Poor night/dim light vision. Low is useless to me. I need a couple hundred lumens before I'm easeful seeing at night.
Rich
+1
I like the .5 lumen low for getting up in the middle of the night to use the restroom without waking my girlfriend up. It's about as bright as the screen on a cell phone pointed at the ground. Enough light for night adjusted eyes to see good enough to not trip over random objects, but not bright enough to wake innocent bystanders.
I would say for a small indoors light, under 1 lumen.
My most used light by runtime is my nightlight SC51w. I have a bit same situation as kramer but my wife does most of the "calls" at night.
I stay up quite late by nature and because of 3-shift work so I take the "early" (before 0200) cases, she has incredible ability to fall asleep again like 100 times a night.
When I wake up 2 or 3 times, thats it for me for that night, no more sleep...
SC51w runs all nights through on L2. L1 is a bit too bright IMO, even ceiling bounced.
Does anyone here have both, SC51w with old circuit (brass knob at positive end) and H51w (or SC51w) with new circuit (two wires parallel at positive end)?
Why is there so HUGE difference in low-low's?
Old circuit makes L2 almost as bright as L1 in new circuitry, new has really much lower low. I like the new better anyway, since no noticeable PWM and old has bad PWM on two most used levels for me: L2 and H2 :)
How Low a low goes for me Really depends on the UI.
I really prefer a LOW low whenever the UI allows for easy use. I have a couple V10Rs and a few of them go really really low and I like that, but some are brighter and are too bright for my liking.The middle one is my tolerable limit for the V10R. The ones on the right are my ideal low lows in the V10R. To put these in perspective, the far left one is a 0.08Lumen HDS rotary. (the V10A is from DD, a particular batch that doesn't go as low)
And to put the V10R in perspective with some other flashy torches
The Maratac on the left is supped to be 5 lumens?, the second (D10) around the 2 lumen mark, the third (orange body) is closer to 1 lumen. Second on the right is 0.08 lumens.
But all that aside, although I want a 0.001 lumen low.... Thats in a UI that is easily adjustable anywhere from nada to full. In a 3 mode twisty, I much prefer a low of around 1-3 lumens because although I enjoy the 0.001 lumen V10R, a 1 lumen low is the best balance between night adjusted vision and actually being able to see what your trying to do when there is no other "low" mode available.
The other valid point raised was battery life. A lot of these infinitely variable designs do not have the efficiency it would seem to provide due to the overheads of the circuit. The V10R is very inefficient on low output, and will flatten a RCR within a couple days or up to a week of use on 0.01 lumens. The only torch I have that has long runtime is my predator. Its a different class of light, but on an 18650 it has been tested by the mfg to run for over 100 days. I think I recall that their test model made it to 4 months on a low that rivals the V10R, meaning that not turning the torch off is a realistic option.
So overall.. as the OP defines, in a 3 mode torch, I voted 1 lumen.
I wish there were more lights with ultra dim output. Even 0.03 lumins is too much. If there was a light that was barely visable in total darkness that would be ideal. Something like 0.00000000000000000000000001 lumin would be great.
The problem I see with barely visible is the frame of reference.
In the middle of the night I can use the V10A's beam pretty well. During the day it's invisible. And outside it's almost impossible to tell if the light is on even looking at the emitter...
Our eyes are amazing...
If all the light has is 3 modes then I chose 1-2 lumens for the low. In reality I prefer a light with at least 4 modes. The interface on my Zebralight SC60 is my favorite with 6 levels to choose from. I find the .2 lumen more than bright enough to ceiling bounce when I'm up in the morning getting dressed in the dark. It would be great to have one that does .02 or less.
One day I'll get a nice rotary like the V10R. I think Infinitely variable rotaries are the bomb.
i dont like superlow output but a Lo should be low so i voted for "1-2 lumens". that's where many 1xAAA lights have their low output and where it gets easy to compare efficiency (runtimes).
Hey Garry,
If I’d had my trusty hand torch, outfitted with the extra special “moonlight” mode, I would have used it.
Instead of foregoing my Dragonfire XY-Z with an eye searing 8000 lumens, that would have ruined my well earned night vision.
I would have seen that my loving wife had moved her dresser a foot or so closer to the door, to see how it looked in it’s new spot.
Resulting in that unmistakable and instantaneous sound that comes when my toes crash into that dresser, arriving in my brain even before the pain makes me cry.
Not such a bad mode after all.
Well, if we’re talking about a 3-mode light then I’d probably say somewhere between 1-2 lumens.
The lowest I like is the 0.3 moonlight on my Quark X AAx2. I just love that amount of light when my eyes are night-adapted! It’s very rarely too high, and it’s never too low.
i only like firefly if theres more than 3 modes. i think 3/35/100% levels are fine for me. but if i were to have a 5 mode, custom programs like e1320’s pretty much sounds perfect in my book. ive just been putting off getting one because i lost a lot of love for p60 lights after having so many fine as is c8’s. sorry e! i will be getting one soon enough though.