How much light for night diving?

[MMM]

You know...brand new divers on your first night dive...I would check with your dive op and see if they have something they can rent to you before you spend tons of money on something you may not ever use again. You do know that you need 2 lights each, right? One primary and one back-up in case the primary fails...

 

[divingjd]

You know...brand new divers on your first night dive...I would check with your dive op and see if they have something they can rent to you before you spend tons of money on something you may not ever use again. You do know that you need 2 lights each, right? One primary and one back-up in case the primary fails...

I second this suggestion. Get some experience first so you will have an idea of what you might want. The GDX light is not very expensive, but you would be looking at four of them to have a primary and a back-up for each of you. Most dive ops will rent you a light for a few bucks, or maybe it will be included in the cost of the night dive.

 

[tbone1004]

I second this suggestion. Get some experience first so you will have an idea of what you might want. The GDX light is not very expensive, but you would be looking at four of them to have a primary and a back-up for each of you. Most dive ops will rent you a light for a few bucks, or maybe it will be included in the cost of the night dive.

then you better hope they have something decent vs. a D cell halogen pistol canon thing...

 

[MMM]

then you better hope they have something decent vs. a D cell halogen pistol canon thing...

Good heavens, they are brand new divers in open water. Most likely they will be diving Paradise about 30-40 feet of water for their night dive here. They aren't heading into caves or diving to 200 feet. I have a D cell halogen pistol cannon thing that I bought about 15 years ago and a couple of other lights also. They do the job just fine. I do find the D-cell a PITA when I am carrying my camera, but they won't be doing that.

 

[tbone1004]

Good heavens, they are brand new divers in open water. Most likely they will be diving Paradise about 30-40 feet of water for their night dive here. They aren't heading into caves or diving to 200 feet. I have a D cell halogen pistol cannon thing that I bought about 15 years ago and a couple of other lights also. They do the job just fine. I do find the D-cell a PITA when I am carrying my camera, but they won't be doing that.

the comment was directed at being able to rent lights and through experience find out what you want. The problem is that most rental lights are not going to be new/nice lights, they're going to be old cheap lights. It's the same issue with people saying to rent gear from an LDS before buying to find out what you like. That's all fine and dandy if they actually rent good gear, but when they have the cheapest gear from the manufacturers because that's the rental deals they get from them, it doesn't really help you at all....

 

[divingjd]

Good heavens, they are brand new divers in open water. Most likely they will be diving Paradise about 30-40 feet of water for their night dive here. They aren't heading into caves or diving to 200 feet. I have a D cell halogen pistol cannon thing that I bought about 15 years ago and a couple of other lights also. They do the job just fine. I do find the D-cell a PITA when I am carrying my camera, but they won't be doing that.

Strangely enough, I have to agree with MMM again. I don't drag my old UK C-8 light to Cozumel anymore. Was it nice to have that much light? Yes. Was it worth the weight in batteries and PITA? No. I carry smaller lights now and they are adequate to the task.

I know we're taught from the beginning that scuba diving is an equipment-intensive sport, so we can expect it to be costly, but I don't see the point in recommending a $450 solution for two new divers.

 

[divingjd]

the comment was directed at being able to rent lights and through experience find out what you want. The problem is that most rental lights are not going to be new/nice lights, they're going to be old cheap lights. It's the same issue with people saying to rent gear from an LDS before buying to find out what you like. That's all fine and dandy if they actually rent good gear, but when they have the cheapest gear from the manufacturers because that's the rental deals they get from them, it doesn't really help you at all....

At least they would find out that they're not satisfied with crappy lights and really want to spend the money on the good stuff. I'm not suggesting they will get to try the exact light they will want to buy, but just that they will see whether they really like night diving and how much difference a light makes. They could also contact their dive operator to inquire about availability of lights and find out what kinds of lights are available.

 

[MMM]

the comment was directed at being able to rent lights and through experience find out what you want. The problem is that most rental lights are not going to be new/nice lights, they're going to be old cheap lights. It's the same issue with people saying to rent gear from an LDS before buying to find out what you like. That's all fine and dandy if they actually rent good gear, but when they have the cheapest gear from the manufacturers because that's the rental deals they get from them, it doesn't really help you at all....

Maybe, though, they could use this as an opportunity to decide if a) they like diving and b) like night diving before dropping a bundle on lights. That in and of itself would seem to be a step ahead. If the answer to both of these questions turns out to be "yes", then they can also ask themselves how frequently they will be diving and are they further ahead spending their money on travelling/diving and renting lights that aren't the newest and the best or whether they want to spend a bundle on lights.

 

[DjDiverDan]

Personally, I ALWAYS carry two dive lights on night dives (and I suggest you do, too), a large Princeton cannister light with a pistol grip, that takes 8 C Cells and provides 600 lumens, and a small Ikelight LED torch that fits in my BC pocket, and gives off about 150-200 lumens (I also carry this with me on daylight dives, to peer into caves and under ledges). But don't spend a lot of money on lights; you can get the smaller Ikelight LED lights from ScubaToys or Liesure Pro or your local dive retailer for about $69, and almost all Dive Ops will provide big dive lights for a night dive. And frankly, when I'm trying desperately to avoid paying extra baggage fees, I'll leave the big Princeton Dive Light at home, since it adds about 4-5 lbs to my baggage, and just use whatever the Dive Op has.

 

[tbone1004]

they could just as easily cut that cost in half by buying a pair of lights instead of four, but you can't really avoid spending $200 on lights if you want quality batteries and some functionality other than twist on/off. Which is fine during the day, but at night, having intensity settings is nice to have for the reasons mentioned above.

@divingjd the hilarious part about that C8 is it only puts out 350 lumen if it's xenon, or 600 if it's LED. The DGX600 matches that without weighing 3lbs...

a huge part of the cost increase to what I posted was actually buying a high quality battery and charger for the lights. The problem with the DGX600, the HOG Morph, and basically all lights coming out of Asia is they are using low quality batteries. ESPECIALLY those that come with 26650's. Anything that says fire in the name on the battery is something that you should dispose of immediately. Panasonics aren't cheap, but they are less likely to explode on you, and will actually give you the rated power output. $70 of the cost I linked was on batteries and a 4 slot charger. I recommend that for all lights.

i do understand the part about liking night diving and what not, and if that's the risk, then yeah, rent until you figure out if you like it, but if you're committed, buy once, cry once. don't buy inferior junk to save a buck and then not be satisfied.

@Charred I apologize, i forgot to list these lights. These can easily replace the spot versions of the lights that I linked to and are $50/light cheaper. The only thing you sacrifice with these are the LED ring for light output. Odds are your dives are going to go much over 45 minutes, in which case it doesn't matter. I do own these and dive them. I prefer the Ano R105T's and the Explorers a little bit, but not enough to spend $50 more on them. @stuartv lost one of these because of a sharp edge where he tied his cord, so go in and shave down the edge with some sandpaper before you tie the bolt snap in. I haven't had that issue, but I use bungee instead of cave line for my attachment, and haven't had any issues with it. I have since gone back and sanded them down a bit.
https://www.amazon.com/SecurityIng-...1486419418&sr=8-3&keywords=securitying+diving

These alone will drop total cost to $350 from $450 if you're OK with mismatched lights. They still use the same battery though, so it shouldn't matter unless you have a weird thing about matching. Still buy the sock from either Piranha, or Cave Adventurers, and the video lights from there will be nice, and still get the high end batteries and chargers, but I apologize for forgetting about these.