Looking for a light, is 50w HID overkill?

[mikestairs]

Hello all.

im in the market for a dive light, my ideal requirements are simple, to harness the power of the sun underwater.

i mostly dive side mount in the daytime with newer divers, in 10-50ft visibility. the light would also be used by my girlfriend back mounted to a tank when we dive together


looking for a light that would let me see a reasonable distance and not lead to permanent blindness of my dive buddies/students.

i've see a light monkey 21w HID in action, but not sure how the 50w compares. i'm also interested in the SOLA 1200 but dont know a whole lot about it.


any insight would be greatly appreciated

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

50w not enough. I have a guide take us to a cavern and he told us to look out for halocline (I've seen it many times before with my own 10w incandescent before and while it was an interesting phenomenon, I never thought I was in a drug induced state that they talked about). We reached this giant underwater cavern and he turned on his 250w HID to full brightness and zoomed the beam to as wide as it can be, and it lit up the whole cave and I could see clearly the rippling salt water later as if it was the surface of the water....then I understood what they were always talking about. Once he moved on, I tried to get a video of that undisturbed halocline with my torch and got miserable results.

 

[fdarden]

Hello all.

im in the market for a dive light, my ideal requirements are simple, to harness the power of the sun underwater.

i mostly dive side mount in the daytime with newer divers, in 10-50ft visibility. the light would also be used by my girlfriend back mounted to a tank when we dive together


looking for a light that would let me see a reasonable distance and not lead to permanent blindness of my dive buddies/students.

i've see a light monkey 21w HID in action, but not sure how the 50w compares. i'm also interested in the SOLA 1200 but dont know a whole lot about it.


any insight would be greatly appreciated

Our group has dove both the Light Monkey 21W, as well as the 50W many times. I own the 50. My friend owned a 50, and scaled back to a 21. He has since sold the 21HID, and switched back to a 50 HID. I dont think the 50 is overkill at all. I suspect that since you are asking this question that even if you do settle on the 21, we will be seeing a 21W for sale ad soon if you dive much, because you will love the 21 so much you'll wonder what it would be like with a 50, until you finally break down and buy it. Not saying that the 21W isnt nice, because it is. Just saying that light envy comes in many different strengths and colors. I prefer mine hi-test! I am sure you realize that light output is measured in lumens, so its more appropriate to talk about actual output than it is wattage, although the two are closely related. Get the 50. Its worth it! Also, you cant go wrong with Light Monkey. They stand behind their products, have customer service excellence, and are just generally very cool people that earn and deserve your money in my opinion! Light Monkey reminds me of the good old days when you could buy a QUALITY American manufactured product that was head and shoulders above anything in its class. Its been a pleasure owning my light.

 

[miketsp]

As an enthusiastic DIYer, when I first started doing a lot of night dives, I thought it would be great to have a lot of light so I built a can light with a 50W Halogen (beam angle 22°). In comparison to what I was using it was great - at first.
Then I realized that it was a pain for signalling - both ways. It transformed the whole area around me into daylight so even waving it from side to side my buddy didn't realize he was being signaled and when my buddy tried to signal me, I just didn't see his beam on the ground in front of me.
The novelty soon wore off. Night diving just wasn't night diving any more. In addition international travel was becoming a pain. Security doesn't like to see 9AH rechargeable batteries in a seal-able container. I gave up using it.
I must admit it's sitting in my junk box and hasn't been used for over 3 years.
The new LED lights in the 2-10W range are much more convenient in all aspects, compact, economical, convenient and fun to dive with. I normally carry 2 compact ones of different sizes.
Maybe if I was cave diving or regularly penetrating wrecks I'd have other requirements but for recreational night diving and occasional daytime penetrations, I'm happy with a smaller light.

 

[mikestairs]

Ahhhh!

i was hoping to get a clearer picture, and i have recommendations from a 2w LED to a 250w HID LOL

for those of you that have 50w or dive with someone that dosent, is it really that hard to see them signal?

i dont think i'll be diving at night much, just during the day, but in water that gets pretty dark/murky.