[Review] Too much throw! FT03 vs L21A

What would be the perfect thrower, not the one that throws the farthest but the one you enjoy the most ?

50kcd to 130kcd, IMHO.

Not at all.The beam intensity of a 1Mcd light is so much more intense at 200,300 yds. Ect than one that is 100Kcd :wink:

Ok, do you have a specific light in mind as well?

Then just get a LEP or actual laser and you’ve reached your nirvana.

There aint a thing as too much throw, otherwise people wouldn’t buy LEP lights.
Its just that there isn’t just one perfect flashlight.
You need a dozen of lights to select from, to suit your actual need

“Flashlights are like Pokemon, you have to catch them all…”

Agreeable. After a certain point, the human eye can’t even see as far as the pencil beam is being output to, so there’s really no point other than bragging rights about spec sheets.

How would you know what my nirvana is?

Sorry,I have no use for LEP lights.I like as much peripheral light,lumens and throw with a big hot spot as possible.

How about if you let me enjoy and like what I prefer instead of you telling me what I should like or have?

Fair enough? :wink:

But what exactly is that certain point? I’d say my vision while not 20/20 is pretty good and I can clearly tell the difference between a 1km and 1.8km light. The rating just means it’ll be as bright as moonlight at the stated distance which in other words means it’ll be useless at the rated distance. For real world use I take the rating and divide it by four to get a more realistic rating. If the human eye can only see 1.2km, then you’d need a light with about 4.8km of throw to actually see things clearly at that distance. I mean you’d probably be able to see things 1.2km away with a 3km rated light but it’s not gonna be very useful at that distance.

When your battery charger is on fire and your cells are venting, but you can’t smell the burning through the fishy stink… then yes, you definitely can have too much p*y!!

I hate LEP lights, but if indeed throw only is your baby, then those would fit the bill. But those who want normal effective illumination would NOT be all-throw in preference.

Can’t see ‘what’ further then 3/4 miles away? I can see the moon just fine but i can’t see a neutron that’s right in front of my face.

Too much throw for a specific situation is a thing and i get that the OP is talking in relation to his own personal use, but there are situations other than for bragging rights in which throw is useful.
I also get the sense that sometimes throw is confused with hotspot size, or the relationship in brightness between the hotspot and spill i.e beam pattern.

One can reduce the throw of the L21A by using a mode with reduced brightness but it still won’t be comfortable to use as a walking light.

Useful review for me though Chicken Drumstick, nice to see the L21A beam in relation to the FT03 beam. I have a sliced XHP50.2 in my FT03 which seems to be a cross between the SST40 and XHP50.2 standard beams,.

It’s all relative to magnification. To bare human eyes there’s inherent practical limitations when there’s subjective “too much throw.”

Press binoculars or a scope to one’s eyes and what was once too much throw suddenly becomes a lot more irrelevant.

I think the Noctigon KR1 is hard to beat with the W2. 100,000cd but small enough to EDC. You need to be in a really big area to really see anything further than it can realistically shine IMO, unless you are just shining a high cd light at big/reflective objects for the sake of it.

Indeed, it is all relative. Although using binos/scopes at night with a high powered torch has to a somewhat specialist use and unlikely to be normal for the vast majority. And almost certainly not the sort of thing you’d be doing just out walking.

We’re on the same page with just maybe sum nuances. IMO a 1000 vs a 1,500 yard thrower isn’t “normal” per se either with regards to general walking usage in real life so the practical applications get narrower - except for zoomer throwers which offer less intense flooding or just plain reflectored throwers on a lower power setting. Options.

Now if I know I’ll be out and about with intent to look at 1,000 yard lit up objects I’ll bring my tiny/lightweight vintage 8x monocular. If I’m not planning to look at objects that far away but only at objects well within my bare eyes abilities then for me the thrower just provides in most cases an extra-lit up small area that I’m interested in. Most of the time for me finding an area that’s actually throwable (clear/unobstructed) at those distances much less an area I’m interested in is a very rare occurrence anyway. I guess one way to look at extra-throw is, “It’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it” so too much throw is kinda like too much turbo. So then just turn off turbo and instead just put it on medium.

Thrower folks that practically use them more just than occasionally other than for grins are a rarified crowd. But for them a magnifier is one viable tool that makes practical sense considering these distances. So yeah I don’t typically need to use a magnifier at 200 to 300 yards butt much beyond that I find that little monocular essential - for my eyes at least. :laughing:

This train of thought was the inspiration to my review. :slight_smile:

But my conclusion is, yes you can have too much. For distances in the video (and it would have been the same if I’d walked through a number of fields out towards the other end of the village). The FT03 or even a KR1 would likely have worked better, as they would match the range of anything I could either see with the naked eye or by physical boundaries. But would also light up a more useable area at the same time.

As Impressive as the L21A was with the W2 HX, it just wasn’t all that useful under these circumstances. A more throwy light would be even less so and medium output would not address this, as you’d actually be lighting up even less.

I suspect something with an SBT.90 would work well, as it would have similar reach (maybe better) than the W2 HX but with the ability to light an area up like the XHP50.2 did.

Throw is never enough :)

Jokes aside, I do enjoy using 300+ KCD lights.
I'm not necessarily in need of reaching a target that's 1.3km away, but I appreciate the fact that my 300+ KCD lights are able to set a way brighter hotspot at 400m, than a "regular" 100KCD light.

My favorite light at the moment is my KR1vn with sbt-90.2. Pocketable, but incredibly throwy for size. I keep it in my truck and it’s so handy to spot distance objects. I have noticed that the throw on high is adequate for illuminating all that I need to see, so that when I click to turbo, the throw doesn’t seem to increase as much as the intensity or brightness of where it’s already throwing to, if that makes sense. It’s like the peak throw is reached due to the reflector size and LED, and clicking to turbo only increases the lumens on the beam. I know that the candela increases with turbo as well, but in practice, I’m really just noticing the lumens.