What moonlight output do you prefer and why?

1 lumen is enough for me, honestly, i hate some flashlights that has useless moonlight mode: too bright(5-6 lumen) or too dim{below 1 lumen)

I use my Astrolux S41 around the house on lowest setting. It is about perfect for me as it is so floody too.
Bump it up one notch and I can see where stuff is in most rooms, rarely need more than that indoors. Not sure what the lumens are for the S41 tho???

Moon/firefly much less use on narrower beams I think.

I believe the usefulness of moonlight modes are completely dependant upon the eyes of the user.

Personally, if I wake up and need to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, the (claimed) 0.5 lumens from any of my Olights is simply painfully bright. A neutral AO1 or Thrunite offering less than half that value are much more comfortable.

My wife, on the other hand, finds the 0.5 level useless - and needs about 3 lumens. It’s sure nice that we have lots of choices.

+1

If I recall correctly, Narsil (BLF Q8) lets you set the moon level.

Me, I like moon in the range of 0.20 lm to 0.50 lm. Anything in that range is fine. I don’t find firefly modes to be as useful (~0.01 lm to ~0.10 lm). My preferred spacing is approximately 0.2-0.5 lm, 3-10 lm, 30-50 lm, and … anything above that is optional. Moon, low, medium.

For me it’s somewhere between .5 and 1 lumen i have a couple one lumen lows and although i understand that some would think lower is better I generally disagree .One lumen really doesn’t offend and it’s actually bright enough to be useful …where super low low moonlight or firefly modes can be just stupid and have very little actual usage .If you had to err it’s better to err on a bit more than not enuff…
lots of super low lows are just for bragging rights or so the manufacturer can sell it as a 47 day runtime …
If you have the ability to change moon modes like the zebralights than a lower low is possible and nice to have .But if you can only have one choice it would have to be between a half and one lumen .

Manker MK34 lets you set the moonlight level anywhere from barely visible to 30 lumens. A very nice feature. I normally keep it at a firefly like level.

There seems little sense is trying to choose a moonlight level, a firefly level, low level, medium level, or high level. They are all relative, and not all lights have them.

It would make more sense to have a list of tasks and then see if there is a preference level or the range of lumens people prefer for these tasks. Then one might be able to say something about which lights would be suitable for which tasks. Firefly, moon, ultra low, low… they are all just names with no standard on which they are based and they all have changed over time.

For enthusiasts adjustable level might be good

But the majority of sold lights get to people that are happy to have more than one mode and that are not interested in adjustable modes or any fancy UI

0.5 to 1 lumen is a good moonlight mode for me…

this might be true, but not on BLF :wink:

By far the most ideal, but likely too complex/expensive is to hook up the flashlight to a computer or phone app.
Then configure the number of settings in a group. For each setting configure a percentage or lumen
That way everyone can configure the most ideal setting. That includes moonlight.

Or have a flashlight with 100 settings. Allow the user to pick 3 of them to put in the group for daily use.

I think it be a little brighter than thing you write to vote i sence it about 4-5 lumen if i haven’t error.

With my Zebralight SC62w, I prefer the brightest of the 3 moonlight modes which is rated at 0.4 lumens. Low is 3.4 lumens, which is too bright in my opinion to be considered moonlight.

The lowest moonlight (i.e firefly) is rated at 0.01 lumens and apparently can go for 5.5 months. That seems almost too low to be useful, but in a totally dark room, in the middle of the night, it’s enough lumens to maneuver around without waking anybody up. And most importantly, it’s enough light to make my son not afraid of the dark.

My manker E01 claims 0.14 lumen. This is fine for navigating around the house at night. My thrunite archer 1a v3 has a 0.1 lumen and this works also, but is much brighter than the E01. Not sure which is accurate, I suspect my E01 is significantly less than 0.1 lumen, as it has been running for a week in moonlight mode and is still nearly as bright as when it started on an eneloop.

I am in the “Total waste of a click” camp on this one. :wink:

I’m not sure if they fixed it yet, but Zebralight’s moon modes (as of 2015) tend to be significantly lower than the rated spec. Their other modes are usually spot-on, but not moon. For example, the 0.34 lm mode on my SC52 is actually about 0.10 lm (and selfbuilt’s measurements agree).

In general though, moon modes are rarely very precise. It’s hard to get a consistent output when it’s that low. Some (like everything I’ve measured from Thrunite) are rated at 0.09 lm but actually are closer to 0.03 lm, while at the other end of the spectrum I had one rated at 0.50 lm which actually produced 4.7 lm.

On lights I make, I generally try to hit somewhere between 0.1 lm and 0.5 lm, and I’m happy if I can get anything in that range… especially if it remains in that range on both a full battery and an empty battery.

FWIW, I put a “good night” mode on my night stand light. It slowly ramps down from 6 lm to ~0.3 lm over about an hour, then shuts off. It’s not so much for being afraid of the dark though; more just so we can see each other while chatting before sleep.

For an all-night light, a Zebralight generally works better.

Agreed :+1:

That is a neat feature