Unpopular Flashlight Opinion Thread

I hate yellow tint in flashlights. It reminds me of an old incandescent flashlight that’s in its final stages of dimming because its batteries are about to go dead, so I feel an impulse to turn it off so as to conserve battery power. Years of going on backpacking trips as a kid with incandescent flashlights and headlamps kind of traumatized me. Seeing any flashlight today that has a yellow beam is like being in the same room as an unflushed toilet. It just makes me uneasy.

Copper patina looks gross to me, like a penny that has been touched by thousands of people whose hands have been God knows where before they touched the penny, or like an alkaline battery leaked on it. Brass patina is fine.

Complicated UI’s are great for an EDC light because we’re all unique in our everyday needs, but an outdoor light should only ever have an intuitive, simple UI that can be operated with cold hands, gloved hands or adrenaline-shaking hands. Stop with the double freaking clicks!

Reversible pocket clips are needlessly bulky, and most people who whine to manufacturers to put them on their lights probably don’t even wear brimmed hats regularly. And the ones that do wear baseball caps around probably don’t wear them at night that often. Tail cap magnets are also terrible. Some people just need to learn how to use a headlamp.

I quite like my cyan D4.

I’m not a fan of the chalky texture, but on the other hand it does provide much better grip than the smooth D4, and the cyan D4 is much less chalky than the white D4.

Yeah, but if they have a magnetic head, the tailcap magnet is so much easier than those bulky sweaty elastic bands.

Ouch, this is recognizeable.
I don’t know what lights to get rid of
The GT is a fun to have, but it is barely used, almost a shelf queen, more a showoff.
I seriously doubted (actually still am) on the XHP70.2 conversion kit ( i even bought a strapwrench…) but never ended finishing pressing the paypal button.
My L6 on the other hand is much more practicalfor a XHP70 light

For my general purposes, tint rarely makes a difference. If I want a specific tint that’s not currently offered in a light I have or want, I make do with trying out different tints from my Lee Filters Swatch Book. Works well enough for me, but I haven’t tried using them in wet conditions yet.

Relevant thread: Correcting tint with LEE Filters

Even as a bit of a tint snob I can agree with this. It seems very easy for my eyes to adapt to almost any color temp or hue and still tell colors apart fairly well.

The problem is when there is tint shift IMO, that is not only super irritating but can make it hard to distinguish colors when different parts of the beam make them look so different.

Now here’s someone who really understood the thread title well :smiley:

NarsilM is just better than Anduril.

The 219B R9080 SW45 is overrated, too rosy, extremely inefficient, and makes everybody wanting the perfect rosy emitter, while something like the E21 is about perfect.

The XHP70.2/XHP 50.2 are not worth it. Cree should just introduce factory dedomed emitters. since these look crap with a dome.

The SST-40 is a POS LED that should be introduced in 5000k CCT.

Convoy/Jaxman lithium-ion lights are the only lights which have been reliable in every way. They have no glaring flaw.

I prefer using credit cards over Paypal. Less fees for the guy/gal working behind.

The 219b sw45, especially in its 9080 form, is more of a High Color Contrast emitter than Hi Cri neutral daylight emitter.
It’s my preferred LED for this reason.

Like copper tinted eyeglasses, it makes things unnatural, but easier for to me to see.
Aging eyeballs need help sometimes, and the magenta-pink (rose) enhancement increases apparent contrast.

I had not thought about it that way though…

At least the SST-20 is a suitable emitter since it reproduces reds extremely well.

The only suitable replacements is the Mouser SST-20 3500k GA3(below BBL) and SST-20 HD2 3000k(below BBL).

I have yet to find a good tinted SST-20 4000k.

After hearing about the great tint of the XPL HI 5D I was surprised to see it look much more yellow/green than the SST-20 4000K in this comparison:

To my eyes, on my monitor the SST looks much more neutral/natural.

That’s an effect of much better color rendition.

On a pure white wall, yes the XP-L HI 5D looks rosier, but outside?

High CRI emitters easily win. The lack of dynamic range of low CRI emitters makes for a worse beam in real world conditions.

I still won’t be touching even a high CRI XHP 50.2/XHP70.2 though.

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Absolutely, unless you have a light with a huge reflector like the GT70 or an Imalent I’d take a light with multiple small emitters any day and have way better beam profile.

“High end” custom flashlights like Okluma, Hanko, Deadwood,and Oveready look amateurish and cheap compared to those from more mainstream manufacturers.

The FW3A isn’t going to live up to the hype and the 2 year GB

GBers (including myself) will wake up soon to the above and begin (eventually) taking back control of BLF GBs.

Totally agree the point about the amateurish customs. If I were machining Ti lights I would make my selling point their ability to withstand a nuclear blast, or drop them to the bottom of the Marianas Trench in the ocean depths. Or send some to Elon Musk to send them into reentry in the atmosphere. Instead….MORE SKULLS.

Another thought.

If I ask “what is a professional flashlight” the response is not so predictable; the world is on unstable footing.

Some first responders might swear by decades old Maglite tech. Still others might swear by Streamlight. The absolute cutting egde might recommend a Fenix.

The tenderfoots enthusiasts are quick to exclaim how great the Armytek or Thrunite is; others scratch their head thinking “the closest Armytek has been to the Army is they stuck it in the name.”

Some might proclaim nothing short of their $500 HDS will do, as they claim it is a hands down bomber light.

I scratch my head, as I can’t tell if a professional ever had any actual design influence on an Olight, or a Fenix, etc. Any product testing with a police officer? Or paramedic?

Maybe a Police officer needs a 4 hour runtime and a quick charge, a thrower that converts to a multi-angle. An amber strobe.

An enthusiast can afford the collection, can afford to pluck the right tool from the toolbox.

Out in the wild, though, when wind and rain is howling and you have one light, just one, where is the professional swiss army light?

Yes. Most of the brands based in the US/Canada that make even remotely “tactical”-style lights have.

Momentary turbo mode makes a lot of sense for camping and hiking and many other practical uses. I just don’t like it when a flashlight gets so hot on turbo and dims so much to cool down that it becomes dimmer after ramping down from turbo than it would have been had I set it to its brightest sustainable mode and left it there.

Tend to agree with you here. Don’t get me wrong, I totally do understand the point of throwers, for people who need them. I just don’t have a huge need for them in my own life either. What’s the point of being able to shine a spotlight on something 1 km away when the human eye can’t even make out what it’s looking at that far away. 99% of my daily life takes place in the suburbs and even when I head out into the woods to go camping, I am usually in Eastern woodlands under trees these days, so there are no 1 km wide open areas to throw light across to begin with. A powerful searchlight just doesn’t seem that useful to me.