Have you lost some of your love of Floody lights?

Now don't get me wrong. I still like my floody lights for what they can do. But I find myself reaching for my Surefire LX2 LUMAMAX more often than one of my floody XM-L flashlights, and I have many models to choose from. In fact, I am now using my Surefires or an XPG R5 led flashlight more these days. My only exception is when I need alot of lumens, then I pick my Fenix TK35. What about you? lovecpf

The only floody light I own is my Surefire Minimus for close up work. For flashlights I want throw.

Not for me. I use my lights mostly for work and really need and prefer a floody beam. Having become so used to this type of light, even off duty, it's become my preference. I am sure other folks who use thier lights for other purposes my have drifted the other way. I guess a true flashaholic would have a nice mix in their collection? One of my favorite lights is my Nitecore TM11 which happens to be the brightest of the lights I own. It's pretty floody but because it's so darn bright has decent throw as well.

I still believe that my C2 with M61w is still the ideal mix of throw and flood. I rarely reach for anything else unless I truly need ALL flood, or ALL throw - which is rare in my requirements.

Nope..love the floody lights...I can see more at a time with them, and, they have the horsepower to have enough range anyway most of the time. In the old days, you needed a throwy light to see things 100 yards away, a floody light couldn't see that far...

...now, small floody lights can see a few hundred yards.

If you are still crippled with a 100-200 lumen light, and need to see 100 yards, sure, you NEED it to be a thrower to make it out that far.

If you are equipped with a modern floody beam, you can see more of what's out there, w/o being tied to a narrow beam profile.

As my needs DO include some stuff out past 400 yards, etc...sure, I need the beam profiles to resort to throw over flood again to be ABLE to reach that far...so, for those scenarios, I do use throwy lights to hit things at 600 yards, etc.

Floody lights rule inside the house..! Outside I want a thrower!

I'm an urban dweller and I find floody lights have a hard time competing with ambient light when I'm out and about. My ZL SC600 is stunning indoors, outside...not so much! Don't get me wrong, it's an amazing light but thirty or so yards out I find all those dispersed lumens kind of get "lost". I can't comment on what it's like outside when no other light sources are present, although I would love to see that! For me a light with punch is a must.
Inside is a different story, floods rule! especially for hands on work. Now if I had to choose one over the other it would be a "thrower". You can always use a diffuser!

I found since I use my lights when I work it depends on the property or site I'm on so I presently have a nice collection of profiles that'll work wherever the dogs and I find myself. However, none are floods, except for my T1A. It's not that I don't like them, it doesn't work for my present application/s and life style.

If I were to purchase a flood again, it would be (if they still make it when I do) a Jetbeam RRT-21 and another one of Jason's Alpha A, but this time around with a cool temp MCE.

No, I use my lights for work, not play. For my uses, floody lights are best for probably 90-95% of use.

My .02 FWIW YMMV

Depends on what the conditions call for. Outside in open areas - my p60 XM-Ls are perfect for situational awareness of everything I can see to 100 yds or more. Beyond that I switch to throwers.

coincidentally i've lost my taste for flood, as well, quite recently.

For some reason, nothing brings a smile to my face like the light saber effect of a strong thrower. Flood definitely has it's uses though.

All beam patterns have uses. For fun, I like a thrower...i mean, its like a giant laser pointer.



For work, I use MOSTLY floods, but there are exceptions depending, again, on what I'm trying to see.

Up All Night said:

I'm an urban dweller and I find floody lights have a hard time competing with ambient light when I'm out and about. My ZL SC600 is stunning indoors, outside...not so much! Don't get me wrong, it's an amazing light but thirty or so yards out I find all those dispersed lumens kind of get "lost". I can't comment on what it's like outside when no other light sources are present, although I would love to see that! For me a light with punch is a must.
Inside is a different story, floods rule! especially for hands on work. Now if I had to choose one over the other it would be a "thrower". You can always use a diffuser!

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Well put

Xtremespeed said:

For some reason, nothing brings a smile to my face like the light saber effect of a strong thrower. Flood definitely has it's uses though.

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For me, nothing brings a smile to my face like 3000+ lumens of flood, lighting up everything in front of me

For most tasks I prefer flood. Even walking through the woods, I generally only need to see right in front of me, though I will usually have a more powerful thrower with me. Other than just playing around, there isn't a lot of situations where I genuinely need to see very far in front of me.

I've used a thrower in my neighborhood when there was a prowler, and I've used it a couple times in the woods to look at various wildlife. That's about it as far as 'need'.

Lost the love? no. Lost the light? yes :mecry:

Use an SST-90 and get both flood and throw. Most of them are a bit large to put in your pocket of course.

I love floody lights more than ever.

I see this surge of love for throwers lately. Seems like a fad honestly, and that most people just want them for fun/showing off. In most applications a mid range thrower/decent flooder is far more useful than pencil beams.

I remember when I first joined the forum and it was the pre XP-G era (the XR-E was THE beef). I bought a couple of less expensive XR-E lights and thought, what's the big deal? I can see a bright spot the size of a dime way over yonder, but anything in between me and that spot is dark. I picked up a Nailbender SST-50 in a 26 mm reflector and everything changed I thought, now we're talking, this is a flashlight.

Not much has changed since then in terms of my preferred beam shape. The XM-L being more efficient and having a larger die size (than previos CREE emitters) has been awesome. I love that some manufacturers are finally putting the XM-L in small AA lights too. Some would consider this an error but it depends on what you want.

To me I look at a light like the Zebralight SC600 in terms of the beam profile and I think the beam is absolutely perfect. I wouldn't change a thing. It won't prevent me from buying another light but that's a different problem. So I guess I am still lovin' the flood. For my needs the SC600 still has plenty of reach despite being considered floody.

All that said I find that the XP-G triples and quads are too floody for my liking, so there is a limit. I do like a little more focus than that.