New and looking for a light?

[deadly_risk]

Are you new and looking to buy a dive light? I have a piece of advice that did not seem to come up as much in lighting. Try everything. Rent, borrow, or whatever and try everything you can in as much representative water as you can.

I recently got a chance to dive with the Texas Swamp Divers group at Lake Travis. Travis is my default water, and where I have dove the most so it represents a sizeable chunk of conditions my dive lights will be used in. Not owning any lights myself at the time everyone was more than willing to let my borrow their backup lights for each dive. This allowed me to see in the same water conditions both the backup light, and the primary light of my insta-buddy, for each dive and each buddy. In one weekend I got to see and try LED, Xenon, and HID of various sizes and types, and got to talk to their owners about why they chose their particular lights.

Combine this with some of the great advise on this board, the internet and from local mentors and I believe you will be much better equipped to make wise dive light choices.

Note: I am a new diver myself, so take my words with a grain of salt.

 

[Packhorse]

Its great advice and it certainly does not only apply to lights. It applies equally to all dive gear.

If possible try them side by side for a better comparison. It can be quite hard comparing two lights a week apart especially when the conditions may have changed.

 

[Gen San Chris]

I go for LED now as the technology is very good and batteries last for ages! They work well in tropical waters, I do not know about Lake Travis!

 

[goingsouth]

I'm also looking for an LED right now with a strobe feature.

 

[Hatul]

I go for LED now as the technology is very good and batteries last for ages! They work well in tropical waters, I do not know about Lake Travis!

I agree. LED has made incandescent dive lights obsolete.

 

[deadly_risk]

I agree. LED has made incandescent dive lights obsolete.

Hence the purpose of this thread: to encourage people to try their own.

In the conditions I was in the smaller xenon lights were much better at cutting through the green haze so you could read your gauges than similarly sized LEDs. But as things cleared up below the thermo you were much better served by a brighter LED or large HID.