Flashlight reviews opininos, wishes, suggestions or anything you may want to be added.

You can see the archived poll results on the Wayback Machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20221220093741/https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/72490

I'd tend towards preferring more in-depth reviews, but it is possible to go too far...

Stuff like runtimes take a long time and require equipment - I'm happy with, "usable light for xxx hours/days/weeks/months/years"

Output measurements are very expensive to standardise properly, stuff like tint costs even more. Good on sixty545 for doing this, it gives us a good place to see what sort of colours his lights are.

The whole idea is to find what most of us like to better suit the need of the majority. Since we finally got some added attention from sellers and manufacturerers might be a good thing.

The funny recent downfall of CPF made us a good "rehab" resort for all that were CPF refugees that needed some shelter. :) At least those who don't mind discussing also budget flashlights. :)

"It's ok, but i would like the reviewers also provide...."

This gets my vote. Actually, most reviews are more than "OK", they're usually excellent. I just would like to see everybody include runtime on the lowest mode. :)

But as always, thanks to all of our excellent, professional reviewers.

That is one thing i do not like to do. However if that pass ill try to remember i have one running on low before i realize it has stopped a day ago already. :P Lazyness has to be involved and fear of my wife to have to explain the whole thing. She thinks im heavily addicted and i bury myself in the flashlight facebook which would be BLF. LOL!

To test a UF-H3D on low on a fully charged hi-max 2600 already gives me shivers...

Whereas it gives me a glow :P

Something is better than nothing, so if someone goes out and gets a brand new light, *any* information is better than what we have so far (especially lights from KD which have no information on the website). So it's probably better just to get something out there and let people ask questions than to be intimidated by needing to write a long professional review. The opinion of the light and the impressions and description of the light are the most important thing.

Still, the more information the better. So if a person is inclined, I'm happy to get all the information I can get. Runtime can be run pretty easily by anyone with rechargeable batteries and a clock, so that's nice to have. Runs on low just take a lot longer. I can usually do my runtime test as I am writing the review and inserting pictures which takes an hour or more. But on Low, that could be an all-day test, though I agree it is useful information. A tailcap draw is good too in my opinon, though it doesn't tell you what is getting to the LED (a tailcap draw on lower modes should give you a pretty good idea of runtime on Low and Medium if you don't run an actual test). Again, pretty easy to do with a $4 DMM. I love light output numbers, especially graphs like Don does, but not everyone has equipment for that.

I like to see some pictures of the light, maybe how it compares to other lights. Since I don't have a light meter, I put in a lot of beam shots to make up for that, but I think I go overboard. Still, it's easy to scroll through a review and skip the parts that aren't useful.

Also with pictures, although it is more trouble, it is nice if people can set up a truly resized picture in the review and then link to larger pictures. This makes the review load faster and also makes it easier to read the comments later which can jump around as pictures are loaded in the main article. I'd rather see unshrunken pictures than no pictures at all though.

Current draw in each mode ... Should be enough ..

A very interesting topic , Ive tried responding several times now , but I just dont seem to be able to do it justice ..

So I think I will sit back and see how it goes ....

For me, I think they're great. The comparable beamshots help me more than anything. Although the numbers in the chart help as well. As far as I'm concerned, full steam ahead mates.

Moving the reviews to a sub forum would tidy up the main post area...So 18650 would have a reviews sub section and so would AA and AAA etc etc. It would keep the view looking nicer.

Apart from that beamshots are nice but hardly ever standard across various reviews.

The beamshot point is well taken, but would be nearly impossible to standardise. The best we could hope for, given the different environments we live in would be standardised distances. I doubt any two of us use the same cameras.

If anyone has votes for distances, let's hear them.

I can't reliably manage anything over 18m where I live.

What is a good review IMO:

- Closeup pics (of light): not many, for example: part of the body with threads, emitter with reflector, pill/dropin (inside) and switch. They should not be super high res. 800x600 with a good definition, sharp and with good ilumination is more than enough. It's possible to make one good shot of all parts (unmounted) but slightly bigger res. (instead of 3 or 4 800x600 images). Size comparison with other light could be a good idea also. Other info as text only (body quality, switch quality (easy or hard to press), ability to tailstand, etc. In few words)

- Beam shots: 2 or 3, with diff. exposition. But with 2 or 3 lights (best known/used) for comparison. Inside (white wall) and outside. Other info as text (beam color, if it's even or with visible cree rings, spill quality, etc. In few words also)

- And of course a runtime and output graph (to see the regulation with diff batts, I mean Alc, NiMh and li-ion if supported) at least few minutes.

Personally, I like selfbuilts review @ CPF. Here an example. Could be less extensive and with less images ;)

UPDATE: for beamshots comparison I prefer like these ones in this reveiw (all lights in a row)

Speaking of which, whats the resolution most people are viewing this site with, and how well does it handle oversized pictures. I know in my experienced BLF just sticks the picture out the sides of a narrower window.

Also, what resolution do most of us view the BLF. Im using practically full screen on 1440x900, or 1680x1050, so big pictures have not been an issue.

I see many people complaining of having to side scroll on CPF, but i never experienced that issue with pictures bigger than the window, i only need to sidescroll the images. Im using Safari browser on OSX, chrome on 7 and Atomic browser on OS4.3. I prefer larger pictures over scaled down ones, simply for more detail when its available, but only if the image quality is decent or better.

800x600 Cropped - good size.

How is the size of the image below managed by BLF, does it create problem for people?

1024x768 - This is more managable, but still big.

1280x960 - Hmm it is definitely a little on the big side...

Yep, bigger better, but only if they are good quality. I've seen many mane 3000x2000 DX pics veeeery blurry. That blurry images are waste of time and bandwidth. Even if you resize them to smaller size, they would not be helpful. With normal autofocus digi cam you can make good shots. If they good, you can downscale them to normal size and they still will have a good amount of info, IMO. (I mean, smaller size only to save bandwidth/faster page loading. Big/original size images should be postes as link only)

Wow, excellent shot, man :D

But... original size 1280x960, usefull info: 750x750 pix. approx. (I've used your image, okwchin, hope you don't mind )

On a side note the example flashlight must fit in the "pimp my flashlight" with tritium category. What flashie is it anyway? Above 150usd?

I run a full hd resolution monitor so i can manage all but the most crazy big pictures... No issues with any size you posted above.

Absolutely agree here, image quality > size.

Size should only be selected based on image quality. If the information is not there, then massive 10Mp images of fuzz are useless.

My recommendation to anyone taking images

1) Use a tripod to hold the camera - Reducing camera shake

2) Use delayed exposure - I use a 10 second delay to minimise camera shake from pressing the shutter.

3) Use long exposure with a tripod. the above images were taken at 8 second exposure with all the blinds shut to bring out the GITD, and the light on 3 lumens minimum. The idea is it gives a very uniform illumination using only ambient or general lighting.

4) When using long exposures, I like to use a 100 or so lumen output torch, which I wave around at the ceiling during the exposure. This effectively gives me a very general lighting source, and can produce shadow free images, great for review purposes. Long exposures effectively allow you to be "painting" a very large light source on the ceiling.

5) If you dont have long exposure available, Turn on all the lights you have in your room and if you can, try to use indirect lighting (point lights at walls/ceiling) This minimises shadows and gives a more uniform lighting

Absolutely right about the functional image size, but were going for artistic balance here with the flashiest image of a torch I've got hahah! I was just trying to test image size. When I'm doing review photos, I usually just crop it to whatever size is functionally relevant, partially because its easier to use a keyboard shortcut to screenshot, than it is to try to resize an image. (Cmd + Shift + 4 = screenshot by area selection on OSX)

Torch is my grail torch!! Its a D10, Neutral modded, naturally... (don't think it was neutral at time of photo, that was within an hour of hatching from the shipping envelope, it was neutral modded within 5 hours though)

No matter what resolution your pics are...could you adjust your pictures with that "100 %"-trick (point 4) ? It is better for those people who have no 1234353453456" screen ;-) as the pics will scale up dynamically with the screen resolution. This way even a 7 MP pic will fit on a netbook.

Full resolution image of Nitecore Extreme Q5 SS bezel - isnt it great being able to see all the machining lines, and then all the dust and scratches in the ano :(

Then the 100% trick - have a go resizing your window, image should change size, but you wont be saving on the download of the image though. (yeah got it working, thanks!)

Miss out on the detail when its re-sized though, this is why we need to get that big 27" monitor with 2560x1440 pixels of joy!

Yes it is, Tree symbol -> second tab "appearance" -> dimensions: 100 % ... leave the second field empty -> voila

No you won't save much bandwidth but you get the best picture quality out of every monitor and you don't need to use thumbnails for larger pictures. Services like photobucket shrink down the quality/size considerably but leave the original resolution intact. If you want to see details in 100% pics : STRG+mousewheel helps a bit. ;-) And when everything fails just save the pic with your favourite picture viewer. I experimented with the photobucket thumbnails and fullscreen slideshow here.

Many of you have seen the mouse hover function for beamshots I found out here and here .