Halogen or LED light?

[k-valve]

What's your price range and what kind of diving will you be doing with the light? Night? Deep?

A lot of the 3 watt leds aren't worth a plugged nickel IMHO. Even some of the more expensive are not all that great. I do like the Oxycheq Raider. I have two of them for backups. They're pretty darn bright for a 3 watt led. $64.95 at Scubatoys OxyCheq 3 Watt LED Backup Light, OxyCheq. The Intova Nova 3 watt led is also excellent. Almost as bright as the Oxycheq Raider, rated to 400' Intova | Nova Waterproof Torch | IFL 660 | B&H Photo Video.

I would not recommend halogen. Ask about the beam width too. In most of our lakes a narrow beam works well with the turbid water. If you can put your hands on some and test them side by side. That's what I did before settling on the Raider as my back up lights.

 

[Crazyduck]

Alan,
You have the biggest light I have ever seen! :shocked2:

Just never had great luck with a pistol grip- no harm no foul.

We need to get together before the pond freezes over this year.

PM Sent!

Anderw

I only use a pistol grip primary light during 'typical' recreation diving were I am not using a DR canister light. My primary backup is an LED Proton Torpedo and a secondary backup is a UK SL4 eLED.

I have not found any of your observations to be particulary accurate in my usage of pistol grip lights......they are ease to direct the light and stay on target//they clip off the a d-ring as easily as a none pistol grip light units that are hand held and as far as 'hanging', that is a bad thing anyway you cut it for most of us. I have used about every style of light out there in terms of physical design and the pistol grip for me is a winner.

Thanks for asking about the family---they are fine, and I hope yours are well also......Austin I bet is back in school...probably time for a bit of celbr. for you and Heather!!

 

[texdiveguy]

Alan,
You have the biggest light I have ever seen! :shocked2:

Just never had great luck with a pistol grip- no harm no foul.

We need to get together before the pond freezes over this year.

PM Sent!

Anderw

Andrew.... you are correct!!!!! ----it's BIG--heavy--old--not the brightest--16lbs. of dead weight, a true classic....but it was the right price used at the time....... **don't tell anyone--- I pity the next poor soul that might find themselves with this dinosaur of a canister... ..... but the dang thing keeps on going and going!!!

I would be happy as heck to get in a few dives with you this fall!!!

 

[themagni]

I've got a Princeton Tec Shockwave and Torrent, both LED. Both are excellent lights. The Shockwave is basically 3 of the Torrents put together. One person I dived with said, "It's like a train coming at you." Another review said, "it's like taking a piece of the sun with you."

You can't beat the burn time of an LED.

The downside is that neither of them focus and neither of them are regulated. If they could focus, I'd call it nearly perfect. Regulation would introduce other problems, like having your light just shut off when the batteries are dead without any advance warning. (Sort of like my dive computer.)

If the vis is bad, they really, really light up the crapola in the water just like high-beams in the fog.