Personally I really like Focus Adjustable torches but most people really don’t seem that bothered …. almost to the extent they go other way preferring ones that don’t.
I do some air gun shooting at night which a zoom is good for but if I put that aside …… even if it’s just walking down the lane whilst most of the time I keep it on a broader beam it’s nice to be able to focus into the distance to see what’s ahead or if the dog was lagging behind in the dark to be able to zoom and try and find her when she’s further away.
I also really like it when cycling in the dark (guess you wouldn’t need it that much cycling during the day :laughing: so you can concentrate a brighter spot of light to exactly where you want it most.
Just interested to see what others are and if people think there are any benefits of fixed focus over adjustable ???
Yes a nice flood while being able to see further ahead are great in zoomies.
However it is really hard to make a good one.
Because of the lens there always is some shift in tint at the edges of the flood
Sliding zoomies held in place by lubricated oring is not ideal and threads to fixate the head at a certain point have proven hard to make.
Because of the extra moving part water can more easy become a problem.
And because the lens holding part has less direct contact with the rest of the housing cooling is tricky too.
For lower powered lights cooling is less of an issue.
I can see three really nice zoomies
The small On The Road I3 with its sliding zoom let’s one see further while being about the same in output in flood mode as a similar sized Olight or its brother M3.
The Brinyte B158
And the Jaxman Z1 with its excellent lens, threading and quality finish.
Having these kind of eliminates the need for any other IMHO where I feel reflector based lights offer a much broader range of good lights and I could not name a mere three to make all others not worth having.
Well, in my land zoomies are popular. So far, all of my friends who have asked me for purchasing advice on some sort of inexpensive torch have loved the concept because of its flexibility. And of course, freaks like us love to custom tune 'em with all sorts of unbelievable improvements. 8^)
Being no expert in optics, after googleing some about TIRs I have to ask: wouldn't make sense to stack an height adjustable aspheric lens on top of these (TIR + aspheric)? Would we end up with an amazing zoomie in our hands or just some sort of pile of sheesh?
For one thing, you lose a lot of lumens going through a zoomie lens.
I have a couple of zoomies, a cheap modded SK98, and a cheap less-modded SK68. I like both of them, but they aren’t my go-to lights. I prefer the beam profile of a reflector-based light. A zoomie is great for up-close, with it’s wide pool of light, but unless I’m spotlighting something at a distance, I prefer having the spill of a reflector light for normal outdoor use.
In fact when Sir Issac Newton first invented the Reflector Telescope it was a great improvement to the telescopes made with lenses up until that time.
Less loss of light, no Chromatic aberration
Having said that though, zoomies are useful and practical. My EDC is an SK68, a zoomie.
Most of my experience with zoomies are from cheap garbage lights like Maglites, sk68, dept store tac zoomies, etc.
After dealing with that junk, I really lost any interest in buying more expensive zoomies. Maybe that’s part of the reason why there’s not much interest in them. Tunnel vision and losing over half the lumens when zooming does help. Flood is also sub-par beams, compared with fixed lens lights.
I’d like a zoomie, but it would have to work just as well as fixed lights, both in flood and zoom mode. And, not overheat the LED when putting out 500+ lumens.
Zoomies, especially ones using an aspheric lens, also tend to be heavier and bulkier. I have an old Coast adjustable focus TIR light, and it is not too heavy or bulky. I agree with Chicken Drumstick above in that I think these TIR lights have the best qualities. The TIR provides a more reflector-like beam; some corona around the hotspot instead of abrupt transition between hotspot and darkness like with a lens.
For throwers, I do like aspheric lens lights since the lack of spill becomes an advantage. I have a UF 1504 with dedomed XPG2 that gets around 500kcd. The poor light collection efficiency of lens lights can be fixed by using an appropriate pre-collimator lens. I was able to more than double the beam area in this light by using the pre-collimator lens, while keeping beam intensity nearly the same.
I think that part of the dislike for aspheric zoomies is caused by bad design of the smaller ones, both in build quality and optical lay-out.
Optically one of the best ones is the sk68, but the design is extremely plump. Same for the dreaded G700-type lights, lots and lots of useless aluminium.
Even the quality zoomies suffer from too much material where it is not needed, i.e. the Brinyte B158.
I like the expensive Sunwayman T25C for its ok optical quality without being overly bulky (can still be leaner though).
Finally a very small (16340) and quality zoomie is made: the ‘on the road’ i3. Optically they nailed it: good quality glass lens (does not scratch in your pocket), XP-G2, wide flood that is as efficient as a reflector light, focus goes a bit beyond sharp focus of the die for a smooth hotspot without loosing throw.
I use it as my EDC atm, but must confess that I modded it with a 90CRI XP-G3 and BLF-A6 driver (700lumen flood with a fresh battery). It is my best EDC to date.
The concept of putting a lens close to the LED in order to collect more light can work, as I described in my post above. The TIR + aspheric would not work well; although it would succeed in collecting more light, the light would not all be concentrated in the hotspot.
If a suitable pre-collimator lens is used, the hotspot becomes about twice as large (in area), while staying about the same intensity.
That’s a big part of it here. People get excited about lights that give crazy numbers. You aren’t going to get crazy lumens with a zoomie, but you might get crazy lux numbers.
Like keltex I also just prefer the reflector beam profile in most cases. I have zoomies, and in my head I know they are versatile, but they’re never the light I grab first.
even for close work I prefer a floody TIR instead of an aspheric
Not really sure why you think Maglites are junk??? And a good SK68 will perform very well for it’s size and out throw many a high lumen output light of similar dimensions.
I also don’t really understand your reference to tunnel vision, that is just missing the point entirely. Bit like saying you don’t get the point in soft top cars, because it’s too windy.
TIR optics are also very efficient, so lights using those do not loose half the lumens. And if you think all zoomies produce sub-par flood beams, you obviously haven’t tried many. Never had a zoomy overheat ever —- do you have some reference material to support such a claim?
The last good Mags I bought were their 4D and 4C incandescent lights. After that, they went into a decade or more of darkness with all their LED designs. All the LED Mags I bought (they were zoomies) had poor output, bad beams, flickered occasionally, and when zoomed they were dim (overall) except for a tiny spot that was too small to be of any use. Junk.
That’s been my experience with other zoomies, too. But like I said, I haven’t ever tried a quality brand of zoomie. My bad experiences with junk zoomies have turned me off them entirely. I’m just saying that may be part of the reason they’re not well loved; too many junk ones.
Yes, but again, extreme tunnel-vision. It’s no use having extreme throw (if you call that extreme), but a spot so small you can’t see anything with it.
A bit of corona or spill is needed to illuminate some area around the hot spot. It gives context to what you’re seeing.
An example of a super-throwy light with extreme tunnel-vision is a laser. Great throw, but pretty useless for seeing anything. A junk zoomie is just a better version of that, but still not very useful for seeing stuff.
The typical zoomie design is a poor thermally, because the pill gets covered up by sliding parts in most cases. Even the nice B158 isn’t very good thermally.
I guess it depends what you want to use the light for. Personally I use the flood mode because I want the even illumination within the beam. The edge of the beam is far less important, because you just move the light if the subject matter is of importance.
Using reflector lights, even very floody ones, will always have an uneven beam profile. This means chance of glare from the middle of the beam, and not enough light near the edge. If you are using the light for working on something technical, this can be a pain.
The only real limiting factor for me with zoomies, is how big the flood are is. Some lights have a small illuminated area, while others are much bigger.
in our hands or just some sort of pile of sheesh? 
