kaichu dento
Flashaholic
Re: ZebraLight SC600 MkII interface and tint observations
Really nice post here and worth a thorough read for everyone.I think this should be clarified for people considering the SC600 MkII. How "detectable" a light is depends entirely on the surrounding light and any surface off of which the flashlight's beam is reflecting. I've got an SC600 MkII in my pocket right now, sitting in my office chair in a room whose lighting level is normal for a commercial building. The brightest low setting's detectabiility is moot; I don't need a flashlight to illuminate objects that are already so brightly lit.
However, the "brightest" low mode is easily detectable in a dim room. I watch television on a projector in my basement, and the lights are off because the dimmer the room, the better the picture looks. Even with the projector on , the "brightest" low setting is detectable and after the PJ is turned off, the highest low setting quite bright indeed and I can easily see objects across the room. This is in a house that is never completely dark and with eyes that aren't truly night-adjusted. If I'm in my bedroom with night-adjusted eyes, the "brightest" low setting looks positively blazing, so much so that I usually switch to the secondary low mode that I've programmed. (I prefer the lowest setting.)
Whether the setting is useful (quite a different matter from detectable) is pure personal preference.
Accidently leaving the light on in the lowest setting falls nicely into the "of no consequence" bucket, since it is rated to run about 200 days on that setting. Accidentally leaving the light on turbo while inside your pocket, well, you'll know about that well before the five-minute stepdown occurs. Ask me how I know...
I was at the Outer Banks last week. One night I and my three youngs sons went looking for crabs. The SC600 Mk II is great fun in those circumstances. I don't doubt there are actually 900 lumens pouring out of it in turbo mode and even though it's not a thrower, you can see a loooooong way with this rascal, even at one of the lower "high" settings. The crabs stood no chance and even with the floody nature of this light I could still paint buildings several hundred feet away. It's so bright that I was careful not to shine it into the eyes of anybody who was walking toward us or who was sitting on the sand in the dark.
:drunk:
