I received the light today and was able to spend a short time with it tonight. (the Litesam/Amazon version)
So far I cannot access the driver, can’t get the head unscrewed, it must be glued tight.
Zooming in and out does change the OTF Lumens, it’s brighter when fully zoomed in to spot.
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The light I received may be defective though because there’s the really BIG issue (and it’s whats causing the change in output)
There is a HORRIBLE black spot in the beam. (I guess it’s what’s referred to as a “Donut hole”) It is not present when fully zoomed in to spot, it disappears slightly before reaching full spot zoom. and it is not really “visible” when fully zoomed out to flood…but it’s there…
When you zoom out to flood the black spot expands, progressively enlarging until it pretty much becomes as large as the whole beam, at that point you can’t really see it, but it is still there and “darkening” the entire beam, causing the brightness to be less than when zoomed in to spot.
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An expanding dark center may be an inherent characteristic of the aspeheric lens zoomies as well, but I’ve personally never seen one this bad. I have a supfire F5 and you cannot notice any dark spot unless you really look hard for it, so it doesn’t really detract from normal use like this FiTorch/Litesam. If the problem is not a defect and a characteristic of this light and lens system, it should have been mentioned in the review.
In the review the beam shots show full spot and full flood, but no beam shot of any in-between position, where the black spot is blatantly visible. It’s also visible (and annoying) in real use outdoors, not just on a white wall)
Here’s the missing beam shots:
The fully zoomed photos (in and out) in the review are the same as what I’m seeing, (no black hole) so I didn’t post those.
It’s a pity because otherwise the light is screaming quality… excellent knurling, excellent machining fit and finish, nothing sloppy, zoom threads smooth and tight, squared threads that came well lubed, great anodizing etc etc. Absolutely nothing else to complain about. I’ve sent a message with photos to FiTorch/Litesam asking if this is normal or a defect.