Enlightened Moose wrote:
> Among the thing I seem to collect with the money I don't spend on drugs or
> fast things, are flashlights. I don't quite understand this one. The high
> power seems like overkill and the low too low. I have a set of three 200
> lumen lights I got at Costco for less than a third of the cost of this. 200
> lumens is a lot of light and the lower setting is useful, too. Run on three
> AAAs. I'm also amazed by the brightness of a Cree that uses a single AA and
> focuses.
LOL, well, flashlights are kinda one of my "things", I guess. The
number of these things haunting my house are running on infinite.
There is a big multi-D-cell MAGLight billy club with LED bulb under
the bed and a myriad of penlights here and there.
My biggest problem with LED lights is that they tend to be a bit on
the bluish side and have a lousy CRI. I determined that I wasn't going
to buy any new flashlight unless I got to really see how the light was
in it. Streamlight did an excellent job with this one as it maintains
a high CRI and is pretty well color-balanced. The other thing I
really like about this light is that Streamlight does a good job of
giving it a decent flood coverage with a nice hotspot in the middle of
the beam. You don't have to live with wide, but dim, or focused but
beamy. For normal use, the central beam has a nice roll off so it
doesn't drive you nuts as you move the light around. It seems to match
the normal roll-off of the human eye well.
> I've intentionally stayed away from the CR123 based flashlights. Lots of
> Eneloop AA and AAA batteries (and Amazon eqs.) run so many many things. With
> a couple of smart chargers, I'm covered. I don't need another type.
I would have preferred a rechargeable or the ability to take
rechargeables. We're just about a year away from having a high-power
flashlight with built-in USB charger. IProtec already has a 380 Lumen
on just coming on the market, but I didn't want to go down into the
junk category and the beam characteristics aren't nearly as nice as
the Streamlight.
I looked at various brands and models and would have been pretty happy
with a 220 lumen model, but my wife steered me to the 750 one as she
knows that I won't be happy unless I get the flamethrower.
Overall, I think 200-300 lumens is about right for a flashlight and is
a good balance. For indoor flashlight usage, you really don't want to
go past 300 as it will totally destroy your night vision and is
actually a bit on the bright side. But for outdoor use where you want
to see what's lurking around in the bushes, the brighter the better.
Streamlight doesn't make the best flashlights around, but they seem to
have a decent price/performance with great warranty.
AG
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