How Low Low-mode do you like? What do you use it for?

As I've said many times, I don't have many flashlights. My lowest mode is the 2.5 lumens of the Olight i3. I find it pretty good for using at night when your vision's got accustomed to the darkness. However, I can't imagine how much lower mode can be convenient....

I've been thinking of the new Olight i3s and its mode of 0.5 lumens. Can this thing be useful at all? (no offense meant, I just really cannot imagine it). I'd also highly appreciate if you have some pictures of lower than 2.5lumens beam shots which you can link here.

I like low, but still I'd like enough light to light up the whole room. While many guys here say they like reeeealllly low low.

What for do you use your realllly low lows? Walking around the house at night?

I've been using the lowest red mode on my Streamlight Night Com lately for navigating around the house at night. With night adjusted vision, it is plenty bright for that task, despite being less than 0.05 lumens of red light.

I was always critical of moonlight modes in the past, calling them useless and a waste of space in the UI. But I was soooo wrong! I've been using my H51 more and more sitting on the nightstand lately.

This morning I woke up and hit the switch...it was a bit bright so I stepped it down only to find I was ALREADY in the lowest mode (0.2lm). Crazy!

Hm................. you, guys, are tempting me more and more to go for this new Olight i3S...... 0.2 lumens you call BRIGHT?! hm... lol. But since right now when I'd been in the dark for some time, I turned on 2.5 lumens and the reflected off the bed light hurt my eyes, may be you're right.... :thinking:

markr6 said:

I was always critical of moonlight modes in the past, calling them useless and a waste of space in the UI. But I was soooo wrong! I've been using my H51 more and more sitting on the nightstand lately.

This morning I woke up and hit the switch...it was a bit bright so I stepped it down only to find I was ALREADY in the lowest mode (0.2lm). Crazy!

Click to expand...

Yep, been there.

I like my IFE2 as it goes all the way down to 0.03 lumens and has a continuously variable ring. I won't say I actual use 0.03 lumen, although it is still just enough to prevent a toe from kissing the door frame, but not much more. I'd say a good low low would be between 0.06 and 0.1. I can't be more precise as I don't own a flashlight that has a mode that is pre-set around there, but 0.2 lumens is still bright enough to navigate an easy trail even with the moon out and I want less than that for midnight bathroom trips.

I have found that around 0.1 lm works great navigating around the house with dark adapted eyes. I used to get out of bed every couple of days, or so, to check on my kids when they were babies. I learned that .1 lm was plenty bright enough to avoid stepping on Lego pieces or other painful toys, yet not bright enough to wake them up or hurt my eyes.

Another fan of super moon modes here. As long as it's less than 1.0 lumens I'm ok with it, but the lower the better for dark adjusted eyes. I use low modes when I need to look at something on the nightstand in the middle of the night or navigate my way down the hallway and don't want to blow my rods and cones out. These days I really like the .18 lumen output from a Zebralight SC51w. The neutral tint is somehow even easier on the eyes than a cool white at the same level. In fact the SC51w has become my favorite "around the house" indoor light lately in part because of its small size, versatility and tint. It is amazing how little light we really need to see clearly in the dark once one's eyes adjust.

im a super lover of the low lumens.
just used a PD32 G2 at 5 Lumens, but that ain't really low as it could be lower, much lower. ZL is brilliant at the Low modes.

I'm another fan of sub-lumen modes.

This is one of the big factors in my selection of a EDC light and the reason why the HDS Clicky remains king in my rotation of EDC lights.
One of the many things I've learned in my years of browsing CPF is that when there are a lot of people raving about a feature in a light there must be some merit to it.
The 4Sevens Quark was my first low-low light back in 2009 and people were very positive about it at the time and I certainly took a liking to it as well.
There was a long thread on this topic not too long ago and also a poll in which many CPFers participated in. Not scientific, certainly, but still an interesting poll to gauge the relative interest in this feature.

A longtime fan of low and lower here, my dilema used to be beam shape. .01 lumen can be a lot if it's super focused, or not enough if too diffused. Zebralight sc52 on it's lowest level is my current go-to for getting ready for work and midnight house runs. Great beam shape as well...

I use my super low for navigating about the house at night, not wanting to disturb anyone else or my night vision (making it easier to fall back to sleep). The brightness level will vary depending upon how much ambient light from outside is coming in. On a very bright moonlit night, I'd ramp it up a little and on a really dark night I'd take it down a notch or two. This is why I really like having a NovaTac 120P as a bedside light (aside from the easy CR123 form factor).

I also find the lowest lumens can be used for a little close-up reading, with night adjusted eyes.

I like the ti p0 for a bedside low-low light. Got ~0,2 lumens but have a mutch wider beam than normal reflectored light. The wider beam and the lack of hotspot, makes it way better on my night adapted eyes. I think lo modes like this should be messured in lux also. Because its the consentration of light, lux, that will make or break your night vision.
The 0.2 lumen lo mode on my quark turbo hurts my eyes like ¤#% if i use it as a bedside light.. Those 0.2 lumens are way too consentrated to be comfy on my eyes.

Getting up in the middle of the night for a bathroom trip in my travel trailer, the lowest setting on my SC51 is perfect. I don't want or need more light.

I'm a huge fan of efficient sub-lumen levels, low single digit modes, and using night vision. I think ~80% of my lights and ~50% of my total runtime are/is sub-lumen. There are many reasons why, but the top two are that I really enjoy being able see well the other 280-degrees outside of my light's beam, and I just love the massive runtime you can get from small single cell pocket-EDC lights.

0.10 lumens (Thrunite firefly) is as low as I care to go, being fine for home navigation, but a "brightish" 0.3 lumens from a Quark AAX or 2012 D25A Clicky really hits the sweet spot for me being much more comfortable for reading, close task work with my hands, and even bright enough to be usable without dark-adapted eyes. For me, it hits the right balance of crazy long runtime (200hrs/AA), dim enough not to blow my night vision, and bright enough to become my normal "low" mode - eg, 0.3/3/20 lumens are my typical L/M/H modes for camping with dark adapted eyes. However, it is admittedly painfully bright if used when you first wake up.

My Zebralight moonlight modes were disappointing for me. Although the brightness was fine on my 1st gen H51w (spec 0.18, metered 0.25), it used such a slow frequency PWM, any movement in front of the beam drove me nuts. I was really looking forward to the 0.34 lumen spec of the SC52, but I metered it to actually be ~0.08 lumens - dimmer than my Thrunite firefly. Course the other sub-lumen modes were even lower, and so were useless to me. ZL makes some nice lights, but I'm not a fan of the company's policies anyway, and so try to stay away from them.

Lastly, I like floody XML emitters and neutral white tints served up with my moonlight moods.

Ironically, the lowest low I have on a light is my Zebralight S6330 on the lowest programmable low mode. It's MUCH lower than the lowest low on my SC600w and definitely lower than the lowest low on my SC51w. Runtime of one year and it is still enough light to navigate to the bathroom at night with. It's that accidental quick press while half asleep that causes problems with that light and my dark adjusted eyes. That's about as low as I could stand going, any lower and it would be unusable.

On an XP-G emitter, the .09 lumens is bright enough for me. On an XM-L, a little higher without going over .5 seems about right. Once your eyes are night adjusted, it's amazing how useful a sub-lumen mode can be.

Cheers

The Preon 0 puts out a very nice looking .2 lm beam. Useful for the middle of the night.

I use the 2.7 and the 0.06 lumen settings on my sc52 mainly around the house at night. The 2.7 is more than enough to light the whole room and the 0.06 is good for a few feet distance.

Less than 1 lumen for night adjusted eyes for me,,,Robert

I love my little L3 L10 nichia light. It has quickly grown to a favorite spot, and now I'm looking at getting some more lights with really low lows and the beautiful nichia tint. Even the l10 is a little bright for just waking up in a pitch black room.

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