How low ? How often? How come?

I got caught up on the super low craze quit a few years ago. I thought it was neat that a light could go that low without a dying cell. I sneaked around the house like a cat burglar, stumble around in the basement trying to find things with enough run time to last me 30 days. Took pride knowing I could get the the toilet without disturbing my wife even if she just turned the light on when she went. I slept well knowing if the sun didn’t come up I had years worth of sub lumen output at my disposal. I did my best to preserve my night vision.

Then one day it stopped.

The only use I have for a sub lumen level at this point in my life is to locate the light in an unfamiliar place. Camping and hotels. Otherwise 3-30 lumens just works for me.

How low do you go? How often? and How come?

I just use the moon mode on a Zebralight SC52w just once a night. I think it’s less than half a lumen. I just use it to sneak into the bedroom and make it to my night stand without waking the wife. She is a super lite sleeper and wakes to almost everything. Other than that I wouldn’t have a use for any sub lumen mode.

For those check-the-night walks I typically use about a third of a lumen (.331) and even then shield it with my hand and let light leak out between my fingers, directed on the floor in front of me to ensure my boy didn’t leave anything that would bite my toes on the floor. :wink:

Toykeeper probably uses the lowest the longest with the best CRI… just sayin. :wink:

With 67 year old eyes sub lumen level is a waste of a mode for me. The older I get the more light I need to see things.

Every morning at 5 AM. I maneuver around the house making coffee getting ready for work, etc, avoiding Legos and other such traps set for me.

What level? Guessing your keeping a lite sleeper happy

Most likely around a little below 1 lumen. I have a wife and a daughter who are light sleepers.

At my age, I use it a couple of times a night… :cry: . Anything more than the lowest low wakes me up and I have trouble going back to sleep. My ‘head to the bathroom’ light is an early edition ‘Manker driver’ A01. Great tint, great moonlite.

I really think the necessary minimum is a function of an individuals eyes. I’ve noticed over the years that some people simply have better night vision than others.

Another low lumens light that I tolerate well is the Skilhunt H03. For its price and usefulness, I think that’s a very under rated light.

Unno, whut’s moonlight-mode on a Cometa?

In super-wide flood (ie, well-dispersed light, not concentrated into a hotspot like most reflector lights), that gets me decent brightness and a nice wide field-of-view.

Firefly mode on a SP10B was also good.

So… you need to distinguish brightness vs intensity. As above, my Cometa in full-flood might even have multiple lumens, but it’s spread out over a huge area, vs a (relatively) narrow spot from an SP10B.

My lowest is .36 on my Zebralight. It’s fun looking straight down the barrel of my flashlight but it really doesn’t serve a real function for me.

I find most low settings to be good enough for me if I need it in the night.

I’ve also developed a spider sense for the solid walnut foot of my bed after nearly breaking my toes on a few occasions soon after setting it up. It’s amazing what a pain can do to wake up your other senses!

I work in an optics lab and we usually keep the lights low. Stray light can compromise the data we are collecting. If I have to wright something down I use the lowest setting on my Zebralight SC600w MK3.

I use my Jetbeams RRT01 at weekend on “low levels” (I cannot measure, just twist the ring till I get the desired brightness, that is way below an Olight S1R Baton’s moonlight), so that I don’t disturb who’s sleeping at home.
During the week, I normally use a flashlight on moonlight (with a driver similar to the Astrolux X5/X6), with a diffuser, bedstanding to avoid too much light before sleeping.
And I normally tend to use ML modes if I wake up during the night.

My 458 Ham’r in moon mode makes 5.175 lumens. Seemingly bright for a moon mode but the thing has 17 emitters, 5 drivers… totally amazing the lowest output is so low!

<—— my Avatar is the Ham’r in moon mode.

I use the low on a zanflare f1 or blf a6 for my bedside light. It often stays on all night.

I’m 47 and i want at least 40-ish lumen from a light.
The lowest mode on the Astrolux A01 for example, is totally pointless for me.
It’s clear that others can navigate with much less light.
I haven’t actually tried what the minimum useful light output is for me, though.
When i need it, i grab a light and usually go for around 100 lumen or 1 Watt (i guesstimate), but this depends on the light too.

1 lumen +/-, anything less and these old eyes struggle. But for me only in familiar places like bedroom at night (daily) or inside tent, etc. When in an unfamiliar hotel or outside at campground, I need a little more so that I don’t trip or run into obstacles that might be at the peripheral to vision or a moonlight level beam.

And as some have indicated, it doesn’t disturb night vision adjustment and/or sleep pattern.


I have a Nitecore Tube attached to my lanyard which I fly with. It’s super lightweight so I don’t notice it behind my ID badge and RFID card.

You would be surprised how bright 1 lumen is after flying in complete darkness with minimal instrument lights on for hours at a time. I need to find a similar light that can go sub-lumen.

I rely on the pee light using a single amber LED as the light source, and it’s plenty bright.

Contrast sensitivity declines with age, and the ‘noise’ in the visual system increases. Dagnabbit.

Yeh, kinda like in a super quiet room with so little noise that you can hear your own heartbeat, sometimes you’ll hear “white noise” that seems to get intensely “loud”, probably just because your internal gain gets cranked up to 11.

Amazing just how noisy absolute silence can be…

So far looks like Polite P’ers is winning.

I am still what I would consider a polite p’er, it just takes me more light to see. And if I am up to john it probably cause my wife just went and woke me up.