In addition to camping
stoves, I love flashlights. I definitely have more flashlights than I need, but
I can’t stop collecting them. Irrespective of my obsession, flashlights make up
an important part of anyone’s outdoors kit, prepper stockpile or survival
equipment list. For some, the question becomes, how do I choose the “best”
flashlight for me?
Flashlight
Overview
Before explaining how to
choose the right or best flashlight, let me first explain that no single
flashlight will do everything perfectly. There’s a saying in the flashlight
community (yes, there really is a community): “run time, size and brightness –
pick any two.”
In other words, if you
want a small and bright flashlight, it’ll have a correspondingly short run
time. If you want a flashlight with a long run time that’s really bright, it
won’t be small. I could go on, but I think you get the picture. Now that that’s
out of the way, we can get on with how to choose a flashlight.
There are basically two
types of flashlights on the market today: incandescent and LED (LED is short
for light emitting diode). These terms refer to the way the flashlight produces
light.
An incandescent
flashlight produces light be running electricity through a filament.
Caption: A typical
incandescent flashlight bulb
An LED flashlight works
through the principle of electroluminescence. Basically, electricity is run
through a semi-conductor in a particular way to produce light.
There’s at least one
other type of flashlight technology that’s available, called HID or
high-intensity discharge. However, with they’re not very common these days,
especially given the recent advances in LED technology.
Comparing
Flashlights
There are three primary
ways to analyze the performance of a flashlight.
The first is the
intensity of the light produced. Common units of measure include candlepower
(not used that often anymore), candela and lux. For the rest of this blog,
we’ll just use candela. The second is the amount of light produced and this is
usually measured in lumens. The third is the run time you get from the
flashlight and this is usually measured in hours.
As you can imagine, the
more candela, lumens and run time your flashlight gets, the better. But recall,
to increase the performance of one of these ways characteristics, you have to
sacrifice another characteristic. But is there a flashlight that provides the
best performance overall? Yes, there is, and it’s almost always going to be the
LED flashlight. Let’s now compare LED versus incandescent flashlights.
Incandescent
Flashlight Advantages
- Produces a warmer,
more pleasing color to the human eye
- Generally cheaper than
a similar LED flashlight
Incandescent
Flashlight Disadvantages
- Not as efficient as a
comparably sized and priced LED flashlight
- Bulb life is a lot shorter
than an LED
- Except for specialized
flashlights (like older versions of SureFire WeaponLights), incandescent bulbs
are far less shock resistant than LEDs
LED
Flashlight Advantages
- Massively more
efficient than an incandescent flashlight. Comparing two similar flashlights in
terms of size and design, the LED one will probably have at least four times
the candela, 10 times the lumens and three times the run time.
- Practically shock
proof
- Usually will produce
less heat (although this might be a disadvantage in cold weather when you have
cold hands)
- Today, LED flashlights
are much easier to find
- Extremely long bulb
life, usually in the tens of thousands of hours.
Incandescent
Flashlight Disadvantages
- The color of the light
is very “harsh” like fluorescent lights, so what you’re looking at will look a
little “washed out” or bland.
- LED technology is
advancing so fast, the most advanced LED flashlight today will probably be
“outdated” in a year or so. This is probably only a disadvantage for those who
must have the most advanced technology at
all times.
As you can see, an LED
flashlight is probably going to be the better choice. There will be exceptions
to this, especially for old school flashlight enthusiasts, hobbyists, collectors
and photographers. But for the everyday person, camper, soldier, emergency
response operator or survivalist, LED will be the better choice 99.9% of the
time.
In the next blog, we’ll
look at different flashlight types, such as keychain, handheld, lantern,
headlamp and spotlight.
Any thoughts and
questions are welcome.
