So my brother stops by yesterday. I go to grab some brews come back. He standing in front of my light curio staring like he had just discovered the holy grail. I had to laugh, he asked if he could look at em. I told him sure…
The first light he grabbed was the TK75. He was amazed. From there on he was like a kid in a candy store… The BTU,Terminator, SARE, Thrunites, Olights, Crelants, Solarforces. I think he pulled out 20 lights to look at. It was pretty cool. He was pretty impressed with the Sipik 98. Apparently he had never seen a zoomer before.
It’s cool to me for someone not in the scene to discover the flashlight world. His birthday is in a few days. Think I’ll give him one of the Sipiks.
As light collectors, have you ever had a experience like this?
Oh, yeah. I love that stuff. I don’t have a curio, and nowhere near as many lights as you have, but yeah - that kind of stuff happens all the time (as often as I can make it happen )
Probably the biggest jaw dropper I used to get was twisting on my TF Mini-01 at the pub. No one expects that kind of light from a little device the size of my thumb.
In terms of quality, my Solarforces always piss off the guys who have spent hundreds on other non-budget brands that can’t even come close to the performance.
Most recent blaster that gets attention is my 2 x 26650 TK45 clone with XM-Ls. Probably way underdriven, but kicks out lot of light for the price and size. Also looks expensive/well-made. Everyone I show it to wants one. But they’re always turned off by the li-ion cells. LOL. Oh well.
I was at my dad’s 90th birthday party last year and took some of my lights. I took my brothers outside to show them what I had. Showed them some of the smaller ones at first and they were inpressed. Then I pulled out my Olight M3X and TK41and shined them across a field at some barns. They had never seen a light so small that could throw that much light. I wish I would have had my TK75 or my BlackShadow Terminator.
Couple years ago I was on a Boy Scout backpack w a few dads and their boys. My group went out on a night hike and came back to camp running and shouting through the woods…I was playing w one of my first multi-emitter lights, Trustfire w 3 or 5 XMLs…the group back in camp thought it was a guy riding a dirt bike down the path… the one gent w a very pricey Surefire was blown away that it wasn’t some huge hand held spotlight that you would plug into a car or truck… his own high end light was way, way more dim and he was rather crestfallen. I have since been the flashlight guy for the whole troop. Got some budding flashaholics there!
I like to share my new hobby, and it is funny that its usually the engineers who show the most disonterest, till you click the magic button…….
Then they start paying a little more attention. The funny thing is, its not the big hitters that get the most gasps, its the single 18650 or smaller edc sized lights that tend to surprise them, I think its because they relate a two cell 50mm head plunger to a multi d cell maglite and the edc tubes to a mag solitaire, they dont figure that little tube will completely blow away a traditional 12v spotlight up close, or that the bigger lights can easily compete with decent car headlights.
To be fair, most people probably don’t have an eye for light output and stuff like that.
My L2m makes a room light up, but so does their trusty Maglite - at least in their memory.
Direct comparison is what usually gets them. When a light one can make a fist around just blows away their club sized light with fancy crypton bulb, they realise something has changed in the last years. I remember when I played with a quad XP-g/15° plastic optics arrangement. It was already dark, room lit only by two desk lamps. My friends sat with their back to me. When I pointed it at the wall behind me and turned it on, my friends turned around because they thought the scattered light on the walls was the effect I was working on and were already impressed. Then they saw the hotspot. The desk lamp just disappeared in it. That was quite fun. (Never got a host with decent enough heatsinking capabilities to give it a new home though. )
Two years ago, packing up to go to Alaska to see my brother and meet up for a road trip w friends… had to remind myself (late June) NO NEED for lights of any kind…! And I had been hoping to play and show off some new toys… Late August, last year, different story, not enough lights…
At home, new summer neighbors next door, apparently they are afraid of the dark, gonna invest in BB gun, return part of my backyard to nightime conditions…
)