How much better is the Photon Freedom ...

than the Photon 3 in everyday use and convenience?


Thanks!


Crhis

What would you get for everyday use? Turq. ...

or white?

Thanks!


Chris

Re: What would you get for everyday use? Turq. ..

The Freedom is easier to use and switch modes. The III's are being phased out for the Freedoms.

As for color, I would always go with white for useful. White is far better for recongizing things. Colors are better only for the cool factor, reaction from friends. Colros can also be brighter and can be better at blinding at close range.

But if you want to use it for seeing things, get White. The exception woudl be for making some things stand out more. For example in UV a scorpion will glow.

Also, most peopel think of red as the color to preserve night vision. The truth is that even red if it is too bright will kill your night vision. And any color that is dimmed enough will preserve night vision. Just red can be brighter before it hurts night vision.

Re: What would you get for everyday use? Turq. ..

The photon freedom is a great light. I am a pilot and use the turquoise LED to fly at night. The color supposedly preserves your night vision, and lets you see red details on sectional charts.

The freedom has a brighten/dim mode to allow unlimited brightness settings to your taste.

Re: What would you get for everyday use? Turq. ..

It depends on how you want to use them. The P3 remembers it's mode and has an auto-off timeout mode, so that can be helpful some times. The Freedom definitely has a more intuitive interface and better accessories. If you use them in full-brightness mode most of the time, the Freedom's interface works very well. They are both excellent.

Re: What would you get for everyday use? Turq. ..

I just played with one in the store, and I have to say the worst thing about the Freedom is that it doesn't remember how bright it was last time you used it. I don't know if there is a way to get it to remember, but for me, having a light come on and not immediately blind me is important.

Re: What would you get for everyday use? Turq. ..

[ QUOTE ]
ArmyPilot said:
...for me, having a light come on and not immediately blind me is important.

[/ QUOTE ]
The Freedom won't remember it's last-used setting, but if you turn it on by keeping the button pressed for several seconds, it comes on very dim and gradually gets brighter until you release the button. That will prevent the blinding.

Re: What would you get for everyday use? Turq. ..

[ QUOTE ]
PocketBeam said:
Also, most peopel think of red as the color to preserve night vision. The truth is that even red if it is too bright will kill your night vision. And any color that is dimmed enough will preserve night vision. Just red can be brighter before it hurts night vision.

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And they are correct in thinking this - red is a lot better at preserving your night vision!

A couple of thoughts on this:
1. The red photon light is unlikely to really spoil your night vision, even on it's brightest setting. It's just not that bright.
2. Unless you live someplace dark, you are unlikely to *ever* really achieve much dark adaptation because most cities use horribly designed, inefficient and unsafe streetlights that glare directly into your eyes. So really, you may as well use a white light so you can at least see in color.

Re: What would you get for everyday use? Turq. ..

[ QUOTE ]
freefall8 said:

The photon freedom is a great light. I am a pilot and use the turquoise LED to fly at night. The color supposedly preserves your night vision, and lets you see red details on sectional charts...

[/ QUOTE ]

I have freedoms in both white and cyan (turquoise). The idea behind using dim cyan for NV is that, if you are truly preserving NV, the light level is low enough that you can't see in color. So you might as well use the wavelength of light that the eye is most sensitive to (cyan), and use as little brightness as possible. I am finding that this works well.

The idea behind using red is different in that red doesn't destroy rhodopsin. However, I haven't actually tried dim red, so maybe someone else can comment on that.

Re: What would you get for everyday use? Turq. ..

I am using turquioise more than than red at night. I have the AAA ARC and photon freedom covert in turq, as well as in green and red. I really like the covert because it does keep the sidespill out of my eyes - the regular photons are problematic in that area. The multi level features of the photon are pretty much unused, unless you just enjoy the geewhiz factor. The top level is still dim enough to preserve night vision. The photon II covert is pretty much ideal, as would be the inova microlight if it was in cyan/turq.

Re: What would you get for everyday use? Turq. ..

[ QUOTE ]
Lux Luthor said:
The idea behind using red is different in that red doesn't destroy rhodopsin. However, I haven't actually tried dim red, so maybe someone else can comment on that.

[/ QUOTE ]

I use dark adaptation a LOT. Last weekend, I was looking supernova 2004 et, a 12.7 magnitude supernova in the galaxy NGC 6946 (mag 9), with my telescope. Later on, I looked at a group of ~13th mag galaxies. I also looked at some rather faint nebula during the evening. Some of this stuff is incredibly hard to see, even with a moderate sized telescope. This stuff is very faint - you have little chance of seeing it without fully dark adapted vision. Faint red light is the only way to go if you have to have any light at all.

To give you some idea of what this kind of dark adaptation is like - my inova x5 seems staggeringly bright - I use it instead of my headlights to drive out of the site. (Disclaimer: it's a short trip - it's mostly straight, and there's a couple of reflectors at strategic spots, and the road is white rock, so it shows up fairly well even in the dark.)

Having said all that - most people aren't in conditions where it's dark enough outdoors to ever get this level of dark adaptation, and it's mostly not neccessary. (A lesser degree of dark adaptation works just fine for most things.) However, I find that even my overly bright red x5 has less impact on my night vision than another color light that's fainter.

Re: What would you get for everyday use? Turq. ..

[ QUOTE ]
BIGIRON said:
The multi level features of the photon are pretty much unused, unless you just enjoy the geewhiz factor. The top level is still dim enough to preserve night vision.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree - I find the top level of the photon freedom to be too bright while working at my telescope. If you really need to preserve dark adaptation, a variable intensity red light is critical. That said - most people don't need this.

Re: What would you get for everyday use? Turq. ..

[ QUOTE ]
BIGIRON said:...I really like the covert because it does keep the sidespill out of my eyes - the regular photons are problematic in that area...

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Forgot to mention that both of my freedoms are covert for the reason you mentioned.

BTW, if the LED is wide, the covert wastes light by cutting off the beam. So here's what I did: I used the narrowest LEDs I could find, then sanded the tips. This way you get both a perfectly smooth beam, and one that throws a lot of spill to the sides (I also cut the tips off the covert covers). There is naturally a little sacrifice in terms of throw.

Re: What would you get for everyday use? Turq. ..

[ QUOTE ]
MrBenchmark said:
[ QUOTE ]
Lux Luthor said:
The idea behind using red is different in that red doesn't destroy rhodopsin. However, I haven't actually tried dim red, so maybe someone else can comment on that.

[/ QUOTE ]

I use dark adaptation a LOT....Faint red light is the only way to go if you have to have any light at all...

...I find that even my overly bright red x5 has less impact on my night vision than another color light that's fainter.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmmm. Maybe I should compare cyan to red. I do have a red infinity. I'll try that vs. dimmed cyan. Others have reported in the past that red is the only color that really works for hardcore NV, due to the preservation of rhodopsin that I mentioned.

Re: What would you get for everyday use? Turq. ..

Benchmark -- I agree with your disagreement! I speak only for myself. I have failing vision and have to compromise. Cyan/turq works best for me for most night work, however a brighter red,like my Inova Micro or the AAA I just got from DharmaBum still work fiarly well when in deep darkness.