SilverFox
Flashaholic
First the disclaimers
All of the observations listed are strictly subjective. The reviews and comments came from "less than professional" sources. Please be advised that Your Mileage May Vary, and sometimes by quite a bit. With that said, this is the way we saw it.
This last weekend we took a group of Scouts on a camp out (15 Scouts and 5 parents). It was cold and we had rain, freezing rain, and snow. Temperatures ranged from 25 F to 34 F. There was no wind.
I am the Flashaholic of our group and I am expected to "hold up the Torch" so to speak. I brought along an assortment of lights and the Scouts and parents also brought their lights. We set up camp and ran an orienteering course during the day then had dinner. That evening over coco, coffee, tea, hot tang, hot apple cider, and hot spiced Russian tea, we had ourselves a flashlight shoot out.
We were camped in a meadow between large trees. The trees around the edge of the meadow were 90-130' tall. The meadow was around 200' across and we used the access road for our long throw comparisons. It was about 300' to the corner.
The first thing I will point out is that my Energizer fluorescent lantern was barely bright enough in the cold weather to read in the tent. It had a nice glow to it, but the $1 key chain lights from Countrycomm put it to shame.
Head Lamps
One of the dads had a 2AA Princeton Tech bulb head lamp modified with the REI 3 LED conversion module. It boasts a long run time, but does not have much throw. He uses it for close tasks like reading in bed. The Countrycomm 1$ key chain lights (both in blue and white) are brighter. He likes it for the long battery time, but was a little taken back when I showed him the key chain lights were brighter. We could just see the light against a tree about 20' away.
Next out was a Black Diamond 4 LED head lamp. It was pretty bright and the Scouts liked the way it fit their heads. We could see the upper branches of the tall trees. Some of the Scouts thought they could see across the meadow with this light, but I thought it was a bit of a reach.
Another dad pulled a Peztl bulb head lamp that had about a 3" reflector and used what he thought was an N battery. It had good throw and a reasonable flood, but was big and heavy. He got that light sometime in the mid 1970's and has used it a lot. In spot mode it was able to light up the other side of the meadow and still had some spill light. In flood mode, everyone agreed the beam was very weak and in general "sucked." I must add that the condition of the battery was unknown. It looked to me like it was not completely fresh.
The Peztl Tikka was brighter than the REI conversion, but not as bright as the Black Diamond. Everyone liked the fact that you could wear it and not even know you had it on.
I brought three head lamps. The Streamlight Trident, Elektrolumens head lamp, and a Matrix 2.
The Trident bulb mode would not come close to the 1970's Petzl with the 3" reflector, but was OK for close in to mid range work. I would say in the 15-30' range. The Trident on 3 LED's was similar to the Tikka, but dimmer than the Black Diamond. I did not check the 1 LED mode, but some of the Scouts thought it was similar to the $1 key chain lights.
The Elektrolumens head lamp is great for longer distances, but does not have enough spill for close in work. The Scouts ended up turning their heads a lot while trying it out. The other complaint was that it is front heavy. 4 AA's on the forehead are a little too much. We could see down to the turn in the road. About half way down the road the beam was just right. Lithium batteries may have changed their mind, but I just had regular alkaline batteries in it.
The Matrix 2 is the first side emitting LED light that I have purchased. I am very impressed with it. It also could be used to see down to the corner of the road, and also had good spill for closer work. The beam is a little strange. It has a dark ring around the hot spot, then a light ring outside of that, then the spill light. It would be better with a totally smooth beam, but I am not sure if the side emitting LED has something to do with the light beam pattern. The light is not heavy and Scouts and parents thought it was a great light for night hiking and camping. The Elektrolumens light is brighter at distance, but the Matrix 2 has a better beam combination and is almost as bright.
I got the Matrix 2 at REI. I should add that I went through several lights to find one that had a nice white beam. They ranged from slightly blue to slightly green. All of them were OK, I was just looking for the "best" one. I did notice that the beam patterns seemed to be consistent between the 5 or 6 that I tried out. All in all, everyone who tried it out was impressed with this light. It is going to be interesting to see how the Yukon HL compares to this light.
To review:
The Black Diamond was too bright for reading, but great at medium range.
The REI conversion has long battery life, but the $1 key chain lights are brighter.
The Tikka and Trident in 3 LED mode were similar, but the Tikka form is better.
The Petzl 3" reflector bulb light has good throw, but is heavy and uses a non standard battery.
The Elektrolumens light has good throw, good battery life, but is heavy and lacks close spill..
The Matrix 2 was the best over all. It could be better by having a high low switch for reading (i.e. Yukon HL). I noticed the beam pattern, but the Scouts and parents did not seem to mind it (or at least did not mention it).
Flashlights
Our flashlight round up included:
TigerLight
3 D Mag Lite
SureFire G2
Legend LX
BabyPin
SureFire L4
ARC LSH-P
ARC LSHF-P
2 AA Mini Mag with BB400
Eternalite XRay Elite
Eternalite Xray
Pelican L1
Eternalite Derringer
2 AA Mini Mag
2 AA Energizer
ARC AAA
$1 key chain lights from Countrycomm in Red, Blue, and White
2 AAA Derkach Micro-Pac
Our "reviewers" listed the lights in this order. I think we were trying for brightness, but LED vs bulb and flood vs spot were difficult to determine. This is what prompted the title of this post. Not only are we comparing apples to oranges, but also grapes to pears and so on. All I can say is that they all produce light and we had a good time arguing over the results.
Everyone loved the TigerLight. It's combination of spill and spot made everything in the meadow light up. The 3 D Mag Lite was also a 1970's vintage and in spot focus it could out throw the TigerLight. In flood mode it had a big hole in the middle of the beam and no power. In spot focus it was simply amazing. I could light up the whole tree, but he could spot light the cones on the tree. I was very impressed by this. The TigerLight just gave out huge quantities of light and it was compared to a car head light.
The G2 was also a big hit. It has a better form (especially in the cold weather) than the Legend LX, but the light output was thought to be similar. The fact that the Legend LX could be focused did not seem to be too important to our group. I spent some time educating the group about lithium batteries. They were familiar with the high costs of these batteries and did not know that batteries could be purchased on line at substantial savings.
No one could understand how the BabyPin could have so bright a light in such a small package. The L4 also blew everyone away. It was kind of like having an LED version of the TigerLight. It just lit everything in the meadow up. The BabyPin is more focused than the L4, but both could light up the tops of the trees across the meadow with no problems. There were a lot of OOO's and AWE's when these lights were passed around. The L4's hand warming characteristics were appreciated by several of the parents. The BabyPin also gets a little warm after a while.
My ARC LSH and LSHF are fitted with 2 AA battery holders and there was nothing but good comments about them. The Mini Mag with BB400 was also in this group, but the ARC lights were more impressive. It was fun showing the difference in optics in the two ARC lights. The general consensus was that the LSH beam was better than the LSHF, but the vote was divided. Both were amazing. Our group seemed to prefer a definite spot surrounded by ample spill. The LSHF focused the spill into the spot which gave it a little more throw, but the favorite was the LSH.
The Eternalites were a big hit. "Cool" was the term most used while I demonstrated the various functions. These are great lights. They have lots of entertainment value, long run time, and plenty of light for close to moderate ranges. The red LED on the Derringer was also "cool."
One dad had a Pelican L1. I let him demonstrate it. He uses it for just about everything from setting up a tent, to cooking, to looking in a back pack, to middle of the night bathroom breaks. It does not light up the other side of the meadow, "but if I wanted to see what was there, I would just walk over and take a closer look." It's hard to argue with logic like that. I think the L1 is a great light and I have a few of them. If I want to light up the other side of the meadow, I use my TigerLight, but to each his own…
The Mini Mag beam "sucks" along with the Energizer 2 AA, but the absolute worse light was the Derkach Micro-Pac. The Mini Mag beam looked pretty good next to it, if that tells you anything about it. The Derkach is made in Canada, has a "tactical push button switch," and is rated at 3500 candle power. The first 5 minutes were better, but it was all down hill after that. After 30 minutes it was pathetic.
The ARC AAA was also a big hit. By this time our "students" were beginning to see differences in construction as well as light beams. They could see the benefit in having an ARC AAA on your key ring. In total darkness it is amazing just how much light the ARC AAA puts out.
The $1 key chain lights were fun to play catch with. I took the time to look at maps under white, blue, and red light and I think they got the gist of preserving night vision with very low lighting. The astronomy people thought the red LED lights were an extremely good value. Their charts are printed for use with red light.
There you have it. I think I am developing a future group of Flashaholics. They may not know SureFire from TigerLight, but I think they did a pretty good job of evaluating the lights. It was interesting to note that there was little to no discussion about cost of these lights. I am waiting for some phone calls from parents wondering where they can get the lights their son was playing with at the camp out.
Tom
All of the observations listed are strictly subjective. The reviews and comments came from "less than professional" sources. Please be advised that Your Mileage May Vary, and sometimes by quite a bit. With that said, this is the way we saw it.
This last weekend we took a group of Scouts on a camp out (15 Scouts and 5 parents). It was cold and we had rain, freezing rain, and snow. Temperatures ranged from 25 F to 34 F. There was no wind.
I am the Flashaholic of our group and I am expected to "hold up the Torch" so to speak. I brought along an assortment of lights and the Scouts and parents also brought their lights. We set up camp and ran an orienteering course during the day then had dinner. That evening over coco, coffee, tea, hot tang, hot apple cider, and hot spiced Russian tea, we had ourselves a flashlight shoot out.
We were camped in a meadow between large trees. The trees around the edge of the meadow were 90-130' tall. The meadow was around 200' across and we used the access road for our long throw comparisons. It was about 300' to the corner.
The first thing I will point out is that my Energizer fluorescent lantern was barely bright enough in the cold weather to read in the tent. It had a nice glow to it, but the $1 key chain lights from Countrycomm put it to shame.
Head Lamps
One of the dads had a 2AA Princeton Tech bulb head lamp modified with the REI 3 LED conversion module. It boasts a long run time, but does not have much throw. He uses it for close tasks like reading in bed. The Countrycomm 1$ key chain lights (both in blue and white) are brighter. He likes it for the long battery time, but was a little taken back when I showed him the key chain lights were brighter. We could just see the light against a tree about 20' away.
Next out was a Black Diamond 4 LED head lamp. It was pretty bright and the Scouts liked the way it fit their heads. We could see the upper branches of the tall trees. Some of the Scouts thought they could see across the meadow with this light, but I thought it was a bit of a reach.
Another dad pulled a Peztl bulb head lamp that had about a 3" reflector and used what he thought was an N battery. It had good throw and a reasonable flood, but was big and heavy. He got that light sometime in the mid 1970's and has used it a lot. In spot mode it was able to light up the other side of the meadow and still had some spill light. In flood mode, everyone agreed the beam was very weak and in general "sucked." I must add that the condition of the battery was unknown. It looked to me like it was not completely fresh.
The Peztl Tikka was brighter than the REI conversion, but not as bright as the Black Diamond. Everyone liked the fact that you could wear it and not even know you had it on.
I brought three head lamps. The Streamlight Trident, Elektrolumens head lamp, and a Matrix 2.
The Trident bulb mode would not come close to the 1970's Petzl with the 3" reflector, but was OK for close in to mid range work. I would say in the 15-30' range. The Trident on 3 LED's was similar to the Tikka, but dimmer than the Black Diamond. I did not check the 1 LED mode, but some of the Scouts thought it was similar to the $1 key chain lights.
The Elektrolumens head lamp is great for longer distances, but does not have enough spill for close in work. The Scouts ended up turning their heads a lot while trying it out. The other complaint was that it is front heavy. 4 AA's on the forehead are a little too much. We could see down to the turn in the road. About half way down the road the beam was just right. Lithium batteries may have changed their mind, but I just had regular alkaline batteries in it.
The Matrix 2 is the first side emitting LED light that I have purchased. I am very impressed with it. It also could be used to see down to the corner of the road, and also had good spill for closer work. The beam is a little strange. It has a dark ring around the hot spot, then a light ring outside of that, then the spill light. It would be better with a totally smooth beam, but I am not sure if the side emitting LED has something to do with the light beam pattern. The light is not heavy and Scouts and parents thought it was a great light for night hiking and camping. The Elektrolumens light is brighter at distance, but the Matrix 2 has a better beam combination and is almost as bright.
I got the Matrix 2 at REI. I should add that I went through several lights to find one that had a nice white beam. They ranged from slightly blue to slightly green. All of them were OK, I was just looking for the "best" one. I did notice that the beam patterns seemed to be consistent between the 5 or 6 that I tried out. All in all, everyone who tried it out was impressed with this light. It is going to be interesting to see how the Yukon HL compares to this light.
To review:
The Black Diamond was too bright for reading, but great at medium range.
The REI conversion has long battery life, but the $1 key chain lights are brighter.
The Tikka and Trident in 3 LED mode were similar, but the Tikka form is better.
The Petzl 3" reflector bulb light has good throw, but is heavy and uses a non standard battery.
The Elektrolumens light has good throw, good battery life, but is heavy and lacks close spill..
The Matrix 2 was the best over all. It could be better by having a high low switch for reading (i.e. Yukon HL). I noticed the beam pattern, but the Scouts and parents did not seem to mind it (or at least did not mention it).
Flashlights
Our flashlight round up included:
TigerLight
3 D Mag Lite
SureFire G2
Legend LX
BabyPin
SureFire L4
ARC LSH-P
ARC LSHF-P
2 AA Mini Mag with BB400
Eternalite XRay Elite
Eternalite Xray
Pelican L1
Eternalite Derringer
2 AA Mini Mag
2 AA Energizer
ARC AAA
$1 key chain lights from Countrycomm in Red, Blue, and White
2 AAA Derkach Micro-Pac
Our "reviewers" listed the lights in this order. I think we were trying for brightness, but LED vs bulb and flood vs spot were difficult to determine. This is what prompted the title of this post. Not only are we comparing apples to oranges, but also grapes to pears and so on. All I can say is that they all produce light and we had a good time arguing over the results.
Everyone loved the TigerLight. It's combination of spill and spot made everything in the meadow light up. The 3 D Mag Lite was also a 1970's vintage and in spot focus it could out throw the TigerLight. In flood mode it had a big hole in the middle of the beam and no power. In spot focus it was simply amazing. I could light up the whole tree, but he could spot light the cones on the tree. I was very impressed by this. The TigerLight just gave out huge quantities of light and it was compared to a car head light.
The G2 was also a big hit. It has a better form (especially in the cold weather) than the Legend LX, but the light output was thought to be similar. The fact that the Legend LX could be focused did not seem to be too important to our group. I spent some time educating the group about lithium batteries. They were familiar with the high costs of these batteries and did not know that batteries could be purchased on line at substantial savings.
No one could understand how the BabyPin could have so bright a light in such a small package. The L4 also blew everyone away. It was kind of like having an LED version of the TigerLight. It just lit everything in the meadow up. The BabyPin is more focused than the L4, but both could light up the tops of the trees across the meadow with no problems. There were a lot of OOO's and AWE's when these lights were passed around. The L4's hand warming characteristics were appreciated by several of the parents. The BabyPin also gets a little warm after a while.
My ARC LSH and LSHF are fitted with 2 AA battery holders and there was nothing but good comments about them. The Mini Mag with BB400 was also in this group, but the ARC lights were more impressive. It was fun showing the difference in optics in the two ARC lights. The general consensus was that the LSH beam was better than the LSHF, but the vote was divided. Both were amazing. Our group seemed to prefer a definite spot surrounded by ample spill. The LSHF focused the spill into the spot which gave it a little more throw, but the favorite was the LSH.
The Eternalites were a big hit. "Cool" was the term most used while I demonstrated the various functions. These are great lights. They have lots of entertainment value, long run time, and plenty of light for close to moderate ranges. The red LED on the Derringer was also "cool."
One dad had a Pelican L1. I let him demonstrate it. He uses it for just about everything from setting up a tent, to cooking, to looking in a back pack, to middle of the night bathroom breaks. It does not light up the other side of the meadow, "but if I wanted to see what was there, I would just walk over and take a closer look." It's hard to argue with logic like that. I think the L1 is a great light and I have a few of them. If I want to light up the other side of the meadow, I use my TigerLight, but to each his own…
The Mini Mag beam "sucks" along with the Energizer 2 AA, but the absolute worse light was the Derkach Micro-Pac. The Mini Mag beam looked pretty good next to it, if that tells you anything about it. The Derkach is made in Canada, has a "tactical push button switch," and is rated at 3500 candle power. The first 5 minutes were better, but it was all down hill after that. After 30 minutes it was pathetic.
The ARC AAA was also a big hit. By this time our "students" were beginning to see differences in construction as well as light beams. They could see the benefit in having an ARC AAA on your key ring. In total darkness it is amazing just how much light the ARC AAA puts out.
The $1 key chain lights were fun to play catch with. I took the time to look at maps under white, blue, and red light and I think they got the gist of preserving night vision with very low lighting. The astronomy people thought the red LED lights were an extremely good value. Their charts are printed for use with red light.
There you have it. I think I am developing a future group of Flashaholics. They may not know SureFire from TigerLight, but I think they did a pretty good job of evaluating the lights. It was interesting to note that there was little to no discussion about cost of these lights. I am waiting for some phone calls from parents wondering where they can get the lights their son was playing with at the camp out.
Tom
