Flashlights and Stuff

If you need some good info on starting a knife collection this is your episode. I also mention some info on Thrunite and Olight flashlights. Blog post associated with this episode: https://www.flashlightsandstuff.com/blog/things-to-consider-when-starting-a-knife-collection-podcast-notes-and-links Visit the website: flashlightsandstuff.com Brands mentioned in this episode: Spyderco, Kershaw, Zero Tolerance, Benchmade and Kizer.

In todays episode of the Flashlights and Stuff podcast I want to talk about a flashlight that isn’t the newest model to hit the shelves but is a tried and true flashlight that is very worthy of consideration today. If you are looking for a well built, dependable, 1000 lumens flashlight you’ll want to consider the Fenix TK16. Don't forget to follow Flashlights and Stuff on Instagram. Full transcript at my website. Visit the website: flashlightsandstuff.com

Transcript: In this episode of Flashlights and Stuff I’m going to try and answer some common questions that get asked all of the time. Why does one flashlight appear brighter than another, yet they both have the same lumens rating? Do I need a flashlight rated at more than 1000 lumens? Why doesn’t a 4000 lumens flashlight appear 4 times as bright as a 1000 lumens flashlight? Ready? Let’s get going… So what are lumens? Essentially, lumens are a measure of brightness. Flashlights have lumens ratings to give you an indication of how much perceived brightness you can expect. But, if you buy tactical flashlights based solely on lumens ratings you’ll be disappointed. There are a number of factors that affect the perceived brightness of a flashlight. Lumens rating can be a starting point, but there are a bunch of other factors to consider as well. Let’s start with the reflector. Is it smooth? Is it orange peel? Is it narrow and deep? Is it wide? The reflector helps determine light dispersement which affects the perceived brightness of the flashlight. Typically, narrow, smooth reflectors produce more throw. So a narrow, pronounced beam APPEARS brighter. Just remember that flashlights deemed as “throwers” typically have a ton of light fall off on the sides. So if you want even lighting throughout your field of vision this isn’t the type of flashlight you want. If the flashlight has an orange peel reflector, you will typically get more flood than throw. By design the orange peel reflector disperses light in a border pattern. Typically, this flashlight reflector design will produce more even lighting across your entire field of view. So if that’s the type of lighting you’d like your flashlight to produce, this is a type of reflector design to consider. Obviously, the width and depth of the reflector make a difference as well. Generally, a shallow reflector distributes light in a border pattern while a deeper reflector concentrates light more effectively. Let’s move on to the LED. Most tactical flashlights use some model of a CREE LED. Like any technology, LEDs models change over time to use power more efficiently, yield greater brightness, etc. etc. The bottom line is the LED version your flashlight uses does affect perceived brightness. Take the Nitecore P12 and the Nitecore P12GT. I own both flashlights. They are mid-size everyday carry flashlights and rated at 1000 lumens. Both flashlights use the same reflector, same power source, are the same size and have the same features. Even though both are 1000 lumens rated, the Nitecore P12GT is noticeably brighter than the Nitecore P12. Why? The difference is in the LED that they use. The P12 uses a CREE XM-L2 U2 led. The P12 GT uses a newer CREE XP-L HI V3 led. The CREE XP-L HI V3 led produces more light intensity. So in this case simply swapping in a newer technology LED makes one 1000 lumens rated flashlight appear brighter than another 1000 lumens rated flashlight. Both identical in every way EXCEPT for the LED. Since we are on the topic of LEDs don’t forget LED tints and colors can affect your perception of brightness as well. Warmer LED tints, the ones that lean a bit more toward orangey red, have a tendency to soften the light thus making it feel less bright to your eyes. Pure white tints will make the flashlight appear to be brighter. Just remember, the whiter the tint the harsher it is on your eyes for viewing. So LED tint and color selection can get a bit snobbish, but as you purchase more flashlights you may lean toward a preference. In fact, the quest for the perfect flashlight for you - lumens output, LED type, LED color etc. may take you into the world of flashlight “modding.” Flashlight modification - swapping to emitters, LEDs etc. is a whole other episode, but is a reminder just how serious people can take their flashlights. Another thing to remember about lumens is that a 4000 lumens flashlight won’t appear four times as bright as a 1000 lumens flashlight. So this shifts us into the topic of just how many lumens do you need in a flashlight? I have flashlights with lumens ratings as low as max 300 to max 4000 lumens. I will say that my most used flashlights range from 650 lumens to 2000 lumens. Personally, for just about any lighting task I find this range to be useful. The 2000 lumens flashlight that I really like is a total thrower… narrow beam, super intense and truthfully not really useful for anything but non-lethal self-defense. It’s a Klarus XT11GT. I have it set up in tactical mode so it turns on in turbo mode or strobe mode via the dual tactical tail switch at the full 2000 lumens of output. If you are buying your first tactical flashlight, there are three I’d highly recommend. Two are a bit more budget friendly and one is a bit on the expensive side. Let’s start off with the budget friendly ones. Here is the flashlight I always recommend IF a person has never had a decent quality flashlight. It’s the Nitecore P12GT. It’s got 1000 lumens of output and as I mentioned earlier, extremely bright. It uses a dual tactical tail switch as well, another feature I prefer in my flashlights. Another excellent flashlight with a great reputation is the Fenix PD35. Like the P12GT, it’s a mid-size EDC flashlight with 1000 lumens of output. It’s just a great all around flashlight and Fenix just makes good flashlights. All of my Fenix flashlights have continued to work well over time. Lastly, I’d highly recommend the Surefire E2D Defender at 1000 lumens. Yes, it’s a bit more spendy, BUT you get excellent build quality in a made in the USA flashlight. So to wrap things up… here are the fine points to take away with you when it comes to understanding lumens: The lumens rating is good to help you understand what the general brightness of the flashlight will be Know the reflector design so you understand if the flashlight will have more flood than throw or vice versa
 LED design makes a difference so make sure you are buying a recent model utilizing the latest LED technologies and capabilities
 Be aware of the LED color or tint. Pure white LEDs will appear to be the brightest
 The noticeable difference in brightness between a 1000 lumens flashlight and a 3000 lumens flashlight won’t be as much as you’d expect. Lastly, be wary of cheap flashlights and their lumens output claims. No, you can’t get a flashlight with 5000 lumens of output for $19.95. So that just about wraps it up for my discussion of lumens. I hope this has helped demystify this topic. If you go to the website flashlightsansstuff.com I’ll have this up as a blog post with a bunch of beam shots from various flashlights. You’ll be able to see how different flashlight designs and LEDs affect the flood and throw of a flashlight. Until next week, stay healthy and safe and don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast. Thanks for listening. Visit the website: flashlightsandstuff.com

In this episode of Flashlights and Stuff I talk about the type of blog post I hate the most. It’s the “Best Tactical Flashlight” post. Reading them is a waste of time. And I’ll reveal what the best tactical flashlight is. So… let’s get started… in 3,2,1. First, I want to be completely transparent. I’ve had tactical flashlight blogs. My first blog was pretty successful. I made my money from Amazon affiliate links. In fact, before Google penalized my blog (along with thousands of others) for “thin content” I was making as much as $700 a week in affiliate sales. I had the requisite “Best tactical flashlight post” just like dozens of other blogs. I was sort of pissed when Google did this because my reviews were about flashlights I actually owned and all of the photos were ones I took myself. Regardless, my blog was toast at least from a monetary perspective. So that was about 5 years ago and life goes on. Here’s the deal. If it can make money on the internet it will rear it’s ugly head again. So the “Best Flashlight blog post” is all over the place and 90% of them suck. And here’s why you should ignore them. The person who wrote the blog post doesn’t even own the flashlight. How do I know? Because they use stock pictures from the manufacturers website. Or the one that totally pisses me off (because it’s happened to me) they’ve stolen a great flashlight photo from another persons Flickr feed or site. The flashlight’s description is basically a re-write of canned manufacturer marketing crap. No description of the flashlight’s UI, build quality, etc. Another red flag (at least to me) is the lack of beam shots. When I typically take pictures of a flashlight I include some beam shots as well. I mean the whole point of buying a flashlight is to illuminate something. So before I talk about what the best tactical flashlight is, just know most of these best tactical flashlight blog posts are just a regurgitation of content you can get by going straight to the manufacturers website. If you are going to “buy” a flashlight from a link to Amazon or some other vendor via a blog post ONLY do it if the person owns the actual flashlight. Google needs to scrub this crap, but based on what I’m seeing it appears their AI is too stupid… so the good flashlight blogs are lost in the midst of the get rich quick passive income hustlers that create blogs about stuff they know absolutely nothing about. So now… back to the question at hand… revealing the best tactical flashlight. The best tactical flashlight is the one you have with you. That’s it. Plain and simple. It doesn’t matter what brand it is, how many lumens it pumps out, or how many features it has. It just needs to work and be dependable. You can have the most expensive, newest, or brightest flashlight on the market, but if it’s not with you it just doesn’t matter. I personally believe you need to consider multiple flashlights for your given situation. For example a small everyday carry flashlight like the Fenix E18R or the Thrunite T1 are really great to have with you at any time. My point is this… they are so small and easy to carry you should just automatically put in in your pocket any time you go out. You can check out the Fenix E18R at FENIXLIGHTING.com and the Thrunite T1 at THRUNITE.com. And of course, listen to my podcast episodes where I review both. Sometime you need more light than you can get from a super small EDC light. But, you still want to be able to slip it into your pocket. That’s where the mid-size tactical flashlight comes into play. These are typically 1000 to 2000 lumens lights. Fenix, Nitecore, Klarus, Olight, and others all make lights in this category. Typically, these flashlights have easy to understand user interfaces, additional lighting modes (like SOS) and many come with dual tactical tail switches and crenelated strike bezels. So the flashlight actually has some non-lethal self defense capabilities. There are a ton of excellent choices in the mid-size tactical flashlight category to choose from. If you don’t have a mid-size tactical flashlight I want to highly recommend the Nitecore P12 GT or P12GTS. I think the P12GT is an excellent flashlight, an extremely bright flashlight due to the LED it uses and the one I suggest to folks looking for an economical flashlight in this category. You can go to nitecorestore.com to see the P12GT and P12 GTS. Another flashlight I really like in this category is the Klarus XT11GT. It has 2000 lumens of output and is incredibly bright. It has a ton of throw so the beam pattern is highly centered. In other words if you need a flashlight that can definitely illuminate things from a long distance away I’d suggest the Klarus XT11GT. A big plus is a dual tactical tail switch which makes it easy to access the strobe capability with a single touch plus it has a nicely pronounced crenelated strike bezel. Couple those self defense features with the incredibly bright, narrow beam pattern and you have a great non-lethal self defense tool. The XT11GT is a bit bigger than the Nitecore P12GT, but it can still fit in the front pocket of a pair of jeans. You can go FLASHLIGHTZDOTCOM , that’s FLASHLIGHTZ with a Z at the end not an S to see the XT11GT. The last category of flashlight is a full-sized tactical flashlight. I define full size as any tactical flashlight too large to comfortably fit in the from pocket of a pair of jeans. It means you’ll need to carry it in a holster on a belt or clipped to a tactical vest or clipped to a pack. If I was going to get a tactical flashlight in this category I’d definitely consider Olight’s latest version of their Warrior model tactical light. I have a friend who has an earlier version of the flashlight and uses it all of the time. He says it’s worked without a single hiccup. Olight’s latest version offers 2250 lumens of output and a range of 600 meters. Check out OLIGHTWORLD.com to see the Flight Warrior X Pro. I’ll reiterate… the best tactical flashlight is the one you’ll be sure to carry with you. Hopefully, this overview of tactical flashlight types will make it easier for you decide what type of flashlight you need. Next week, I’ll be talking about flashlight user interfaces, side switches, tail switches, and dual tail switches and how to determine which is best for you. Lastly, I know the world feels pretty crazy right now. So hang in there, stay healthy and let’s remember to be kind to each other. I hope this podcast has been a few minutes of distraction during this crisis. Visit the website: flashlightsandstuff.com