Compact flashlight for Cavern Tour Guide

OhioCaverns97

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Looking for compact flashlight (5") for our tour guides to carry in caverns. Will be used mainly to point out formations and other parts of the caverns. Must have a good beam. Not looking to pay more than $15 per light. Any thoughts?
 

Timothybil

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The great state of Misery (Missouri)
I assume there is also some incidental lighting in the caverns. Does that extend to lighting the points of interest you want to point out, or do you need the hand light to illuminate them as well as point them out? If they are illuminated themselves, would a laser pointer be sufficient to attract the viewers' attention, or is more illumination needed to fully bring out the features? And what distances are we talking about here? One meter, five meters, ten or more meters? The further away, the more power the flashlight must have. Plus you will want the light to have enough capacity to last the entire tour, with a little left over as a margin. I can't see a $15 light as being able to do this.

To keep the beam from spreading with distance, you are probably going to need some sort of aspheric lens rather than a reflector light. I don't have any experience with those, so am not going to recommend anything.

Do your guides also carry a backup light or two? A power failure or a dropped light that breaks could be a problem without backup lights.
 

KITROBASKIN

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OhioCaverns.com shows some really nice white stalactites, with plenty of feature lighting. Also billed as America's most colorful caverns. That SO calls for good color rendition. See if the tour guides would be willing to get into decent flashlights: less likely to lose or abuse. Does not look like a huge cavern system, so thinking maybe something like an Emisar D1 or D1S with Nichia 5000K or warmer flashlight would be fine.

EDIT: Nichia not available in these models, 5000K is a pretty good choice though others might like 4000K.
 
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GRAY LITNIN

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:welcome: Convoy S2+'s are great lights for the money. Can be had for ~$10 on sale. They use 18650's, so would save on battery costs in the long run but will have to buy them and charger(s) as well. I agree with KITROBASKIN that color rendition should be a big priority. The convoys can be had with the warmer tints too around 3000-5000K.
 
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KITROBASKIN

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Convoy S2+ might be the best choice. Was thinking more spot might be more effective pointing out particular features in the cave formations. In this case, perhaps the Convoy C8? Is there a Nichia option offered with that host?
 
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