I knew where I will strike by opening this thread. Thread is IMHO spirit but plenty of you are still not getting real point what I am trying to say.
Before I give another opinion I will mention that I have/had/tried/sold probably more reflector flashlights than 70% people on this and other forum so I am not reflector hater. I hate bad attitude to potentially good technology.
I am well aware of today light technology limitations and in which direction are flashlight currently going. If you want massive lumen and lux output only thing that manufacturers can do is production of big fat reflector multiled lights.
So why should developing go in this direction when it can go in opposite? I am talking about lack ideas in this field.
It does not have to be aspheric flashlight neither it has to be reflector one. Neither it has to be LED technology. It can be LASER or anything else but 90% of manufacturers stuck on reflectors.
With today technology it is probably not possible to achieve kind of output and portability as I would like to see in flashlights, and main cause for that is lack of experts creativity, and people light orientation(yes you useful spill guys).
And yes I think(imo) that "useful spill" should be retired and they should create only flood to throw lights with pure and intense hotspot(with far better performance than we have now).
So we are all in flashlight world. What is more useful than pure hotspot? And why not have possibility for full regulation of that hotspot in future design flashlights? I want to hear your thoughts and not just silly wrangle about reflector and useful spill.
[quote=JohnnyMac]
There are no real idea to push zoomies forward. And guys like you that are stuck on reflectors are main cause for that.
I have to correct you and tell real trough: "My small zoomies" will always out throw your(and anybody) same size reflector lights.
My best zoomie has 50mm diameter lenses, weight 250gr. and almost 300(kcd) with 80 kcd in full flood mode.
Same size reflector can not beat lux performance of same size aspheric that is proven fact.
But as I said massive lux performance and massive flood performance could be done in a small package but 90% of manufacturers are not spending their time in developing such lights.
Here are my arguments why manufacturers and people should pay more attention on Zoomies/Aspherics types of lights:
- You see further and clearer in the night. How? One more time:
This type of beam has sharp borders, so there is better contrast between illuminated area and dark area. The enhanced contrast lets you to perceive it brighter.
When you turn on reflector LED light, your night vision is killed by useful spill that is reflecting from nearby objects, grass, ground, rocks, water(sea, rivers).
Your pupil of the eye narrows and you see less. The brighter the environment is, the narrower is the pupil of the eye, so there's a reduction in light that hits the fundus.
Some experienced hunters(some are here hunting with XML-s and they are very happy using that light :) ) are not aware of environment reflection. Game can see reflection very well and runs... I have personally tested this hundreds of times on different kind of game and in this field there is no better type of beam.
And I would like to see hunter that will give opposite comment than mine and arguments for that kind of comments.
- Size and Portability (put them into pocket and forget that you carry them).
I have to mention that same size aspheric will always have better lux/kcd performance than same size reflector flashlight.
- They preserve your night vision
- They are much stealthier because there is no useful spill which will alert whole neighborhood or spook game.
Only limitation is lumen output(hotspot size) which I would like to see improved in future flashlight builds.
I am here to defend zoomies/aspherics and I gave few arguments why should flashlight development go in their way and not on reflector, and I would really like to see opposite comments and arguments.