When good, when bad?
When you want to see far away, having a ton of spill blasting back toward your face can be counter-productive by hampering perceived throw.
When I am out in my boat at night and searching for channel markers or canals I like a pencil beam so that the spill doesn't glare off of the white interior of the boat and take away my night vision .
I use a 12 volt plugged in spotlight for this . I found one with a great beam profile .
It is bad for hunting as well because it lights up the entire area in front of where you are standing.
I don’t hunt.
I can get seasick in the bath so don’t do boats.
But in enclosed spaces where you want to see stuff a long way away, spill is bad.
For what I use lights for normally, spill is good. I’ll use the spill more than the hotspot on powerful lights (500 lumens and up). But sometimes a pencil beam is good.
I own more throwers than I’ll ever need. The Skyline 1 badly needs modding.
Spill is great, but in a boat at night, XR-E and XP-E are preferable. Like Jack said, you don’t want to illuminate the whole surface of the water and kill your night vision. A tight focused beam with good throw is ideal.
the only time i have a problem with spill is when im shining around in my backyard, and the spill reaches up to my neighbors windows….or would that be their problem and not mine heheh
stuff to think about. 