Why not EDC adjustable focus?

Am I in the minority when it comes to wanting an adjustable focus butt kicking EDC? Maybe this topic has already been hashed to death but I haven’t come across anything to date about it.

It is just my opinion but something around the size of the BLF A6 for example. Is it too complicated to produce a quality light therefore making it too pricey, does it somehow cheapen the overall quality, such as rendering it moisture prone? I have no idea and I’m trying to understand :slight_smile:

I’d like to think and hope there is enough interest for something EDC to be on the market.

Is there something I am missing? Thanks

It just doesn’t achieve much.

Think about it - exactly what would you be trying to achieve?

I think with the moving parts, it is harder to get good water resistance… Any moving parts are also more subject to failure in some way…

That said, it would be an interesting thing to get a small quality zoomie for EDC, the wide even beam on the close to emitter setting would be very usable…

http://lens-light.com/products/mini/

One benefit would be a more user-friendly multi-purpose light. For example: when using the light while you are close to walls or structures that reflect too much flood, but your purpose is to reach out farther with a beam without the side-glare interference. Yet the flood option is still there when you want to use it. To me, the side-glare effect is about on par with getting too much blacklight feedback to the eyes. It is an annoyance that maybe doesn’t have to be present in an EDC. It would be nicer not to have to deal with to much flood when not needed.

Also its uses could be more closely tuned to each environmental condition, similar to the advantages of having the current software used to finely tune the intensity or purpose of the emitted light. I also should have mentioned in my post that the zoomie option was in addition to the software and size of the A6 or similar light.

Wow, nice lights I imagine and the first ones I have seen that says quality. Dang though if they don’t come with a luxury price to boot. It would be interesting to see how they perform. But too few lumins compared to the example of the A6, and definitely not a BLF pricing structure I’m sure. (I’m guessing of course)

Not enough battery. It should be something with the 18650 for run time. And it “has to have the latest software” since I can’t go backwards now. BLF side-effect I guess, It would be like trying to go without a TV remote now that I’ve been spoiled :smiley:

SK68 sounds like what you’re looking for.

In practice I find that zoomies still produce [even more] distracting spill when zoomed in and an all-too-narrow beam when zoomed out. Being able to closely tune a flashlight to the situation is a little over-rated IMO. Personally I pick a mode and then angle the beam from my reflector flashlight to suit the situation. The truth is that a zoomie flashlight wastes so much space on the mechanism that a fixed-beam reflector flashlight can usually beat it on both flood and throw at the same time. The “even beam” of the zoomed-out zoomie, which looks so cool against a white wall, is not very practical for outdoors in my experience - a normal reflector beam is better for illuminating a path or road.

The zoom mechanism eats a ton of space that could be used for heatsinking, batteries, and optics. An SK68 takes up nearly as much space as a Convoy S2 yet can never even begin to approximate that level of performance. While the SK68 isn’t the optimal zoomie solution I think that it is a good representation of the limitations zoomies run into.

I think that the lack-of-waterproof-ness argument is a red herring. Cellphones are rarely waterproof but remain popular. We just don’t use them in water / rain. Same thing with flashlights; many people EDC flashlights which are not waterproof and it remains a non-issue.

I think the main problems with zoomies are that it can be hard to dissipate heat, it’s harder to waterproof, and that some people don’t like the beam profile saying that whilst a zoomie can do everything it doesn’t do anything particularly well. I tend to disagree with the last point though, I thought the only area lacking was midrange flood.

I found the X2000 to be excellent when I led tour groups. It made a great area light when showing close up objects, and when highlighting distant objects you could shine the light over a group of people with very little spill shining on anyone. During the day a zoomie is aso great for highlighting objects in the shadows of dense trees without having the worries of using a laser.

Someday I would like to try the Thorfire or Convoy BD04 but with a few mods or maybe even the Brinyte B168 but it may be a tad large.

I have only played with a couple zoomies , they do take up more space for there size. I remember reading somewhere you loose out the front lumens also.

I have been looking for a cheap side switch host. Most of the overseas sights are full of zoomies.

I stopped dropping my phones in water when I got a waterproof one.

There are some really cheap AA zoomies and Harley Quinn and wight are working up an at tiny controlled boost driver or put a BLF15DD in one instead. I don’t know of any side clicky zoomies though.

Look at Suprabeam:

Their Q1mini is one of my EDCs, it works fine for small tasks, and the variable focus is really good. But they are rather pricey, it’s a Danish company…

I haven’t found a zoomie that I have liked yet.

- Fully zoomed out, they cast a “blah” beam of unfocused nothingness. I like my beams to be brighter where I’m looking and less bright where I’m not looking.

- Fully zoomed out, their field of illumination is much narrower than most standard flashlights. And the cutoff at the periphery is a distinct shadow line. My eyes tend to be distracted by the abrupt cutoff.

- Fully zoomed in, most zoomies have an annoying “space invaders” LED die image. (Some manufacturers don’t allow you to zoom all the way in, to avoid this issue.)

- Fully zoomed in, there’s little spill to illuminate anything in the periphery.

It is a matter of preference
My wife has the first flashlight that arrived as EDC
A cheap bronze colored using a 18650
Edges of the beam are green light it reaches 50m, has no memory and two annoying blinky modes.
Yet how much my son and I point out the weaknesses, no matter what other light of decent quality we present, she just wants this, the lack of hotspot and looks are her reasons. She doesn’t mind clicking past the blinky blinky and actually uses it on a daily basis, so go figure

An EDC zoomie can be very useful, but a good, compact and affordable one has not been made yet. Most zoomies are ultra-budget and have a terrible led and very poor optical design (how easy is to make a slider with broad flood and good focus?, and they all fail), and usually way too much aluminium is used. And it is easy to make it adequately waterproof, not submergable under pressure but perfectly rainproof.

That Lenslight looks good (don’t know about the optical design), something like that can be be made much cheaper and still be good.

The led should be a narrow beam one like the old XR-E or better an Oslon SSL80 (bonus: it comes in a wide variety of tints and CRI :slight_smile: )

I rebuilt this very cheap but compact AA zoomie with a latest ssl80 led (4000K 92CRI), it is very nice as an edc. For a budget zoomie the flood is relatively broad, but the build quality leaves enough to desire, I had to modify quite a lot (switch, driver) to make it bright and reliable.

Wight said it well. As far as I’ve seen, small zoomies are a concept that has yet to be made decently.

Perhaps it’s impossible to “have it all” in one light with the technology we have now. A reflector that changes shape would seem to be the ideal solution to achieve a perfect flood, throw, and everything in between if it could only be done.

Phil

Thanks for all the help, my hopes have been gently let-down. :slight_smile: Maybe in the near future someone within the BLF will figure out how to shape-shift a reflector (phils suggestion) which is a first for me but I’m all for it! I really like the idea.

I agree, the convoy BD04 IMO would be an ideal host. I have had the Convoy 365nm for several weeks and immediately tried to purchase it in white light, but it wasn’t available. The overall quality and small size is impressive for an 18650 and the zoom movement is quality smooth. If I was able to switch out the emitter myself I would. Hmm, are there any builders that are recommended and available to discuss this with? I would like to arrange a build :slight_smile:

Thanks again all.

The Trustfire Z8 looks good but never was very popular.
SS 14500 zoomie with a XML.
I have one that just sits on the shelf.
Z8

BD04 is available in white tints but they are XML2, in my limited experience I found that the smaller LEDs produced a nicer narrow beam with less spill, but my sample size is small and as mentioned experience limited.