BRIGHTEST 4-C LIGHT: Any ideas?

I'm looking for a great 4-C light. I currently own a UKE SL-4 which has a great hot spot but unimpressive peripheral light. I use this for walking, hiking. NOT for underwater. I always assumed dive lights would be brighter. I like the SL-4's compactness and relatively light weight. Can I do better; something with either a larger hot spot or better peripheral light? And am I correct about a dive light being a better choice than a "regular" light?
Any help is much appreciated!

Brightnorm

Just a thought:

Most dive light require 2 hands to operated.

KbOrrg
Good point. Any ideas for some lights?

Rgds
Brightnorm

My choice is obvious, Pelican Black Knight M10:

4.8W, 30.000CP, 68 lumens, 5h30m burn time, 4C alkaline, 6 Volt

This is a great flashlight, but the beam is not that wide though.

I just bought the Pelican M10. It is a tad shorter and smaller than the Maglite 3D. The beam is tighter than the 3D, but it is way brighter than the 3D. I really like the M10. I now just bring my 3D as a backup light.

Thanks Recercare and Lor

Regards
Brightnorm

Brightnorm, I go out walking in the night about twice a week for a couple of hours a time, and I had to try a box full of different flashlights to get both sufficient runtime and the kind of light output I wanted in this particular application. So now I've got a UKE Light Cannon that I'm fairly happy with. It's a little heavier than a 4C type light since it has 8C's, and it eats up a set of these cells per week, but surprisingly you do not get tired of carrying it even for hours. It seems to be well balanced and well contoured. HID is a nice thing. You get lots of peripheral vision and it can also spot fairly well. The cost of the LC is a bit on the high side, but all in all you get a good compromise of the different considerations. One thing to consider is not looking like a bank robber while you're carrying your diving light. The LC can be bought with a special lantern style handle so you look real friendly and law-abiding.

You can not compare a 10W HID to a 4.8W Xenon. The Light Cannon costs about 250$! and you don't need all that light for a 2 hours walk/stroll....but if you can afford a little luxury, then go for it

The Pelican M10 is more than bright enough for a 2 hours walk, and it costs about
50-70$, at least here in Norway

Well I have seen them new on eBay for $150. Cars were going by like jet fighters before. All of two feet away... A good light really gets you noticed. I had a couple come to nearly complete stop recently. I would have liked to have heard the driver..."hey, wut the HECK IS THAT...

Lightuser and Recercar,
thanks for your input. I sometimes wonder why otherwise intelligent flashlight designers nearly always screw up their bulb/reflector designs. For example: the problems with the Streamlight Propolymer series, or the inconsistancies of UKE 4AA or 2L .Yes, Surefire has got it right, but aren't all their lights Lithium? I'd like to find a 4-AA or 4-C light(for longer burn time) with a really well thought out lamp assembly, a decent stippled reflector instead of those primative smooth, filament-displaying ones. A positive, exactly repeatable (from bulb to bulb) bulb seating/mounting arrangement; heck- even Maglite has that one right.
The Pelican M10 sounds great, but why not in a side by side cnfiguration for compactness?The HID is a little rich for my blood right now, and I had a smaller light in mind. Does anyone know if HID will ever be practical in a compact light, something smaller than a Maglite 3D?

regards
Brightnorm

Don't know. It would be revolutionary though.

Finding a good medium sized flashlight is amazingly difficult. If you want a large flashlight it's much easier. Then you can get good beam quality and long burn time. The same goes for small flashlights, except from the burn time of course.

I am satisfied with my "medium-sized-and-affordable" flashlights. I use the Pelican M10 when I need much light on a small surface or aiming at an object from long distance. When I need long burn time and the possibility to change between narrow and wide beam in a second I use the Double Barrel 8AA.

Both these flashlights should still have been much more compact, and with a better beam quality!

If you don't need long throwing light I would consider buying a good LED-light. Trek 1900 or 1400 is MORE than good enough for walking, even in difficult mountain terrain, and the burn time and brightness is excellent. However, they are expensive. I would suggest a Trek 1900 as a primary area light and a Surefire or Pelican as backup when you need extra bright light for a few seconds or for illuminating an object far away.

Just a personal experience this past weekend.

Two of my friends and I went hunting. We got there around midnight. We decided to walk into the woods and setup our stand for the morning. Well, to make a long story short, we got lost on the way back to our truck. We didn't get back to our truck until day light. It was about 5 or 6 hours in the woods with my PELICAN M10. Of course my friends had the Maglite 3D. I am glad that I bought the M10.

I came to a solution similar to Recercare's:
Whjen I'm hiking or walking in back country I use the Trek 1400 as an area light, backed up by the Asp Taclite, which is the smallest and brightest spotlight I've seen, outside of a turbohead (more bulky) Surefire. (My Legend LX is on order). For everyday carry it's the Asp along with the Inova 5X LED. (Even when I have the 1400 I still carry the Inova, or at least the Attitude)
Question: Doesn't the Trek 1400 outperform the 1900 after a couple of hours because of its lesser battery demands?

So how the heck do we get Lightwave and Trek to regulate their lights? The LW 4000 and 3000 are excellent lights but too blue for my tastes. I'm waiting (impatiently) for the LS. Also, it seems to me that the real problem we're batting our heads against is the relatively limited evolution of battery technology. It's almost as though we've bumped up against some immutable barrier that will only allow incremental improvements.

Regards,
Brightnorm

norm-I read in Popular Science mag a few months ago that a whole new type alkaline cell will hit the market in 18-24 months -they call it oxy/iron, and claim twice the capacity of today's alkalines. Also, they claim it's cheaper to manufacture:O

I had both at times although I gave them away in search of more powerful lights. The differences in output between them were negligible and even harder to notice because they run down so very gradually. Of course neither is really great for a primary light, because of the diffuse beam and lack of throw. The 19 will dim a little bit faster than the other but I didn't notice any appreciable difference in runtimes less than three hours. In fact you get more than twelve hours runtime on the 19 and even more on the 14. The thing with these lights is that they are unregulated and the decay in output starts from the moment it's turned on; you can lose awareness that it's decaying. That's ok in the sense you want a long runtimes, but not ok in the sense the light is never doing all it's capable of. I feel they are overly expensive lights. LEDs are good backups, but I'd probably go with the large Lightwaves next time because they're more reasonably priced.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by videocal:
Also, they claim it's cheaper to manufacture:O<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

So that's why it will only cost twice as much, right?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by John N:
So that's why it will only cost twice as much, right? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You never really know about some of these things. They did say also that the retail prices of those would be about th same as todays. But in reading that mag. since the 1940s, and from past experience I would guess that the "materialization factor" of all their reported new technologies is about 50% or so -who knows......?
vaporware, anybody?

All this is why I tinker so much. Lately I am working on a big, regulated multi-LS light that will run on 4 C's. Some design goals for this one are to be lightweight; reasonably low cost compared to LED units; nice, very bright beam(s); good runtime; rugged, sharp looks, comfortable enough to lug for hours. I am encouraged about Luxeon Stars but there are some real problems to deal with. It's the most promising technology and surprisingly not much has been done with it. Tektite told me they had a multi-Luxeon Star design but couldn't produce yet due to the cost of the L/Ss. I don't know if theirs is regulated or not. BTW Trek EX60s just came out, see on Eppes Corner big bucks).