Flashlight / Headlight recommendations

Don't be fixed on the battery life. That might be because of low light intensity.

Either decide how much intensity you need and then find the one that can produce it with the best battery life, or else decide how much battery life you need and then find the one with the best intensity. Intensity might be measured in lumens.

Many lights will offer multiple intensity levels, so you can kick it on low for a long battery life or kick it on high for a shorter battery life. It also depends on whether you like to blind your tentmates.

For a ballpark figure, you might get the same amount of light out of 3 AAA batteries as you do from one AA battery. The difference is that many LED devices can be driven directly from the voltage of 3 AAA batteries. If the LED has to be driven from the voltage of a single AA battery, then it has to go through a charge pump, which is a simple semiconductor item, but there is a tiny loss of efficiency.

It is smart to have headlamps and all electronics that use the same kind of battery, but it isn't always possible.

–B.G.–

Battery life for unregulated lights like the fuel as sort of misleading. Yes, some amount of light is produced for a very long period of time, but the intensity of that light is significantly below what it is with new batteries (to the point of being almost useless). The best way to understand what you are getting is a runtime graph which charts output levels against time. I have a list of some recommendations (and issues I consider) on my recommended lights page. I haven’t be paying attention to new products for several months, but I think the page is mostly up to date.

–Mark

Harold, I also believe it would be helpful if you told us of your intended use for the headlamp. Do you want a headlamp to be used for hours and hours of sustained night hiking? Or do you simply need a headlamp for the few minutes or hour in between the sun setting and you crawling into your sleeping bag for the night. I never hike in the dark, so I don't need much light output for trail finding/navigation etc. My headlamp is only used camp chores at night, as a small tent lantern, and the occasional bathroom break in early morning. Hence, I get away with the very lightweight and relatively low power petzl e+lite which runs on a common flat style watch battery. One battery had enough juice for everynight use over 3 weeks, and still shows no signs of diminished output. I could probably do another 3 weeks on the same battery.

Sorry, I should have mentioned: I have found the light output of the maglite totally fine, it's rated at 14 lumens. Enough to see a trail if worse case happens and I have to hike at night.

In general what I'd be using it for is setting up camp etc at night, especially in the short day seasons, late fall, winter, breaking camp in morning, cooking, maybe reading in winter when the days get really short. I'd never looked into lighting before in terms of actually being able to have something last these types of hours, so this is a new area for me, and the only LED I've used is bike lights, which haven't impressed me much, but the battery life is good.

I don't have good night vision so I really try to avoid hiking at night if I can at all help it.

The maglite weighs about 4oz with batteries, give or take, the mammut I listed weighs just an ounce or so more but has radically longer battery life at any intensity setting, but uses 3 AA batteries, especially the lower one, which is really all I need I think, depending on what led lighting really is in terms of real useful light.

Interesting about the 3 aaa and how that electricity is delivered, I was wondering why they used 3, that explains it, also explains why the mammut uses 3 aa I assume.

It obviously would also be useful to have something where I can light my way for an hour or so if I just can't make a camp, especially in winter. With the maglite I have to be hyper aware of how long I leave it on for, I tend to take long trips when I go, 7, 8 9 or more days, 2 weeks my dream goal, so for me things like battery life really matter, and aren't abstractions or anything.

Oh, I should mention, I wear contacts, and if I lose one, I need a strong beam to locate it in such a worst case scenario, I can't see without them, so for me that's also a consideration, but again, the maglite beam at is rated 14 lumens is totally fine for me, I don't need to light up a canyon or signal a search and rescue helicopter or such things.

nice links and information Mark, thanks. Since what I'm looking for is concrete recommendations, sounds like you like the Zebralight H51, which, running AA battery, also meets that requirement. Well written page you linked to, that's what I was looking for re info and preferences. Don't mind spending money once, but really dislike buying new stuff again when whatever I got turns out to be wrong or not quite what I wanted.

By the way, I also use rechargeables, so that's why that's a requirement, I already have all those.

I would say that durability and runtime would be my top requirements, it doesn't take a lot of light to read by or do camp chores, in fact, last trip I did almost everything in the dark except a for a few minutes of flashlight assistance to get things started and that went surprisingly well too. But in winter being able to read for an hour now and then at night before going to sleep would be nice, especially if it's raining. A single AA sounds good too.

http://www.zebralight.com/Headlamp_c_7.html

Looking here, there's a whole bunch of h51 headlamps, all I suppose with varying qualities and features, none of which mean much to me. Can anyone clear up what those all mean in terms of use and function?

Then there's the 501, which is cheaper.

And of course, if others have things they really like, I'd like to hear that too, the more information the better, especially given the prices on those zebralights, definitely a purchase I want to make only one time.

Due to my intended use for a headlamp, I decided that I needed about 100 lumens of intensity, and I wanted one that used a single AA battery, and I preferred a flood to a spot/beam. That sent me to the H501. Some people have a preference for the color temperature, cool or warm.

–B.G.–

http://www.zebralight.com/H51Fc-AA-Floody-Headlamp-85-CRI_p_62.html#

I have to say, I can see why you like these, they really do look impressive.

With one AA, at 13 lumens setting, m2, 30 hours life on 1 AA, that's very impressive, and is about 6x longer than I was getting with 2 AA on a maglite.

I also like the fact these are versatile, and can also double as flashlights, good suggestions.

Flood I suppose means wide beam, and spot means narrow focused, like the different settings the maglite has when you adjust it.

Would I be right to assume that in general spot is better for trail hiking and flood is better for things like lighting up a camp area or reading? Or is that wrong?

Incidentally, since this is BPL and weight is an issue, you want to scan around at the weight of the various headlamps that you are considering. Some will give you the minimum weight of the bare headlamp, but then you need to add the weight of the holder and strap plus the weight of one or two or three batteries. If you are adding the battery weight, you have to decide whether you are going to run it on lithiums, alkalines, NiMH rechargeable, or whatever.

When I started looking, I found that the Zebralight H501 was just about what I wanted, but I was concerned about the holder and strap weight. So, when I received it, I used the furnished GITD holder and removed the fancy elastic strap. I replaced it with a grungy old croakies strap and sewed it into place. When I used a single AA lithium instead of a single AA alkaline, that brought the entire weight under 2 ounces, which was the original target.

–B.G.–

If you have one black bear running around 100 feet from your tent, and you are trying to find it in the night, you probably want a tight spot beam. If you have four deer standing within 20 feet of your tent and you want to illuminate them all for a group photo, then you probably want a wide flood light.

In general, a flashlight has the light coming out of one end along the cylinder axis. Some flashlights can be fixed to a head strap that way, but they have to be hanging on one side of your head in order to point forward.

A headlamp generally mounts on a holder in the middle of your forehead, and the light goes out at a 90-degree angle to the axis.

Some people want a switch on the very back of a lamp. Some people want it up front near the head end. Some people want a slide switch. Some want a push on push off switch.

–B.G.–

honestly for what you intend to do any good headlamp will work

what you want to worry about IMO is reliability, warranty, juice and since yr on BPL i guess … weight

and price of course …

if you buy it from REI and dont like it or it breaks down, just return it …

i personally dont overthink it too much … i use a petzl xp2 with core that i can recharge by plugging it into any usb port … it works for climbing, getting down stuff in the dark, repairing flats at night, chasing away the neighborhood cats, etc …

most people i know just get a single good headlamp and dont fret about it too much … and we do carry these headlamps through 10-20+ pitches a day vertically

All other features aside, the reason I ended up buying a Zebra H51 is the color of the light. My Petzl lights had more of a cooler temperature light (a little blue to my eyes) and a slight flicker.

I don't think you'll be disappointed w/ the performance from Zebralight- there are quite a few of that have made the switch from other brands and have been very happy

I still own a e-lite and it gets thrown in when I'm relatively certain I won't be hiking in the dark- at sub 1 oz it's more than adequate for around camp chores, battery life is good too- other than that the Zebralight gets the nod

Another user here.

Just remember to unscrew the base before you pack it away or you could turn it on.

Wow… I hadn't looked at the zebralight site in a while. When I purchased mine there was just one kind of H51. Mine has a cool white Cree bulb with the standard reflector which gives a 13 degree spot and a 80 degree flood pattern. Now there are a variety of bulbs and two reflector choices. As to bulbs, they vary in color (personal choice — think daylight -v- warm household bulbs), and the maximum brightness (for me, 80 lumens is good enough… so any would do) with some slight variance of efficiency. I do think the original reflector which provides a spot/hot spot + a general flood is the most versatile since it works well for trail walking (and as someone else pointed out, putting the light on the bear that is investigating your canister. If you are going to use it exclusively for camp lighting, then the pure flood is very nice because the light is so even.

The H600 could be fun with it's H setting being 420lumens (750 for first three minutes) but I have never needed that much light backpacking, and a prefer to use more standard batteries.

–Mark

Mark, yes, I'm wishing I'd seen the old site, with only a few choices. The problem with the new version is that they don't really explain what the differences are in a matrix type page, and what they are good for in terms of use patterns and function, they seem to be assuming some type of knowledge in buyers that really doesn't exist except for extreme enthusiasts, ie, a tiny portion of the real market.

A bit too complicated, in my opinion, and makes it harder to pick / decide. Plus I don't want to over-think, as suggested, but these guys make it hard. I guess there's some flashlight gear scene now too, amazing.

Guess I'll look for the most efficient middle position setting for my use. Too bad REI doesn't sell these, otherwise I'd just go and buy one and return it if I didn't like it, but they don't.

thanks everyone for your feedback, that's exactly what I was looking for in terms of information pre purchase.

H = headlamp
SC = side clicky switch (handheld torch)

Battery type:
5X(X) eg 51 or 501 = AA battery
31 = CR123 battery
600 = 18650 Li-Ion battery (the same sort as in laptop batteries)

Beam profile:
A number ending in 0 or 00 or 01 = 80deg wide floody beam, even lighting no hot spot
A number ending in 1 = reflectored beam with hot spot and good spill
XXF = a diffused reflectored beam, sort of in between the two beam profiles above

LED tint:
w = warm tint LED typ. 4000K colour, quite similar colour to incandescent light. Greens and browns appear quite natural
c= high cri LED. Makes colours appear more lifelike at a given colour temperature. lower output due to the extra phosphors required to generate the LED light.
no postscripts = cool white LED, 5500K colour. Blues and white appear bright, other colours can appear somewhat washed out. More efficient than the other two types of tint.

So for example H51Fw is a 1 AA headlamp with a floody beam and a warm tinted LED.

H31 is a 1 CR123 headlamp with a reflectored beam and a cool white LED.

I personally use a H51w as most weekend trips have 2-4 hours of night tramping on Friday night to the first campsite and I like the reflectored beam and the warm tint. If you don't walk at night and use the light for camp tasks then one of the floodier beams would be better.

wow, thanks for taking the time to post that information.

Also, I found another BPL headlamp thread with further discussion on various choices out there.

The more I look at these, the more I realize that having a quality headlamp might change my behaviors, ie, I might find hiking at night to hit the Friday camp, as you noted, might just be ok.

Thanks for the technical explanations, that helps make sense of the various offerings in the H51 series.

This one looks good for my needs, H51c, the 30 hours at 14 lumens and battery life/lumens balance seems to be quite close to what I could see myself needing/using. Can’t see any case where the top end max lumens would be needed by anything I’d ever do, so getting the longer battery life vs light amount seems a good tradeoff to me, unless there’s something I’m missing.

I’ll hold off a day to get this, but want to have everything ready for my next gear test trip in a week or two. On the cheap end, for anyone reading this, I also found the Mammut S-Lite, which also does the single AA, but doesn’t seem like it is as efficient. I’d guess water might be an issue on that one, ie, getting it wet might not be a great idea.

I also use the H51 and really like it. I have had it turn on a couple times in my pack or pocket, which has never happened with any other torch I've used, so I now always unscrew the end cap a half turn.

Other than that it's great.

Rod

No worries.

You mention a couple of things I forgot to post the first time.

For me the H51w has been the perfect balance between UL and functionality, and the Zebralight is very efficient when operating in the medium levels. It also uses the same cells as my GPS so I only need to carry one set of spares.

I use the M2 level for most night tramping including off-track trips. I find having too much light reduces night vision and gives you "tunnel vision" i.e. all you see is in the cone of light from the headlamp.

And yeah, remembering to twist the battery cap a half-turn so the switch isn't accidently operated is really important with the Zebralights.

double post

51w:
Light Output

High: H1 172 Lm (0.9 hrs) or H2 86 Lm (2.4 hrs) / 120 Lm (1.7 hrs) / 4Hz Strobe
Medium: M1 26 Lm (9 hrs) or M2 7 Lm (30 hrs)
Low: L1 2.2 Lm (3 days) or L2 0.18 Lm (16 days)

51c:

High: H1 130 Lm (0.9 hrs) or H2 63 Lm (2.4 hrs) / 80 Lm (1.7 hrs) / 4Hz Strobe
Medium: M1 29 Lm (9 hrs) or M2 14 Lm (30 hrs)
Low: L1 2.8 Lm (3 days) or L2 0.3 Lm (16 days)

thanks again Barry for the feedback, to be clear, in your opinion the 7 lumens m2 is better to hike with than same hour burn time 14 lumens? That’s counterintuitive, but your note on night blindness on the periphery is interesting and something I hadn’t really thought about.

Great information all around however. The true test would be to get each and then go for a night hike on an overgrown trail with each, I don’t see how any other test or image could actually show the issue as well. I wish I had a better sense of these lumens, but all I can compare it to is the 14 lumens flood/spot of the maglite, which to me is fine, but I hadn’t considered the night blindness it might cause, I certainly don’t recall really noticing anything outside of the beam’s spread at night, which makes your comment re what I assume is the 7 lumen hiking definitely worth a second thought.

I believe that the H51w M2 level at 7 lm is a typo, should be 17 lm. I've compared several other lights with known lumen outputs with the M2 level of the H51w to form this view.

The basic premise I use is to use the minimum light required for the task, so when I'm hiking at night I like an even board spread of light out front to about 4-5 paces ahead plus a spot for searching further ahead. The M2 level works best for me, I've tried using the L1 level but that was too dim for me (fine for camp duties though). The least light used means the the periphery vision is least affected.

candlepowerforums.com has a forum thread showing the colour differences between the cool white, warm white and high cri LEDs used in the zebralights. Some people can see a difference, others can't, just depends on your eyes I guess.

You are right about testing the lights by actually using them. Night hiking is different to daytime hiking and familiar trails look quite different at night.

Thanks for clarifying the 7/17 lumen typo issue, I was wondering how that could be so different.

With that in mind, now the 51w seems to be the best fit, so I think I'll just go with that as you have found you prefer it.

Hopefully this thread will also be of use to others out there who are also somewhat mystified by all these terms and concepts, certainly has helped me a lot, everyone's input is much appreciated, helps avoid expensive mistakes.