How Many Lumens I Want from a Headlamp

It turns out I'm not that greedy.

After much experimentation with multiple headlamps (often simultaneously), I think Ive arrived at the ideal amount of illumination (...for me, personal preference of course...) from a headlamp, for use while working with my hands in dark places. By which I mean illumination from 2 feet to 6 feet from my face (no, my arms are not 6 feet long, but sometimes my tools are).

That lumen number should be at least 30. Give me 30 floody lumens and I'm pretty darned happy working in dark cramped spaces. A little more is nice, of course, but I really have no complaints if I can get 30.

If the lumens get as high as 80, that can start to be too much in cramped quarters. And no need to be constricting one's pupils unnecessarily, when working in the dark.

To get my 30 lumens I'm using TWO Zebralight H501s at medium level.

What I find odd is that this sweet spot of light (say 30, 40, or 50 lumens) is often not in the range of many headlamps...they tend to either go lower or higher. (One reason Im considering a Saint with its infinite variability, despite its artifactual off-tint beam.)

As a working stiff, I would find a setting of 30-40 lumens, with a runtime of about 5 hours, to be ideal. Why 5 hours? It's about how long you can work without needing a break.

But finding full flood lights that give you 30-40 for 5 is somewhat rare, it seems to be an interval that's often skipped.

How about you? How many lumens do you need from your headlamp?

This is a great question. I can tell you this, I use my headlamp for night trail running. It happens to be a H51 so I know it's putting out 200 lumens on high. When I go for longish runs, it drops itself down to medium (1) which is 30 lumens. When that happens, even after my eyes adjust, I still find myself running slower. I have to be very deliberate about where I put my feet. It's just not enough light to charge into the darkness. That said, the 200 lumen high is probably not necessary. So my answer is probably somewhere between 100 and 150 lumens for running confidently in the dark.

I must be getting old. When I'm working (carpenter/ cabinet maker) in dim lighting and need to see detail, my petzl myo rxp (claimed 140 lumens on high) is great.

For trail running in the dark, it's not bad, though I've been yearning for more light. So I'm about to build something with 2 x triple cree xp-g emitters at 750mA. They'll be separately switched, and one will be somewhat floody and the other will be somewhat throw-y. Depending on how the batteries get rigged, that should be 800 lumens (claimed -- actual will be a bit lower) on max. Or at least that's the plan. (Watch this space in a few months.)

I guess 30 is enough for hands free work but for walking I'd like 70 (ptezl duo) or more. Turns out 50-70 is sufficient for safe caving but for more comfortable caving more light is desired. I to am planning a headlamp with one mc-e for flood and one mc-e for spot.

If we're talking flood I would say about 30-40 lumens for comfortable working in a confined space and 50-70 for comfortable walking, possibly up to 100 depending on the darkness of the surface around me. This is from a caving perspective.

If we're talking commercial headlamps that nail the working in dark, confined spaces niche that the OP is looking to fill, the Princeton Tec Corona instantly comes to mind. Durable, super long runtimes, and a great, soft flood. I'm really not sure what all the different modes equate to in terms of lumens but the 90 lumen max makes me think that one of them will hit the OP's sweet spot.

If I'm hiking I used to want all 50 lumens from my PT EOS. If I'm working in tight and its really dark, the 20 lumens from my Zebra H30 is good. With my Saint Minimus its kind of hard to tell, I just dial it up until I'm happy with the view. Sometimes I'm suprised at how few lumens are required. I find I'm under the 10 detent a lot. The only task the Saint looses out on is reading, the Zebra with 5 lumens of pure flood is still the best.

the Light i get from my petzl duo 14 is more than enough for general caving,
but if it comes to shining my light to a far opposite wall or roof of a cave, i find that the halogen lamp on the duo is highly unsatisfying and i will take all the lumens i can get!! im thinking in the line of 900 lumens. infact, as we speak im busy modifying my duo to do exactly that :naughty:

900lumens for a Duo does seem a bit optimistic, unless you're planning very short duration.
There's also fairly limited space when it comes to optics.

I find as I get older my lights seem to get dimmer? and I like to have over 100 lumens for any moving activity - running, hiking etc... For work in a small dark space 30 should be more than enough, but if I am moving from light to shadowed work areas alternately, I want 50 or above.

I like 10-80 for work(electrician). When night riding(snowboarding) I'll take all I can get!

I will throw my 2 cents in. Painting, drywalling, inside and out (up on 32 foot ladder).

Reading to kids or just trying not to bump into walls, a few lumens. Folding laundry in basement, I like flood. But painting, I need 10 hours, tight beam, and minimum 30 at arm length. Yes, 30 seems to be lower end of usefulness. Going from 40 lumen lux 1 to 80 lumen floodier cree is often a down grade in detail vision, unless they put in very good optics, which seldom happens. Assuming equivalent optics to the Luxeons, the next big step up is at 160 lumens. Naturally, jumping from 4 feet to 8 foot (checking over paint work) you now need 4x light; so you would need 160 lumens. So, a dual head with at least 6 AA or belt is often really needed for serious painting. I also highly recommend wrist light (another 100 lumens) for profile texture illumination, anti tripping, seeing low stuff on walls better (inverse square) and backup if your head lamp falls off. Some 40 hour rear facing ankle light could save your life if your start tripping backwards on unknown ground in dark (you will not be able to quickly enough, or effectively enough, use headlamp or wristlight in this situation.) I also note that things 12 foot+ distant walls+) really light up at 250 lumens.

Still you have tunnel vision to a good degree. The next day you may have totally skip free siding (better than daylight since you control temperture, intensity,and angle), except a 4x4 area somewhere may be super obviously forgotten. Halogen base lighting is easy, but lux is dozens of times less than headlamps, both indoors and out (do math or experiments.) Outside, fixed lighting, unlike headlamps, encourages bugs if too intense (bugs are not good for painting.) And out door night painting, this will work better on commercial jobs (racing incoming rain fronts), late fall jobs, and when customer is not around. The customer psychological implications are probably analogous to wearing glasses that give you super human vision: they may use those glasses (because they don't understand true benefits) as excuse to not pay you, if money is tight, just want a free extra coat, or they are insane. So, to impress them and let them know what the goofy light you use are for, some floody burst mode could also have great psychological, sales benefit.

Now color rendering is important, but upping lumens can help over come this. (As lumens drop they eye goes color blind, and does other tricks to help you see in near dark situations. The converse is bright, cloud free outside painting outside will make you go blind to skips too.) I also feel better about a broad spectrum mixing of brands of leds, since my test show me all my leds can be blind to a few colors. Also, I can walk into my bathroom with 1 or 2 lumens of red and quickly see the former owners skips (orange showing through blue), that is invisible in day light. Another phenomena to note, is that often without base lighting or flood your detail vision gets more accute, less pupil constriction from polluting light.

Now, I always make all my guys close their eyes with eye on upper left part of wall, stand back 10 foot from wall, and I put a small pencil mark (or wet paint dot) on the wall. All won't see the mark until their eye gets right on top of mark (say 6-9 inches from mark max). Without this experiment they all think they can glance at a wall and see minor skips. You cannot, you need small eye jumps across wall, unless you are a savant. I suppose I could just drop a screw on the ground and make them find it, as the experiment. This also reinforces the need for lux/throw over flood, for detail work. Also as batteries sag, so does lux.

Informative post, degarb.

OP, there is a flaw in your logic; a 30 lumen light with a one foot wide hotspot has the same perceived intensity as a 60 lumen light with a two foot wide hotspot (or even 300 lumen light with a ten foot wide hotspot). The only real difference is how much of your world is dark and how much of it is lit.

I recently built a very floody light with gobs of output that is quite handy. While I agree that lumens provide a handy reference point, they are not the end all be all that we sometimes make them out to be.

P220C said:

OP, there is a flaw in your logic; a 30 lumen light with a one foot wide hotspot has the same perceived intensity as a 60 lumen light with a two foot wide hotspot (or even 300 lumen light with a ten foot wide hotspot). The only real difference is how much of your world is dark and how much of it is lit.

I recently built a very floody light with gobs of output that is quite handy. While I agree that lumens provide a handy reference point, they are not the end all be all that we sometimes make them out to be.

Click to expand...

I wholly agree with your conclusion. However, your math is conservative. Area is pie R squared. So, if your radius doubles you have pie 2R squared dillution of the light. Thus, I would like to point out, is doesn't take that much to lower the lux.

I might as well add before other do, that many here hold that following a bouncing ball of light around when jogging is not good (a plus for flood on this task). Also, I might too appreciate peripheral vision when hiking through woods (don't need detail just terrain map). But, you still need good throw to catch a glimpse of Big Foot.

P220C said:

OP, there is a flaw in your logic; a 30 lumen light with a one foot wide hotspot has the same perceived intensity as a 60 lumen light with a two foot wide hotspot.

Click to expand...

13th respondent: Yes, yes, lumen count and area of coverage are associated. Specifying lumens is a commonly employed shorthand. I could have specified 30 lumens and a wide floody beam of 80 degrees, but that's implied when I referenced the H501 in my first post.

Amazingly, most people understood the topic of discussion and responded without confusion.

Most advertisements for lights (such as this Spark ad, for example) refer to lumen count without referencing beam diameter or angle of beam...so you should probably start contacting all of these manufacturers about their flaws of logic, too.

Your conclusion that lumen is not the "be all end all," is precisely the point of my OP.

I am sorry if you took offense to my post. It was not my intention to be confrontational; I was just trying to enter the conversation.

For the cramped work space, you are spot on: a floody beam at 30 lumens is just about right.

I have setup my wide beam headlamp with 5 settings; I use the 5 lumens for reading, 30 to 100 for tasks, and 200 for walking, and 400 lumens for jogging.

I have tried jogging with a 120 lumen Apex Pro that has a fairy tight hotspot, but the 'bouncing orb' as a previous poster put it is annoying.

Jogging with 200 lumens is comfortable on pavement, but 400 is my bare minimum for running (8 minute mile pace) on a trail.

No offense taken. Your custom headlamp sounds wonderful! Also sounds great for bike riding.

My experience with headlamp output is different from what appears to be a consensus opinon among the members posting in this thread. A fair amount of my hiking in both eastern woodlands and the Sierra Nevada (my preferred playground) is at night. Off-trail route-finding at night demands good illumination if one wishes to avoid becoming a statistic. My current go-to light in this regard is the Fenix HP10 (advertised as producing 225 emitter lumens). The HP10 uses an XP-E emitter, which produces a relatively tight hotspot, with sufficient spillbeam to see the surrounding area and avoid hazards. Color rendition is reasonable inside the hotspot, with the emitter generating light at about 5700K (an approximation of the color temperature, based on comparison with other lights whose color temperatures are known). I use this model Fenix as a compromise between cost and performance. Nevertheless, a warmer temperature emitter would perform even better in my customary environments, and now that the Spark brand of headlamps is getting the bugs worked out of the first generation of lights, it may be time to acquire one of the higher output second generation XM-L models, with a neutral white emitter if one becomes available.

Bottom line is, for my purposes, a more powerful, medium flood headlamp is better, and the XM-L versions driven at higher current draws may just be my next purchase.