# 3 Lumens On A Flashlight



## ragweed (Feb 2, 2012)

Is the 3 Lumens useful or not? I have seen several lights offering this option. I would like some feedback from people that use this mode. Thanks!


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## jamesmtl514 (Feb 2, 2012)

Yup, useful for navigating at night when you don't want to blind yourself.


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## AnAppleSnail (Feb 2, 2012)

I use a 1 and 0.2 lumen setting at home for walking around at night. Once your eyes adjust, it's quite bright. In most of my uses, 0.2 lumens gives me a spot about as bright as moonlight wherever I want it, and 1 lumens is almost too bright in the dark.


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## scout24 (Feb 2, 2012)

I find 3 lumen way too bright in the middle of the night, but it partly depends on the type of beam. Floody, Sundrop on low is right around there, and nice to read by at night,but I couldn't walk my dog by it. Converse is true with my Haiku on low, just enough for dog walking if need be, but too much to read by unless you use the edge of the beam. What are your plans for it?


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## ragweed (Feb 2, 2012)

Potty light at night & I don't want to disturb anyone sleeping.


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## reppans (Feb 2, 2012)

A lot depends on where, when and how you intend to use it.

I think I'm one of the biggest fans of low lumens and probably spend about 40% of my usage on moonlight 0.2 lumens, and 40% one step above that (4 lumens Quark, 2.2 lumens Zebralight). I use my lights... well, when it's dark and I really like using and preserving my night vision. Indoors with short distances and white walls, 4 lumens just about always seems to be more than enough for me (moonlight better with night adjusted eyes).... 20 lumens in the dark indoors always seems way too bright. Walking the dog outdoors, moonlight seem too low, 4 lumens just right to my dog leash's perimeter (20ft), but 20 lumens+ if I want to see farther. If you plan on using the light where there's a lot of ambient light (urban street lit), or have just come in from daylight, 3 lumens is not going to look like much.

Here's one huge plus for low levels... if emergency use is one of the reasons for having a good flashlight, then having low mode(s) will greatly extend your runtimes.... and in such cases, your eyes will definitely be night-adapted. The downside is having to cycle through an additional mode.


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## reppans (Feb 2, 2012)

This was an interesting thread that tipped me when I was buying....

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?238505-Do-you-really-use-0.2-lumen


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## mbw_151 (Feb 2, 2012)

If it is really dark, 3 lumens is very useful. The three lumen low on a Surefire E1L is more than enough to walk around with or find stuff in a tent. The big plus is that if the circuit is efficient, the batteries will last a very long time.


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## Flying Turtle (Feb 2, 2012)

Three lumens is more than I like for a low level. Once your eyes are dark adapted you'll find it pretty bright. So, yes, this is a useful level for most up close work. It's really just personal preference. Some folks aren't happy with such a low.

Geoff


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## scout24 (Feb 2, 2012)

Personally, 3lm is too bright for that mission. Maybe try a Thrunite Ti Firefly with the .04lm low. For $16.95ish, it'll move quickly in the MP if you don't like it.


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## ragweed (Feb 2, 2012)

Thanks everyone! Guess I will go with a model with 3 lumens. Better too much than too little light.


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## LGT (Feb 2, 2012)

As reppans said, it all depends on where you're going to use it. If it's for the waking up in the middle of the night trip to the bathroom trying to avoid family pets or kids toys, it's more then enough. My HDS rotary at .28 is plenty for walking around a dark house.


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## Limey Johnson (Feb 2, 2012)

one of the modes on my Predator is 1 lumen...I love it. It's plenty bright when yu are already adjusted.
I wouldn't have a use for a light that was ONLY 1 lumen, but I like the setting. With a quick twist I go from 1 lumen to 370 OTF lumens!!


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## angelofwar (Feb 2, 2012)

3 lumens for me = too bright for around the house at night WHEN people sleeping, BUT, it's perfect for navigating a dark building, during a power outage, around a camp fire, in the woods when you just need to move around camp etc. It could be brighter, but, as others have mentioned, the lower setting helps extend the runtime. Think about it...if you CAN navigate with 3 lumens, why would you have 6 lumens, and shorten the runtime? That what makes the SF (I assume these are what you're talking about, since it's mostly them that have that setting) such great outdoors light...a lot of them habe just the two useful settings, making them simple but effective.


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## booky (Feb 2, 2012)

I agree that there is a use for very low lumens. For instance, I usually check on my boys at night with a tiny little keychain led. Birght enough for me to see, but not too bright to disturb their sleep.


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## 127.0.0.1 (Feb 2, 2012)

after reading about 3 lumens, I considered it

then actually using .04 lumens, I realized 3 is too high.

sub 1 lumen is great for not disturbing others, or not waking yourself up all the way to do something at night


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## Streamer (Feb 2, 2012)

Once night vision is achieved, 3 lumens is BLAZING. I wrestled with this for months before I got to use a .25 lumen. .25 lumens is perfect for around the house at nite to not disturb others. I didn't believe it til I tried it and my eyes are gettin' on to boot.

Now I wonder about .04 lumens. I can't believe it would be enough.

I should imagine .04 lumen would be about equivalent to the greenish glow from my older flip-phones little display, coz .25 lumens is WAYYYY brighter than that flip-phones display.


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## sniper (Feb 3, 2012)

I have a Gerber Infinity Ultra...the old model, left from when they bought out whoever made them first. I don't know what lumen level it reaches, but it is good for emergencies, or rummaging around in a tent, lighting your way to the bathroom, or on a "dark and stormy night" onto a railway right-of-way to photograph a train wreck, or finding your way around the house in a power failure...to find something brighter, or as a last resort, through the bushes, if a wild animal has run away with your shoes and good flashlight. I prefer my Inova X1s, which are nearly as small, but brighter. Neither of them give enough light for me to try identifying and engaging a hazard across my back yard, tho. My personal preference is for more light, not just enough to scrape by.


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## Jash (Feb 3, 2012)

0.2 lumens sometimes wakes my wife. I have to hold the light in such a way that my hand blocks the spill.

I think a 0.05 lumen low would work well sometimes.


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## yifu (Feb 3, 2012)

As a general reference 3 lumens is about the brightness of a mobile phone screen set to white (many people use that as flashlights) so it is a very useable mode.


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## budynabuick (Feb 3, 2012)

I just used 3lm for pouring a cup of coffee just now. I never thought low lm were any good till i used one .


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## Flying Turtle (Feb 3, 2012)

Streamer said:


> Now I wonder about .04 lumens. I can't believe it would be enough.
> 
> I should imagine .04 lumen would be about equivalent to the greenish glow from my older flip-phones little display, coz .25 lumens is WAYYYY brighter than that flip-phones display.



I've been messing with both the P0 and the Ti for awhile now, and feel you'd be surprised by how well 0.04 lumens works when shot through a normal OP reflector. Its dim little hotspot out-throws the floody 0.25 lumens. As far as navigating I'd say they're about the same.

Geoff


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## reppans (Feb 3, 2012)

^^ wow that sounds pretty good... guess that just leads to the next question - does the 0.04 get you any additional runtime? I can't seem to find any specs on that.


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## dealgrabber2002 (Feb 3, 2012)

It's very useful. I've been using the SC31 (got from Christmas, thanks Scout24!), lowest setting and it's more than enough light at night for bathroom runs and getting water.


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## Flying Turtle (Feb 3, 2012)

reppans said:


> ^^ wow that sounds pretty good... guess that just leads to the next question - does the 0.04 get you any additional runtime? I can't seem to find any specs on that.



The instruction sheet with the ThruNite Ti says it has a 175 hour runtime in firefly mode. I'm still playing with it too much to take it out of action for a test.

Geoff


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## RobertM (Feb 3, 2012)

Streamer said:


> Once night vision is achieved, 3 lumens is BLAZING. I wrestled with this for months before I got to use a .25 lumen. .25 lumens is perfect for around the house at nite to not disturb others. I didn't believe it til I tried it and my eyes are gettin' on to boot.
> 
> Now I wonder about .04 lumens. I can't believe it would be enough.
> 
> I should imagine .04 lumen would be about equivalent to the greenish glow from my older flip-phones little display, coz .25 lumens is WAYYYY brighter than that flip-phones display.



I have a 0.07 lumen mode on my HDS EDC and it is bit too bright sometimes with fully dark adapted eyes (getting up in the middle of the night). Since the HDS EDC allows for four modes to be programmed from 0.07 to 100 on my light, I actually use 0.07, 1.1, 25, and 100.


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## gcbryan (Feb 3, 2012)

I like having a low of no more than 3 lumens and it's nice to have the .2 option as well. However, some of the uses IMO are a bit exaggerated. It may be fun/nice/convenient to have .2 or lower but for the most part if that's enough light to go to the bathroom and you could probably go to the bathroom without a light.

I like flashlights but I don't actually need/use one to get to the bathroom at night. If you don't want to wake someone up it is also possible to just not turn the light on until you are a few feet away. I'm sure most people can get out of bed without a flashlight.


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## GaAslamp (Feb 3, 2012)

gcbryan said:


> some of the uses IMO are a bit exaggerated. It may be fun/nice/convenient to have .2 or lower but for the most part if that's enough light to go to the bathroom and you could probably go to the bathroom without a light.



I have to disagree because the interior of my house (some parts) gets pitch-black at night, and the 0.3-lumen mode of my EDC flashlight helps me see well enough to perform a wide variety of tasks, when I would be completely blind without it. This level of output is only useless when there is enough ambient light to see by anyway, as you alluded to, but in general the darker it is, the less light you need, and under such conditions 0.3 or even less than 0.2 lumens can be extremely useful, and 3 whole lumens oo: bounced off the ceiling can illuminate a large room well enough to walk around in with no effort.



gcbryan said:


> I like flashlights but I don't actually need/use one to get to the bathroom at night. If you don't want to wake someone up it is also possible to just not turn the light on until you are a few feet away. I'm sure most people can get out of bed without a flashlight.



Try this in my house, and you might hurt yourself (since you aren't familiar with the layout)--you'd have to shuffle your feet and feel around with your hands. I've put small EL panels in the hallway and some rooms for minimal navigational lighting, but the rest of the house is still extremely dark--my eyes are very light-sensitive (both inherently and through decades of practicing amateur astronomy), but I still can't see a thing (no photons, no vision). I could turn on a house light if I needed to do something, but why should I do that when 0.3 lumens out of a flashlight works fine and won't hurt my eyes? House lights are for when nobody in the house is dark-adapted yet and the ambient light is too low for people to see easily.


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## Flying Turtle (Feb 3, 2012)

As much as I like lights with a very low mode, I don't really need even that most of the time. Bet I'm not the only one with plenty of LED nightlights scattered around their house.

Geoff


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## reppans (Feb 3, 2012)

Flying Turtle said:


> The instruction sheet with the ThruNite Ti says it has a 175 hour runtime in firefly mode. I'm still playing with it too much to take it out of action for a test.
> 
> Geoff



That's pretty darn good for a AAA.... esp. if you think it's as reasonably useful as a floody 0.25. Hotspot is a good thing at that level, effectively making it a little more useful by aiming the hotspot where you really need it.


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## jh333233 (Feb 4, 2012)

Fully NAV vs 5mm of A2
I would say, it wont scorch your eyes unless it was shined at you directly


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## Shadowww (Feb 4, 2012)

Using lowest mode (2 lm) of my JETBeam PA40 quite often when indoors, but when I want to see just everything around me - 468 lumens are just a doubleclick away


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## Swedpat (Feb 4, 2012)

Shadowww said:


> Using lowest mode (2 lm) of my JETBeam PA40 quite often when indoors, but when I want to see just everything around me - 468 lumens are just a doubleclick away



I have a PA40W and the 2lm mode is great for using with dark adapted eyes. Also I have Quark 123 with 0,2lm. Much dimmer but still useful(hotspot easily reaches more than 10 meters). Actually I would like a ~0,02lm mode. Such a one would still be useful in darkness with dark adapted eyes. 
So 3lumens is very useful!


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## Scottiver (Feb 4, 2012)

If you find yourself in a situation where 3 lumens or more is too bright in a house, don't point the light at what you want to see, point the light at the ceiling (ceiling bounce) which will result in a nice glow to the whole room without hurting your eyes or disturbing others. I do it every night on the way to and getting ready for bed.


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## LEDninja (Feb 5, 2012)

Reading menus in dark restaurants. Reading the programme in theaters.


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