Canister light styles

[wetman]

I'm in the mood for a canister light this year. Was curious about something. I tooka a diverite mr11 head HID out for a dive last year and quite liked the light. Beautiful solid beam. However, I've noticed quite a few different lights are the test tube adjustable style. What do people feel about those? I've only seen those on above water and they were bright also (was a sartek 18 i think) and the one thing i noticed about that was that there were more hotspots in that light compared to the mr11. Is this an issue at all? I also get the sense that the test tube styles might be easier to break.

Please comment.

Thanks,

Steve

 

[DNAXdiver]

Test tube lightheads are more fussy and delicate than MR reflector bulb styles, but they put out a lot more light for the same size bulb, and are adjustable which is very handy too. It's a damn shame that no one won't come out with a MR16 (bigger reflector size) HID since that might combine some of the advantages of both.

See my comments on the Helios thread about relative outputs.

Originally posted by wetman
I'm in the mood for a canister light this year. Was curious about something. I tooka a diverite mr11 head HID out for a dive last year and quite liked the light. Beautiful solid beam. However, I've noticed quite a few different lights are the test tube adjustable style. What do people feel about those? I've only seen those on above water and they were bright also (was a sartek 18 i think) and the one thing i noticed about that was that there were more hotspots in that light compared to the mr11. Is this an issue at all? I also get the sense that the test tube styles might be easier to break.