new flashoholics are so lucky.

[CSG]

It's like digital cameras - if they were good then, they are still good now. That doesn't stop me from buying new things from time to time but I am mostly interested in runtime vs. lumens.

 

[manticore]

For many years I had several various Maglights. My first foray into the LED world was those 9 led x 3 AAA battery POS Chinese flashlights that seemed to flood the market. After going through 3 or so of these I knew them to be the typical quality crap of goods being produced in China. Then about 2012 I found a FourSevens Quark AA single AA battery, single emitter flashlight and decided to give it a try. I was quite surprised that a light produced in China could be of such quality. It is a great light that will outdo any inc Maglight yet still go down to 0.2 lumens so it's perfect for navigating to the trump in the middle of the night to take a leak.

Don't remember why, but my next light was a Fenix PD32 that provides 340 lumens on high, down to 5 lumens on low. It's a great light that fits through a belt loop on my jeans, very convenient for EDC. One day my wife grabbed my jeans to wash and neglected to check my belt loops. My PD32 went through a complete wash and rinse cycle and was discovered just prior to going into the dryer. Needless to say those nice crisp edges around the bezel and tailcap were beat to hell and now silver, but the damn thing worked flawlessly. Knowing I was upset, she told me to order a replacement and I ordered a PD35TAC capable of 1000 lumens. When I got the PD35 I found it was too large in diameter to fit through a belt loop, bummer. Since she frequently used my PD32 to illuminate & check the back yard for skunks prior to letting the dog out at night, yes he has been sprayed, I gave her the new PD35 and kept my PD32. There is no way you could get me to part with the PD32, I just love that light, it's a real survivor.

I am more of a flashlight enthusiast than a flashoholic. I don't feel the need to get different units from different manufactures. I notice Olight offers their products in limited edition colors like Blue, Green, Orange & Purple and although nifty looking, colors are for chicks (no offense intended). I have found a brand of flashlight that is reliable and I like, Fenix. I started my Xmas shopping this week and ordered 2 new Fenix flashlights. An LD42 for my wife , same high lumen count as her PD35TAC but it uses AA batteries, her preference. An E30R for me as it will go directly from off to 1600 lumen strobe making it an almost perfect non-lethal first line of defense. The PD35 will be going into our camping gear. I'm sure there will be other lights in my future, but they will most likely be Fenix and will be selected to fill a specific purpose. Gotta keep those addictions under control...

 

[Katherine Alicia]

colors are for chicks (no offense intended).

"no FACT intended" would have been a more accurate thing to say!

 

[manticore]

"no FACT intended" would have been a more accurate thing to say!

You have my humblest of apologies. I will be very careful in any future posts.

What I should have said is "I find it hard to take a manufacturer serious when they produce flashlights in Easter Egg colors".

I beg your forgiveness...

Chris

 

[KITROBASKIN]

Easter egg colors? Where? Sounds interesting. I am a man who does not need to be limited by what a 'man' can like or not. This is not a 'how to be a real man' forum.

Certainly in the past, perhaps now even, we have been graced here at CPF with creative people making interesting flashlights; cutting edge and downright extreme. For so much of humankind's existence, the darkness has been a truly scary, dangerous place. Can you imagine what it was like for the first humans who tamed fire (could easily have been women)? Talk about spiritual, practical, 'now we've got something to make it harder for the local predators'. Flashlights can be seen as an extension of this, yes? So new flashaholics are lucky, but perhaps it is only our seasoned perception of what is now normal that keeps us experienced users from reliving the wonder of portable illumination.

 

[WalkIntoTheLight]

Meh. There are plenty of things that new flashlights offer, compared to 10 years ago. A wide selection of pastel colors isn't one of them, IMO. YMMV.

 

[Katherine Alicia]

other than the Convoy S2+ series there aren`t many out there that I`v seen with colors, different metals sure, not sure if Camo counts?
I`v got about 30 Led lights and other than the Convoy (which is gray) and 3 brass ones, all mine are black! LOL

 

[CSG]

My first *good* flashlight was a Night-Ops Gladius. Built like a brick with 85 max lumens and a rotating tali switch. It was a brilliant light in its day and, you know what? It still is. More choices today, more lumens, lower prices but a good light is still a good light. What I appreciate is the little stuff that can run on rechargeables and lithium, neither of which have leaked.

I'm not by any means a "flashaholic" and don't care about most of what interests those who are. I'm just interested in decent lights that perform and don't cost an arm and a leg.

 

[Jean-Luc Descarte]

other than the Convoy S2+ series there aren`t many out there that I`v seen with colors, different metals sure, not sure if Camo counts?
I`v got about 30 Led lights and other than the Convoy (which is gray) and 3 brass ones, all mine are black! LOL

Convoy is the brand I know that offers the most colours. The S2+ is queen, but there's also the many paint jobs of the C8+, the 21700 models, and so on. It's also the only brand I know that offers clear anodisation for that silvery look.

 

[RetroTechie]

other than the Convoy S2+ series there aren`t many out there that I`v seen with colors, different metals sure, not sure if Camo counts?

L3 Illumination comes to mind... there's others out there that offer a range of colors, surely? If nothing else, cheapies from eBay, DX & co can be had in any color imaginable. Not to mention custom lights if 'money is no object'.

 

[PhotonMaster3]

Hello everyone, new to Candle Power! I was googling around and this thread really caught my eye. I got into this hobby with a Nitecore penlight several years ago and then my first "big light" was a Nitecore Tiny Monster 4000 lumen. I think it was the brightest thing out there 5 years ago. My Imalent MS18 100,000 lumen is on the way and it truly is astonishing how much the power has gone up in just a few years!

 

[Lynx_Arc]

I'm not really sure they are "lucky" as a lot of us old flashaholics that grew up with incans appreciate the technology a lot more than the newbies today do. We have gone from searching through a haystack to find a needle back in the early days of LED lights to find an adequate one to today people searching through stacks of needles to find the right needle to do the job. We have gone from having to wait years for a light to be made that suffices to taking months of researching to figure out what existing light does what we want. We have gone from single mode lights barely doing 30-40 lumens for awhile to multiple mode lights to run from an hour at blinding outputs to forever at candle output levels. With the introduction of nimh then lithium ion the cost of using a light has gone from restrictive to dirt cheap. With the old incans you would buy C/D cells to get 24 hours of fading runtime around 25-40 lumens or AAs to get a few hours at levels 10-15 lumens. it would cost you about $1/12 hours of runtime back them with nimh it costs pennies for weeks or runtime over the life of a battery.
I used to ration the use of lights and I would find lights that have external input jacks to run off 12VDC power sources so I wouldn't use my alkaleaks up and have to pay $5 again and again for more batteries when I wasn't even making $3/hour. Now people make over twice that and can buy lithium ion batteries for a few hours of their pay and recharge them 100 times making for a nickle for 12 hours of runtime (or less). So now I use lights anytime I want for however long I want and as bright or dim as I want instead of rationing my use. Prior to nimh cells the first 5mm LED lights were as bright as a 2AA penlight and instead of running down to unusable levels of light in 2-3 hours you could run them down to lower output levels for 10-20+ hours often using the depleted batteries from other devices that won't light up an incan bulb.
I think people today are somewhat spoiled with all the technology they aren't as patient and less able to ration things and do with minimal amounts of things. Everyone now has a huge amounts of newer tech stuff.

 

[Katherine Alicia]

I used to ration the use of lights

I still do! and I`v no idea why, they all have rechargables in there (everything in the house does) and I even charge mine with solar so it`s kinda free, and yet I`m still in the old mindset and can`t seem to shake it?
I grew up with very little to no "allowance" and had to rely on the Monthly free battery give-away at Radio Shack for my supply LOL

 

[jon_slider]

With the introduction of nimh then lithium ion the cost of using a light has gone from restrictive to dirt cheap.
...

I used to ration the use of lights... so I wouldn't use my alkaleaks up and have to pay $5 again and again

...

now I use lights anytime I want for however long I want and as bright or dim as I want instead of rationing my use.

well said!

totally agree that primary cells caused me to ration my use
they also made me study runtime charts,
and read about tests of lights running at such low levels as to only be useful in a cave

I worried more about the output quantity, than color
I did not care about PWM, and I did not complain about Green tint, and had no idea what CRI was

Eneloops and LiIon were a total game changer for me..

I do not feel a need to ration my use with rechargeables
runtime is a non issue for me now

I care more about color quality, than lumen quantity
I dont buy lights w PWM anymore, and I remove green tinted Low CRI LEDs in favor of Pink tinted ones with High CRI


The biggest difference, is that since I started using small die High CRI LEDs (219b), I have figured out that they throw farther than the larger Low CRI LEDs with more lumens. (xml and xpl)

basically, my High CRI lights are brighter on target (more focused hotspot), than the Low CRI LEDs with more lumens (wider hotspot), that I removed.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

well said!

totally agree that primary cells caused me to ration my use
they also made me study runtime charts,
and read about tests of lights running at such low levels as to only be useful in a cave

I worried more about the output quantity, than color
I did not care about PWM, and I did not complain about Green tint, and had no idea what CRI was

Eneloops and LiIon were a total game changer for me..

I do not feel a need to ration my use with rechargeables
runtime is a non issue for me now

I care more about color quality, than lumen quantity
I dont buy lights w PWM anymore, and I remove green tinted Low CRI LEDs in favor of Pink tinted ones with High CRI


The biggest difference, is that since I started using small die High CRI LEDs (219b), I have figured out that they throw farther than the larger Low CRI LEDs with more lumens. (xml and xpl)

basically, my High CRI lights are brighter on target (more focused hotspot), than the Low CRI LEDs with more lumens (wider hotspot), that I removed.

I'm not much into high CRI but I have been trying to buy neutral white LEDs. I also still look at runtime but not the same way as I did prior to decent rechargeables but rather so I wouldn't be left in the dark unexpectedly. Multiple modes in lights is one thing along with a lot higher efficient and powerful LEDs and better and better recharbeable batteries all together are combined to get optimum output/runtime.
I think well spaced modes are also a big thing as too many of the first 2 mode lights were 100/50% and 3 modes 100/50/25% and I find that often the 50% mode is either ignored or used instead of the 100% mode as the difference isn't large enough. I find 4-6 mode lights with 500 lumens or higher output also have changed things too. It is the efficiency of LEDs and lithium ion that have helped push forward higher CRI LED solutions as watts/lumen of them are lower but still there is enough power to make them not less useful at slightly lower outputs.
I have a feeling that high CRI and more efficient LEDs will go hand in hand in implementation throughout the industry as they tend to cancel each other out in the overall lumens/watt a 10% boost in efficiency overall can make a high CRI LED compete with the previous LED of similar tint but lower CRI.
Do I miss incans in flashlights? no. Do I miss them in area lights like lamps and ceiling lights? A little but as more LED bulbs get less and less angry bluish my eyes aren't that picky as some folks.

 

[jon_slider]

I have been trying to buy neutral white LEDs.
...

I think well spaced modes are also a big thing
...
as more LED bulbs get less and less angry bluish my eyes aren't that picky

fwiw, you probably did have a lot of High CRI experience at home, when your lights were incandescent.. 100 CRI

I still use incandescent house lights..
But I dont use incandescent flashlights anymore.. I use LEDs that are close to that CRI

fwiw
Neutral white can be had in both Low CRI and High CRI
the greener one is the Low CRI NW, the pink one is my favorite 219b 4500k

after adapting to High CRI Neutral White, I find Low CRI NW very green. Plus NW low cri makes food and people look lifeless (lack of red rendering)

I also used to care about mode spacing, and specs for lowest low

I now use a buttonless Jetbeam RRT-01 Magnetic Rotary that is Infinitely Variable,
and goes from dimmer than any other, to brighter than I need
without me thinking about modes, nor button clicks, at all

the RRT-01 is actually old school, from 2011, and has been recently rereleased in 2019 RRT-01 and 2020 RRT-01 versions (with added tailbutton).

What is old is new again, if you have not tried one, I highly recommend the experience.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

I have a light that has two sets of modes..... variable and set modes and I prefer the set modes because I can estimate how long I can run at those levels while variable I only know low/high and have to guess how long it can run in the middle.

 

[thermal guy]

I think us that were there for the transition from incandescent to LED were the lucky ones. We saw huge changes pretty fast. I remember when Fenix came out with there led keychain light can't think of the one right now but it Kicked my 9P's butt!!

 

[Mr. Shawn]

Hello everyone, new to Candle Power! I was googling around and this thread really caught my eye. I got into this hobby with a Nitecore penlight several years ago and then my first "big light" was a Nitecore Tiny Monster 4000 lumen. I think it was the brightest thing out there 5 years ago. My Imalent MS18 100,000 lumen is on the way and it truly is astonishing how much the power has gone up in just a few years!

Welcome to CPF, 40kaufman7! You'll find so much to read and digest here, but keep an eye on your wallet since it's so easy to go down the flashlight-buying hole in the process.

 

[Rob Babcock]

I guess I'm a stick in the mud! I love flashlights but there's nothing metaphysical nor spiritual in them for me. I just dig the technology, the craftsmanship and especially the utility. What is the say? Oh yeah- Dark Sucks!:candle:

Nothing I have is SotA by any means, not anymore. My most recent purchase was probably a Malkoff MDC-type head for an AA body. To me a new emitter or engine isn't "real" until Malkoff or Elzetta start using it.