What is Your Most Frequent/Critical Flashlight Task

Tell us what is your most frequent and also the most critical task in which you use a flashlight. Also tell us what flashlight you find most suitable for the task. I think this information will be interesting and useful for someone new to flashlights. We often get caught up in certain specs or features of flashlights but they are not always the most practical or useful lights in actual practice.

There are other threads similar to this one however this one differs in that the question is pertaining to your total cumulative use in general. This is not about what you did today or why you carry a flashlight.

If there is enough interest I will summarize the results in this post.

Most Frequent Task - Night light. Although this is far from a critical or exciting task, I find that it is the most frequent one. My wife and kids like to use a night light and I provide a ZL SC52w and a SC62w. I tail stand it on the bedside table. The run time on the low settings of the ZL is really good.

Most Critical Task - This question is more subjective but I would say that searching for a lost pet, person, or item would be the most critical task in which I use a flashlight. I would like to say that navigating in the dark would be the answer here, and navigation is a primary function of searching, but I just haven't needed to solely use a flashlight for navigating as often as I need to use one to search for a critical item. I use a Surefire KE1D-A head on a E2D body with a Sanyo 3.8V 2500mAH battery. It works fairly well for the task. I do not have any really good throwers so I am using what I have.

Let us know how your use fits into the two questions. You are welcome to list multiple items but I will only use the first item in the list for the summary. It would be interesting to hear if anyone's use has evolved over time.


Responses:

Frequent:
Dog Walking x4
Work - Electrician x2
Night Light
Work - Security
Bike Headlight/Taillight
Fishing
Work - Industrial
Enthusiast - White wall hunting, beam comparisons
Comforting kids before bed - checking for dogs behind bed
Looking for stuff

Critical:
Power Outage x2
Bump in the night x2
Trail Finding/Navigation x2
Searching
Hunting - Early Morning Ice Navigation
Bathroom Duty
Bike Headlight/Taillight
Daily Preparedness - Having light(s) at the ready

My most frequent task (every night) is dog walking. My most critical would be work and power outages caused by major storms.

I mostly use it for duty use (I work in security). In a proactive setup, you can get people to comply pretty quickly

Most frequent, I use my ZL SC52 walking jobs to trace conduits and inside panels tracing wires, usually gets a "What kind of flashlight is that?" response. Most critical is probably duck hunting early morning walking on ice it helps to have a good light to know if the ice looks good to walk on, been using SL Sidewinder Compact II on full bright, but I'll be using a brighter option next season. Probably skilhunt or the Olight s10 i just bought, recommended by a fellow flashlight junkie.

Most frequent would be at work. I'm an electrician, and I keep a HDS rotary (Nichia 219 for good color rendering) on my belt. I probably use it 10-20 times a day. Unfortunately, I rarely run into someone who askes me about it :thumbsdow
Most critical probably would be running to the bathroom in the middle of the night :laughing: I have a McGizmo Sundrop I keep on my nightstand, though it could have a little lower low.

Thanks for the responses! Keep them coming...

Taz80 - Do you typical use a certain model for either task or rotate? What qualities do you find most useful in your experience? Do you like flood/throw bright or long runtime...

15hushabomb - Are you using a dedicated setup or are you rotating. What are the qualities you find most useful. Do you use strobe, single on high or otherwise. Are you using the flashlight in a non-contact method or do you have some physical persuasion techniques at play?

Most frequent is dog walking. Every night, the last walk of the day is around 9-930, so it is usually dark by then.

Most critical - trail finding and navigation when backpacking.

I use a ZL h52w for both of those tasks and thus this is my most used light.

To add. It gets hot here during the summer, so I prefer to backpack in the dark when it is cooler. Sucks to pack a 40 pound pack for miles and miles when it's 100 outside and sunny.

Thanks for the input ahtoxa11. That ZL h52w seems like a super versatile light. It has been on my want list ever since my first quality flashlight purchase of the SC52w. I really like how one can use so many different types of AA size batteries with it.

I work for a phone company so I deal with small colored wires. I prefer neutral tints for the color rendition and it's easier on my eyes. I'm using Zebralight's SC62w, H600fw and H502. When I need to see into crawlspaces and other tight dark spaces I have a M2X in my bag. I don't care to much about runtime bacause I have an extra light on me and extra batteries in the truck. My eyes aren't what they used to be so I like it fairly bright.

Bike headlight and taillight. (Most frequently used and most critical.) At the moment I'm using a convoy S2 with smooth reflector and Qlite driver as the headlight and a modified S2 with two red XPEs in parallel as the taillight. In the past, (and near future) I've used a headlamp regularly training for a race. Another critical use.

Frequent: Fishing, looking for things in dimly lit garage or basement, focused lighting for mechanical work (I just finished doing some brake work on my car and almost walked into a convenience store in broad daylight with my ZL headlamp on).

Critical: Navigating trails in the dark, hunting, boating.

Take it easy,
Bob

Most frequent: At work. I have to look inside and under machines, and sometimes I need to backlight our multi-layer construction fabric to check for problems. Jetbeam RRT-01

Critical: Seeing what went bump in the night.

I use my 6PX PRO at least twice a night for dog walks. Where I live there are a lot of other dogs so it helps to be able to see them before they can see you!

Frequent:
1. White wall hunting and beam shot comparison. I play with flashlights far, far more than I ever need to actually use one.
2. Loaner. "Can I borrow your flashlight for a second?"

Critical:
1. Daily preparedness. Last time the power went out in a dark building with no windows, I could hear everyone's heads swiveling towards me in the darkness. Two people asked me for a flashlight almost simultaneously. I had to go get my BOB to hand out enough lights. Guess I haven't tried at all to conceal my flashaholic nature.
2. Nightstand duty. I haven't *HAD* to use it yet, but it needs to be there.

Most frequent task is, like many, the evening dog walk. I switch between lights that I take with me. Sometimes a thrower, other times a headlamp with a wide beam. Critical would be power outage or self defense. For that purpose I ask a simple thing from my light. Always turn on in High and reliability.

I use a TubeVn every night, on low, to show my 2 year old there are no dogs hiding behind her bed (she's convinced there are dogs hiding there because she hears dogs barking at night!).

Jmayot said:

I use a TubeVn every night, on low, to show my 2 year old there are no dogs hiding behind her bed (she's convinced there are dogs hiding there because she hears dogs barking at night!).

Click to expand...

THAT is pretty danged adorable. I read it to my wife and she got the biggest grin (our last 2 year old was 6 years ago. )

Most frequent use, looking for crap. I carry (at the moment anyway) a Hi Cri Mini AA, a 2AA quark Turbo, an HDS 120, a SF E1b and soon I'll rotate in an EB1.
Critical would be bump in the night or paired with my handgun for SD. Hope to never find out how handy my G3 with M90 is on my AR.

Great feedback! I have updated the summary. I am using the first response for each category when multiple responses are given.

Jmayot - What a great way to use a flashlight. We have a 5 month old now. They are so adorable.

kj2 - great point on the UI coming on in high for a self defense light. Do you prefer high only or are you ok with a multi mode setup. I don't mind a high low setup for a pocket defense light but I put a high or runtime high single mode only on my home defense rifle.

more_vampires - I may have to agree with you on that most frequent use. I am probably playing/comparing my lights more than anything. I don't really get any comments but I am always lugging my bag with single pistol mag pouches full of lights around with me. It is going to make me smile when it goes dark and I am providing lights.

So far dog walking is the most frequent task.

MMD said:

more_vampires - I may have to agree with you on that most frequent use. I am probably playing/comparing my lights more than anything. I don't really get any comments but I am always lugging my bag with single pistol mag pouches full of lights around with me. It is going to make me smile when it goes dark and I am providing lights.

Click to expand...

Ooh! Capital idea, thank you sir! I have plenty of double mag pouches and it never occurred to me to "Rambo up" with lights in them.

Excellent!