What's Your Go To Lumen Range... or.. What If Your Light Could Have Only 1 Setting

Took me a while to figure out what range I like the best for most of my usage but if I had to pick one setting that is my most frequent go to it would be between 300-400 lumens.


I'm picking between 300-400 lumen because I have 4 lights that all have a different settings somewhere between 300-400 and that is the one I use most on each of those lights.

I think I use low output much much more than I ever needed high output. Most of the time I am comfortable with lesser than 50 lumen. In fact 10 to 20 lumen is about what I use on a daily basis, anything in the range of 400 to 500 lumen is for the sole purpose of either throw, or showing off in my opinion. Just can't imagine how I am going to read my notes or rummage through things in my drawer with 400 lumen and not blind myself. How did you manage that?

My go-to single level light is my C2 with a Malkoff M61W. (~230 lm). This combination is my general purpose around-the-house light, and is perfect for late-night dog walks. In fact, if I could only have ONE light for the rest of my life, this would be it.

Indoors I use the low ranges more but I need light more often outdoors than indoors which is why I chose 300-400.

The lower settings dont light up my surroundings enough outside and the really high settings (anything over 500 lumen) tend to be overkill.

I just find 300-400 to be my sweet spot.

30 lumens

Well even for outdoors my preferred lumen is still within the 50 lumen ranges for walks. Anything brighter than that causes me to get tunnel vision when my iris closes. This way I preserve my night vision much better than when blasting my light all the way. As and when I need to see further I just do short bursts at 400 to 500 lumen and I can see much further because my irises are not as contracted due to less overall light output. Give it a try, you may find that not only does it work like I said, you conserve battery consumption tremendously. This apply to dark areas without light pollution. In urban areas with street lamps and plenty of light pollution even 200 to 300 lumen may not even be enough. It depends on where you are really.

When i first saw the thread i thought of the greatest amount of lumens i would need & i thought about 270 lumen would be great.Then i thought
for most of the time i don't use anywhere near that amount,so i've settled on 120 lumen thats easily high enough & low enough for most of my
tasks .

davyro said:

When i first saw the thread i thought of the greatest amount of lumens i would need & i thought about 270 lumen would be great.Then i thought
for most of the time i don't use anywhere near that amount,so i've settled on 120 lumen thats easily high enough & low enough for most of my
tasks .

Click to expand...

Agreed. Since the OP asks for single lumen setting, I will have to settle for 100 lumen as a compromise for use between close and longer range usage.

The lumens output of the E1L or the E1B hotspot, whatever it maybe.

The 60 lumens on my Fenix TK10 on low seems to me a good general purpose amount of light

I'd say around 100 would be a good compromise. Could navigate inside the house during a power outage, change a tire on the car or check out a suspicious noise. Any more would be too much inside, any less would be not enough outside. A Surefire L2, floody as it is, is still enough on high at 100 lumens to be useful.

For me a single mode allround light should provide at least 3-5 hours stable output, even with alkalines. The answer of lumens therefore to such a degree depends on the battery configuration. But 60-100lm is enough for the most tasks.

If I had one setting, it would be 200 lumens with a little more throw than flood. I figure more light than what you need is better than not having enough.

Good topic here, on my ranch I usually carry 2 lights, 1 on max about 800-850 lumens the other set about 200, it works great for me..

30 lumens up close indoors, 100 lumens indoors in the dark and around people to illuminate something..., when the power is out I like 500 lumens in ceiling bounce to light up the room nicely-very nicely but 500 lumens is bright enough that grandma can see to maneuver the walker and not trip and everyone can read etc. Outdoors at night I like 500 lumens as well but my 500 lumens are coming from an XM-L so it's floody.

I can get by with less but I'm the only flashaholic in my social circle, as such my light is the groups light so it works better if my light can fully illuminate the path down the greenbelt to a friends house for 3-4 of us walking side by side. Now if I could afford a VanIsleDSM cranking out 1600 lumens without months or years of flack from the missus- I'd probably be saying that I need at least a 1,500 lumens but I have never used one so I dunno but I do know as a dyed in the wool flashaholic I'd probably love it -put on sunglasses if I had to.

varmint said:

Good topic here, on my ranch I usually carry 2 lights, 1 on max about 800-850 lumens the other set about 200, it works great for me..

Click to expand...

That max 800-850 wouldn't be that TN11 by any chance:thumbsup:

+

Why limit yourself to one output?

...remember the saying "right tool for the job"

.02 lm doesn't do any good when your checking something outside
during a big storm.

I do like an XM-L in smooth reflector @ approx. 1.5A....very useful illumination!

Hypothetically speaking, if I could only have one setting, then I guess it would be the highest that I'd normally use but wouldn't completely blind me up close, which is about 80 lumens (60-100 being a good range). As for my actual go-to lumen range in real life, I most often use 2-3. That's because I usually use my flashlight either in the dark or up close. Around 30 lumens is another level that I use a lot.

I'd like a LED 5000lumen flashlight! That's why I bought the 5xCree XM-L Trustfire TR-J12 buts nowhere near that more like 3000 . Don't want or like HID either.

i couldn't choose a one level light because sometimes i need a lot of light to find something outside so going with a general purpose 80 lumen torch wouldn't be enough in certain situations.