm in the 300+ category for sure. Around the house is a different mater but I use a light outdoors far more tan I do indoors.

 

[Oddjob]

10 to 20 is good for the majority of my uses. I definitely prefer multi-level lights to have options for task specific needs.

 

[foxtrot29]

Anyone who does a lot of camping and other pitch black recreational activities will tell you the lower the better.

For LEO activities, I can tell you that I want at least 60 (Surefire rated) lumens, up to 120... Everyone seems to want brighter and brighter nowadays, but I can still remember when a G2 with the P60 was brighter than almost anything available, and is still one of the most common setups I see in the field (the P60, not necessarily the G2).

There is going to be no vote that stands out amongst the others with this poll, as many people have different ideas about lumen value. (i.e. 60 surefire lumens vs. 200 Chinese lumens). I don't mean this in an offensive manner, but there are serious differences here.

 

[LEDninja]

I just charged up the batteries for my good old standby lights on the kitchen/bathroom counters (1W PR bulbs). They seem awful dim now I have 3 SSC-P7 torches.

 

[elugelab]

My eyes are not so good anymore. You know, my grandmother used to tell me to read under bright lights or my eyes would go bad...along with one other thing I should not do. Not sure which one gave me bad eyes...but here I am.

It's actually just a myth that reading in the dark would make your sight go bad. Read that in a science mag awhile ago. So the cause of your blindness must be the other thing.


Anyway... For me 10-30 lumens inside or when I just need to light the ground to see what I'm stepping on. I prefer 200+ lumens with a good throw, when walking in the forest though.

 

[brighterisbetter]

It's interesting to see how the poll results are panning out, seems to be quite the even distribution of selections.

My collection of lights varies from one end of the spectrum to far exceeding the other end. I've owned everything from .3lm to 3600lm and all in between. The one I use most though is my EDC (Ti PD-S mizer) which I believe falls in the 40-60 category; more than enough light for everday general tasks.

 

[TONY M]

To be honest for most things I use a flashlight for 20 lumens is plenty. An E01 is like the sun with dark adapted eyes - it hurts. A really low low of 0.1 lumens is more than enough at times.

It's actually just a myth that reading in the dark would make your sight go bad. Read that in a science mag awhile ago. So the cause of your blindness must be the other thing.

I was told by my optician that both of the above mentioned myths held no value. :thumbsup:

 

[65535]

I get along fine with a U2 and Novatac 120P.

But I would like a package that delivered .1-500 lumens in one light with a U2 style input.

At night around the house to get a snack or something 1 or less lumens is ideal. When I need to find stuff in the dark 60-100 lumens is what I like. When I'm out side and looking for things I'd like as many as I can get.

 

[D-Dog]

Wow... what a wide variety of responses. I use my EDC the most, either on its lowest setting, which is 5-10 lumens, or the highest, which is close to 200. I have brighter lights and dimmer, however, these are only used when I have an idea of the task I'm faced with.

 

[JimH]

Life begins at 800 lumens

.

Where I walk my dogs I need to cross a street that butts into a much busier cross street. I cross the street only one short block from the cross street. The first you see a car is when he makes the turn and stomps on the gas, and, yes, they usually do stomp the gas after making the turn.

This give me precious little time to maneuver 2 geriatric dogs out of the line of fire. I find that 1000 lumen staring a person in the face from shoulder height to be highly effective in causing them to hit the brakes instead of the gas.

 

[saabgoblin]

5-10, or did I say 10-20 Hmnnn, pretty telling, only because that is what I use to check and see if my car doors are locked ect...ect...ect...but that doesn't really account for throw and other characteristics that could be useful. There are times when I would want/need more so I woulds say 01-100 is good.

 

[Cydonia]

Another 5-10 lumen vote here. With 90% of my light use occurring indoors I like low levels to avoid "eye zapping"
For that rare 10% outside at night use percentage the Mag85 and various modded Mag's come into play :devil:
It is then that one often desires ridiculous lumen ranges...
Funny that the poll tops out at >300.... should be 5000

 

[BlueBeam22]

I voted >300.

I currently use either my AmondoTech Titanium Mega Illuminator or my Peak Performance 5 million candlepower spotlight whenever I am outside at night for any reason. I now EDC my 220 lumen Dorcy CREE XR-E rechargeable, but it still does not see quite as much use as my high power spotlights.

 

[Well-Lit]

I voted 40-60. With a lot of additional usage in the 10-20 range.

Bob

 

[Juggernaut]

If a light is to bright… put sunglasses on. I have some very low level lights:thumbsup:, but when you carry around huge bulky lights you might as well swing it in high gear since you will still end up with good run time. I normally run the 450 rule for any main purpose lights and the majority of them easily falls into this bracket. However with the addiction of newer lights I tend to favor the 600 Lumens+ for at least 1 hour of run time rule:twothumbs. Anything more then this and it seems like my eyes auto dim and I don't see it's full potential:sigh: "except in the area of throw:naughty:". That's just how I roll. I'm surprised with the diversity listed here:huh:, I happy everyone's honest about what they use.

Not used often is colored: blue and sometimes used is this color.

450 -599

Ray-O-Vac Quasar = 450-475
MCX-EDC = 400-500
Super Ray-O-Vac lantern = 550

600+

Bigbeam 1000 Ultra Mod = 645
M90X 18650 EO-13 = 700-725
EDC-P7 = 700-800
Bigbeam 1766 C Power House = 4,200-4,600:devil:
The 1,000 Watt GE = "under driven:shakehead" 8,000-12,000