Modern flashlight put out massive amounts of light compared to what was available pre LED technology. Even today a 6 D cell Maglite incandescent light is listed as putting out a whole 178 Lumens with a new bulb and a run time of 11 hours and a 2 D Maglite incandescent is specified at 27 Lumens with a run time of 8.5 hours. These were the range of average flashlights until the introduction of LEDs. Today many small key chain flashlights are rated for 200 to 700 or so Lumens like the smallest RovyVon Aurora lights. This from a light similar in size to a AA battery. At the high end we have one huge 32 LEDs light that is rated for circa 120,000 actual lumens output. The high output lights also generate massive amounts of heat at maximum output, to the point of needing fans.
My question is how many lumens do you actually need in a flashlight and for how long? I can see high output for some uses such as search and rescue but for the average enthusiast user what do you actually need rather than want?
I like flashlights that accept just one Li-Ion cell.
With current technology, I want sustainable brightness as bright as I can get, though I do like some emitters more than others.
I EDC a FW3A that’s capable of close to 3,000 Lumens.
I have it set on manual memory and I recently checked it on my Lumen Tube and it was like 114 Lumens.
Those 114 lumens are good enough for most of my day to day tasks but I know I have more lumens at my disposal when I need them.
To check in on a kid at night, less than 1 lumen please.
To hike on a decently established trail or walk around a campground? 5-50 is usually sufficient.
To setup camp and get cooking a meal in the evening in the back country after sleeping in too late and wasting the morning away then finally getting going on the hike sometime afternoon? A few hundred is nice.
SAR operations in the night? A thousand sustained is the dream.
OMG WTF was that sound? Tens of thousands just to be sure.
Of course there is also the matter of throw. Modern lights vary from very wide beams in the 130 degree wide range and so called mule designs without reflectors to long throw lights that can reach a kilometer or more… The wider beams require more lumens for a given illumination level than the long throw lights.
When I take my 2 yrs son to the lake to throw some food for the fishes/ducks, I need lots of throw and flood at the same time, cause there is about 30m of grass to reach the lake, and then I have to light the lake to see the fishes. The only light I have which satisfies this situation is my Convoy L21A XHP 70.3 5000k 48W. It has plenty of spill cause I think it outputs around 5k lumens, and 900m of throw.
In the other hand, I use a Convoy T5 519A 4000k with a NiMH in the minimun to get some clothes in my wardrobe when my wife is sleeping and it has plenty light for this.
I used my first incandescent 2AA Maglite for running at night, and I often tripped over tree roots and other objects. 10 lumens is not enough. 100 lumens is a reasonable minimum in my view, 200 lumens is nice and bright for running, with a duration of at least 1 hour since that was the length of a run. Ideally much longer than 1 hour to allow for battery wear.
My favourite light is a Sunwayman M40A which does 1.5 hour at 600 lumens, and 6 hours at about 200 lumens. However, even a simple 2AA light can do the business.
It’s relative really…how many for car or home repair? How many for backpacking? How many for EDC stuff? How many for general purpose? If i had a pick a maximum amount of Lumens for any given task, I’d chose 12,000 as a ceiling. Anything over that and you really aren’t doing yourself any favors. Heat and voltage sag. The difference between 12k and say 20k to your eye isn’t much. I’ve found you need to jump to 30k to see a definite difference. If i can have say, 1 lumen minimum to 12k maximum for a general purpose light I’d be happy. For a search light…all the lumens and throw!
My EDC for the past twelve years has been 200/5 lumens. The beam pattern is good for most uses. It has a TIR lens and the candela is reasonably high for the production date - but I have no clue what the actual number is. I often used it on low. Most durable foolproof light I own.
Bought a couple lights this last year or before. Can’t recall the lumens off the top of my head but I’d say 2-3k, with near 100k candela, give or take.
I’m comfortable with either of these lights.
Lower end lights are good for general use around the house/vehicle and for fun, but I need spread and range elsewhere. Indoors, the lights can be overwhelming and potentially blinding due to so many reflective surfaces at odd angles.
Lights are awesome no matter how you slice it, and wants outnumber needs, but needs outweigh wants, and there’s no perfect light yet. The answer is very much subjective
It depends. About 100-500 lumens in my opinion for indoor use, EDC lights or any basic tasks. 1000 is considered a high powered flashlight and it’s suitable for most tasks like outdoor use, camping etc. Candela also matters as more candela is better. You don’t need many Candelas in a flood flashlight. Runtime should be at least an hour for me anyways.
This discussion comes up every now and again and always has similar answers:
I want max output in my light to be available, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to use it often, as I use lower modes
quality of light and or runtime over raw brightness
candela is actually what’s useful, not just lumens.
this is less common now compared to 4-5 years ago, but a couple of people usually show up with weird use cases (downhill MTB or skiing or similar): lights are barely bright enough, we need more lumens.
I vaguely recall a guide to useful levels of lumens somewhere, could have been here, the other forum or Reddit. But generally, for me, to put actual numbers on it:
Sub-lumen modes to keep dark adapted vision
5-15 for low
50-100 for medium
500+ for high
1000 for turbo.
I quite like thinking of modes in terms of approximate runtime rather than output, once you reach a certain minimum level of light for the task/environment, your eyes adjust and after a while, shifting to a higher level output just appears “too bright”.
Turbo must use active thermal regulation, you’ll get better sustained output in e.g. Alaska than in the Amazon rainforest due to ambient temperature.
Modes that last a unit of time are good: 1+ hours, full or half shift length (4+ or 8+ hours) or a day (12+ hours) so that you know how much light you have left- lots of modern lights include battery status indicators but I’ve not found one I like the look of.
Give some names for highest quality in your book please. It seems like virtually all the Chinese manufacturers, or their representatives have gone for high lumens (at least claimed). Even older line name brands like Nitecore offer a 4000 lumens keychain light and of course the no name lights on Amazon and eBay make totally impossible lumens output claims, many formatted totally incorrectly as far as the printed numbers are concerned. Who, other than Maglite and possible custom makers, has not gone ape for Lumens claims?
