Around 4am I went for a walk across the ranch and back, out on the coastal trail and back on the terrace road. It was a beautiful night for it; clear sky, full moon, warm. Eerily warm though. I stepped out and it was like 65 degrees, at 4am. Then I felt the warm wind. The wind was alternating between warm and cool the whole time, suggesting it would be a seriously hot day. I took along the 120P, L1, A2, G2Z-M60, H30, ROP, Apex, and N30. Here are my observations:
- The N30 is just awesome. With clear atmosphere, from the lower trail, I can easily light up the trees and the crest of the hill. The ROP barely begins to light them. Walking with this light on takes away that enclosing darkness feeling, it's like being a car driving down the path. It does attract a lot of bugs though.
- It's interesting how tint perception changes with surroundings. Inside, the M60 is very warm and the Apex's USWOI is pure white. Outside, the M60 looks pure white and the Apex looks just ever so slightly cool and less defined. Not bad, but clearly not as ideal.
- H30 is pretty useless outdoors, just not what it's designed for, especially when there's already a full moon providing dim even lighting.
- The A2 is pretty useless. It doesn't put out enough light to justify its short and inconveniencing runtime. It doesn't throw very well, L1 is slightly better, M60 destroys it. It doesn't even have a tint advantage really, it just makes everything look well defined but brown, earth toned. My observations are kind of the opposite of normal; it's better inside where it demonstrates superior full-range color rendering, my best led tints are better outdoors and provide a more natural and accurate feeling view. So I think I have to conclude that, in these days of incredible leds, the only incandescents I really have a legitimate reason to use are the E2o for its efficiency and very reasonable amount of light and the ROP for quick spotting when the HID is too big or not appropriate due to the time it requires.
Posts
