For a casual walk, at least here you don´t necessarily need the most lumens or throw.
Too bright spill near you can get disturbing or too bright. Not throw at all, not good also...
What is YOUR best bet, the most usable light for this kind of activity from Your selection?
I just took some of my faves for a walk.
It is one of the first, still warm but dark nights in here for this fall. Temp 15°C, moist 74%, so definitely some beams visible.
Surpriced, how well DQG performs on a narrow bike route fenced with trees and bushes. Wide spill really makes me smile, amazing how well you can do with only some 50-60 lumens when it gets really dark :)
Others were L2m XM-L @ 1,4A, L2i R5 1A, UF 980L and Lambda 2D XM-L
Overall, I must say L2i and L2m were close but L2m with 1,4 XM-L and OP reflector took my points!
Such nice and even transition from spot to flood, just enough power for taking a walk...
Lambda... well, nice for illuminating a freight train 200m away as well with 980L. In fact, 980L might put out more lumens to my eye but that deep Rebel reflector makes some throw.
I was a bit sad, I forgot to take my quite new Zebra SC51w. The warm (supposed to be neutral) beam has had a ton of criticism from me. I should have taken it out in the dark to see it properly. Might have been a good one but tomorrow I will check it out.
Since I added a multi-mode driver to my Ultrafire WF-501b XR-E R2, I really like having it with me when walking after dark. Low mode is enough to see where I am walking and high mode has enough throw that I can use it to scan my surroundings. Plus, it's small/light enough to drop in my pocket so I'll have it handy after it gets dark. I'm not sure what the driver is; it's just a DX 5-mode driver I had in my kit when the factory driver died. I particularly like this one because it does not have PWM on the low modes.
But!!!
I also really like my Trustfire TR-1200 5x XR-E because of the sheer amount of light it emits. I live in the country and like it to scan remote pastures and trees for deer, racoons, and other animals. Its larger size makes it less convenient, but the throw somewhat makes up for that. I would rate it much higher if it had better mode control, but the low modes show significant signs of PWM which I find very distracting while the high mode is MUCH too high for lighting the path.
WF-502B, XP-G R5 5 mode with SMO reflector; my general purpose workhorse light. Just the right blend of pocketable size, flood, throw and battery life.
Ultrafire rl-168 1.4a xml-u2 or SF L2p xml-t6. They're pretty much interchangable for me, only with the much reduced battery life of the 14500's
I'm pretty much downtown though, so even 'dark' isn't dark. Unless you're under trees, you can read a paper on a cloudy night even without the streetlights.
Personally I like to rotate what I use quite often. I usually take 3-5 lights on a walk and try them all out. I always have my two EDCs on me, but the next walk I will grab two or three different lights so I get a different experience with every walk. None of my lights are shelf queens and all of them have batteries in them at all times, so I can grab any light at any time and use it. I really enjoy seeing how the different lights brighten up the real world.
Any p60 host with a nice XM-L 3-mode drop-in. You just can't beat that combination. I have a couple that are 5 mode and they tend to get irritating when you want to switch from low to high and have to cycle past 2 of the blinky modes. I still use them, but in the future will definitely seek out 3-mode lights.
Good times now for testing here. It´s one of the nights when it´s dark BUT street lights in this small village are not yet lit.
Soon, it gets more rainy, colder, street lights get lit up again and finally snow = not totally dark anymore in anywhere...
I live at countryside, near sea, very flat terrain, some open fields yet forests, bushes to block view.
I agree wit Keltex, bad PWM on low modes seems to be bad for my tastes...
Rather take lower output on high than power + bad flickering low-modes. Got L2T on my mind now for next OR some crazy 3x XM-L at some point, maybe for christmas.
I went for a walk to a local park with my skyray 3xm-l. I saw some people start running away. I assume they thought I was the police or I had disturbed them doing something they shouldn't be doing.
i was with a friend doing some bridge structural survey work at night. (dont ask me, its HIS job)
small boat, cruising up the charles river in boston, nice warm summer night. i had my 980L and he his BC40 (in fact, this was the trip that made me buy the jetbeam).
as we came out from under one of the bridges in cambridge, we both managed to hit the same area with our lights and about a half a dozen people broke and scattered like cockroaches when you turn on the lights.
any LEO who does not have one of the new generation of lights is missing a great opportunity for low danger-crowd dispersal. it was impressive.
For a casual walk my Yezl T9 works great. It has an awesome, even brightness flood cone. Probably about the same thing that Be-Seen Triker is talking about.
For my regular after-dinner walk I use the Manta Ray C8 XM-L, set to 440mA mode. The broad and bright corona, as an intermediate stage, helps in illuminating the path pretty evenly the whole length.
To check whom those glittering eyes in the distance belong to (earlier this year we had a bear come twice for cherries to our garden, only 40m from the house, while our labrador slept peacefully indoors), I also carry the HS-802 thrower in my back pocket.
I usually just use the street lamps if it's a walk in town. Currently I'd probably have the Ultrafire BJO8A in my pocket just in case I need to check out something. Sometimes I might only have the ITP A3 worn around my neck (under my shirt).
If it's away from street lamps I'd either be wearing or at least carrying my Zebralight H51f.
. I assume they thought I was the police or I had disturbed them doing something they shouldn't be doing.
