On average, how many Lumens meets your needs?

Ok, I was curious how many lumens is considered enough for most people for MOST situations.

Keep in mind, sometimes you want less light. If you are camping and need to pee in the middle of the night, do you really want to blind yourself with something too bright? Those EMT guys use dimmer lights to check your eyes for a reason.

Other times, having a little more light is better than having too little.


Use the force and choose wisely. Fortunately, for this poll there is no need for "A true Flashaholic would never ask that question. Let's get him!" option.

Hello Tron,

When I grab a light to use, I generally want to illuminate the object that I am looking at so I can identify what it is. I have found that I can do a pretty good job of identification if the object is illuminated by 1 lux, or more.

I would say that I need enough lumens to produce 1 lux of illumination at the object I am trying to see. :nana:

Tom

SilverFox said:

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I would say that I need enough lumens to produce 1 lux of illumination at the object I am trying to see. :nana:

Tom

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1 lux is equal to one candle. I will admit, that is quite a bit of light. But as of this writing, only one person other than myself needs 120 lumens. I figure with my variable lighting, that Nuwai is all I need for most occasions.

So far most people are selecting QIII and below. And you people call yourselves Flashaholics. For shame!

sorry but it depends on your operating range. :bump: but i voted 120 too.



ex: 65 lux is too bright in a tent/car but alright for crawling around tunnels!

Outdoors, 100 lumen incandescents seem to be the sweet spot for me. I only use more if I trying to spot something a looong ways away. For most everyday stuff, under 15 lumens is usually enough.

For most situations, taking into consideration distance, etc., anywhere from 20 to 30 lumens is ideal for me.

My use seems to revolve around three light levels.
-About 1 Lumens (night-adaped eyes in a tent)
-About 15-20 Lumens (Close to medium tasks and long battery duration on walks)
-About 80-100 Lumens (Distance "look around" use, almost always short duration)

Since I've gone to multi-level lights (Night-Ops Gladius and HDS EDC 60 Basic) my other lights really don't get that much use excepting the rechargable Inova T4 that I use for evening walks.

Fenix L1P is my EDC and it's enough for most situations

Well let's see......since I don't use candles or flares for lights, I really don't have ANY idea, nor do I care, what the lumen output of my lights are. All of my lights use lens' or reflectors to create a focused beam of light (some beams wider than others). All of my lights have been measured in Fc@1ft or LUX @1M. I have found that lights with bright spots in the range of 400 Fc@1ft to 2400 Fc@1Ft suit most of my needs. I have some lights that are less than 100 Fc@1ft and all the way up to a 10 Million Candlepower THOR.

I'm not sure how accurate the lumen ratings are vs the light examples you gave are... I mean, the Fenix is about ~25 lumens and the Q3 isn't twice as bright...

Either way, I voted for the Fenix class. I have four lights that I primarily use: a Minimag clone with a single sanded Snow29 5mm LED (8 lumens is my guess), a Fenix L1P (25 lumens), a TW0K-modified BOG module on 2 R123 cells (50-60 lumens) and a UW0K on a variable output nFlex in a Mag 2C that I'd peg at 110 lumens on the max setting. These are all either very honest guesses or actual measurements of examples of the same light.

For indoor use, the Snow29 5mm LED does everything I really need though it's nice to have brighter lights around. And even outdoors, the Fenix almost always gets the job done. My father in law is expanding his 'cabin' (for the third time ) and I get to use lights outdoors in very dark situations quite often. Looking around the work area or looking for something on the ground from the 3rd story roof is usually possible with the Fenix.

Really, in my not very limited experience, anything in the over 60 lumen range is really probably most needed for looking for animals eyes in the distance or looking for dark items against a dark background. Or for impressing ourselves or our budding flashaholic friends that tolerate our endless waxings on why one light is better than another. To hear some guys tell it, we all need 100 lumens to find a dime we dropped on the kitchen floor. I guess I consider myself a more balanced (or moderate, if you will) flashlight junkie. I like having the right tool for the task at hand, but I would rather have 10 lumens for finding something on the floor than 100 lumens.

Don't get me wrong though... my latest toy is a Mag74 in the 700-800 lumen range and it's pretty cool watching that beam reach out on a foggy or humid night.

cratz2 said:

I'm not sure how accurate the lumen ratings are vs the light examples you gave are... I mean, the Fenix is about ~25 lumens and the Q3 isn't twice as bright....

... I guess I consider myself a more balanced (or moderate, if you will) flashlight junkie. I like having the right tool for the task at hand, but I would rather have 10 lumens for finding something on the floor than 100 lumens.

Don't get me wrong though... my latest toy is a Mag74 in the 700-800 lumen range and it's pretty cool watching that beam reach out on a foggy or humid night.

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I used "factory" numbers as best I could determine. The new Fenix L1P is 46 lumens. 25 lumens is right on target with a 3 D-cell maglite. Considering you get 46 lumens from 1 AA battery in the L1P that is truly amazing.

I do know the 2 D-Cell, and 3 D-Cell numbers to be accurate. I expect people to mentally gage the light from there. Believe me, some of you are really mental.

I am somewhat of the moderate myself, but I find unless the light is hurting my eyes or causing a blinding reflection, MORE light is better. As I indicated before, a multi-level Nuwai light is great for most occasions.

Mag74 with 700 lumens?! Where do I find one? :devil:

Any of the following takes care of me; E1e, E2O, or L2 on low.

I own multi-level lights, but I must have instant on or off. I don't like to fiddle with a selector. I need a pocketable long throw flashlight with a bright white hot-spot that doesn't dim, and also provides long battery life. The only currently available candidate is a KL3 module equipped Surefire....30.7 lumens.

I voted 60-75 lumens,
Have a Fenix L1P but prefer the higher light output from my EDC Mediterranean 2AA light so I bumped it up to Surefire territory. The 170 lumen WX1S LuxeonV variable output nFlex 8AA Mag gives me enough for a throw monster.
Still want one of those quad SWAH Luxeon K2 400+ lumen three output twist head BAM Mag mod heads for 2006 though... give me a wall of light to go with my throw monster.

tron3 said:

Mag74 with 700 lumens?! Where do I find one? :devil:

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Have a look over in the incandescent and custom and mod forums... There are an endless variety of modded Mags you can put together relatively easily for about $80-$100 that will give you between 300 and 1200 lumens. And if those aren't bright enough, look into the UCL.

Don't expect long runtimes on the brighter lights though.

At 24 lumens, I'm a the low end but is this accurate? I'm guessing my L1P & Q3 are between 20 & 30 lu and I've upped my HDS factory settings from 10 lu to about 20 lu for "primary". This is the amount of light I need about 50% of the time. Aprox another 25% is at about 3 - 5 lu & the last 25% at at 60 - 100 lu. Once in a blue moon a multi-million cp spot light or HID are needed.

My Fenix, Q3, HDS on primary, Arc LS, & E1L provide the right amount of light for most tasks much of the time. I question the lumen ratings assigned to those lights in the poll.

Until my tigerlight gets delivered - or I get a good deal on a used HDS... I'm stuck with a 2AA light from the dollar store. I'm ashamed to confess that I'm currently not even close to the 2D level...

On average and meeting my needs? Well I actually use my lights most of the time at night although on ocassion in ambient light of significant levels. More often than not, the light I use is putting out 2 lumens.

Your poll precludes anyone with a key ring size light from having a selection?!?! :shrug:

+/- 40 lumens seems to work for most situations, and usually I don't want any more then that. Occasionally I may want to see something along ways away or really light the hell out of something, but those times aren't as frequent.

20-30 lumens for my stuffs out to about 15 feet. The HDS allows adjustements to suit. Only I wish I had the 85+ for the outdoor spotting beyond 30 feet.