thoughts on donut holes in smooth reflector lights

I have the Fenix TK35 and am over all pretty pleased with it.

My biggest complaint is the very slight darker area in the center of the beam. It seems like a very slightly darker center with a very fine outer ring of brighter light. The dreaded doughnut hole…. not a big void, but a slightly darker center to the beam.

The weird part was when I used the flashlight to actually look at something……the doughnut disappeared. It really was weird. I tried looking at our bird feeder. As I moved the light up and down across the feeder, I could not see the ring at all. It all seemed like it was very consistent.

How much of this is just an optical illusion? How is it that it disappears when I am focused on something? This only seems to be an issue on my brighter lights with smooth reflectors.

My LD40 has the same issue and it’s more noticeable than the TK35. My Maelstrom S18 has it so slight that it’s hard to tell staring at it, which means it’s just about perfect.

Use a regular Maglite a couple of times and you won’t think your TK35 has any donut hole at all…

Yeah doughnut holes bug me a little too. Some white wall offenders are not really that bad in the field.

Mag incans set to flood were the worst I have found. I also had a couple P60 MCE drop-ins with bad holes. Lights like these it did not make any difference white wall or elsewhere.

Donut holes make identifying things at long range hard. Since you have to illuminate it with the ‘ring’ part and not the hole. Quite the hassle and annoyance.