Flashativley awesome

I was just surfing around looking for an explanation as to the different definitions for light intensity(lumens, millicandelas, candle power) and I found this forum. I'd love it if someone would explain that to me or tell me where to find a good easy to understand explanation of it, because I'm still pretty much clueless.

Anyway, the reason I made this post... I've long been a closet flashlight enthusiast, and I never knew flashlights go beyond the storebought variety. Many people I work with are constantly having little competitions of whose flashlight is brighter. I think maybe everyone I work with is under the impression that Surefire and their competitors are the end all and be all of small bright flashlights. I'm planning on purchasing a custom flashlight from someone on this site now. I'll be sure to tell my friends where I got it too. In case you're wondering, I work in Aircraft Maintenance(at night mostly) where a small bright flashlight comes in real handy. Although to be honest part of my flashaholism stems from my handgun hobby.

Kudos to the people who created and support this site.

Welcome to CPF and hold on to your wallet.

First thing you have to consider is how much you're willing to spend and we can go from there because you have choices ranging from $30 to well over $300.

Are you interested in incans or leds?

What types of batteries do you prefer which basically determines what size you want/need?

An intresting place is the cpf wiki: http://www.wiki.tjtech.org/index.php/Main_Page
you will find here the definition of the Light Output Measurements

An overview of the acronyms used on cpf are on craig's www.ledmuseum.org : http://ledmuseum.home.att.net/acronyms.htm


A perfect alround light is the surefire a2. for closeup works it has 3 leds and for longer throw a xenon bulb. http://www.surefire.com/maxexp/main/co_disp/displ/prrfnbr/900/sesent/00

If you really want to step in competition for the brightest torch you should take a hid in consideration http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=7

Welcome to cpf, MArc

Throe said:

...Many people I work with are constantly having little competitions of whose flashlight is brighter...

Click to expand...

While bright lights are interesting, they aren't always practical for general use. E.g, a 500+ lumen HID flashlight is brighter than most anything else, but it's not very practical for close up work or general use. There's a lot more involved than "who's the brightest".

As previously suggested the Surefire A2 is good because of multiple output levels. Likewise the HDS, Surefire U2, or any two stage light from Surefire, Streamlight, or Nuwai are likely more practical, esp if you envision doing a combination of close up inspection and more distant work.