To goodman or not to goodman, that is the question

[addohm]

A drawback of those cloth gloves or "soft goodmans" is that you can't easily slide it off your hand temporarily so you can use that hand for something else, such as checking your SPG, and then slide it back on when you're done.

Why do you need to remove it to check your SPG? You can just twist and clip your torch.

 

[addohm]

Stronger lights. Better battery life. Better designed light cast. And, the biggy... having full manual dexterity while always having a light right there.

I don't get it.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Why do you need to remove it to check your SPG? You can just twist and clip your torch.

Maybe that one you linked to is different, but most of the soft goodmans don’t have any sort of quick release between the light and the cloth sock/glove. I couldn’t tell from the info you linked to how that one works.

 

[addohm]

The one I linked is a simple twist off. Only twists off one way, very firm twist too. Ill probably change my fixture to metal hose clamps because we all know know zip ties don't last forever, but other than that, totally solid IMO.

The glove itself slides off with little effort.

 

[oya]

I don't get it.

Apologies. Suppose I wasn't really reading the OP's question properly and was answering it as "Goodman handled-style, proper cave lights vs. something not goodman handled. Like... not necessarily something as silly as a pistol grip... but not not as silly as a pistol grip."

 

[Guille G]

I like the Razor system, the hand mount and the helmet mount. Easy to move the light from the hand to the head and back. I still have a boltsnap on the light’s head to clip it off a d-ring if needed. I really like the ability to go back and forth between hand and helmet, though, and mostly just use the snap when the light is off.

That said, I dive without gloves. I can see the mount being uncomfortable if you need thick gloves, in which case a hard handle that you can remove entirely is probably better for dexterity.

 

[steinbil]

To be contrarian:

I fought with my goodman handle during training (yes roger) and after. Being left-handed. It is particularly difficult to illuminate a tie-off with a light on a goodman handle while manipulating a reel. Fighting with the goodman handle digging into my metacarpal despite our best efforts to glue a piece of neoprene over it made the experience that much less pleasant. I also found myself with my hand in an unnatural position while finning to keep the primary pointed where it needed to be which led to cramping.

I kept at it for another couple of months until I had the chance to borrow a razor soft glove/helmet system (that you linked) with the movable mount and that was super nice. Comfortable, etc, Wow, a light on your head makes task work much easier. It still took two hands to transfer the light from the glove to the helmet and back (maybe I didn't learn the trick)

I went to a helmet with mounted lights that I can turn on and off to illuminate a task and a 240g 21700 based primary light on a glove that still gives me 2.5 hours of tested runtime. What joy. I feel like my dexterity with the softglove is better then what I had with a cramped hand from the goodman handle. I went from 6000lumens down to 1400, but do you really need 6000lumens?

There is no easy way to clip the primary in the glove off one handed.

Not yet a cave diver, but I'll dare to ask a few questions...

Isn't this really about solo vs team mentality?

If you're doing a tie off, shouldn't your team mate provide light to make your job easier?

And conversely, if you have helmet mounted lights, does that not make team communication harder, as you can't look at your buddy without blinding them?

Lastly the OP to the point of clipping off your soft handled light just to check the SPG: isn't that just an unnecessary interruption of passive light communication while changing hands on a hard Goodman handle would allow uninterrupted light contact?

 

[VikingDives]

A drawback of those cloth gloves or "soft goodmans" is that you can't easily slide it off your hand temporarily so you can use that hand for something else, such as checking your SPG, and then slide it back on when you're done.

I think you may be thinking of soft, permanently attached handles, in which case I'd agree with you, but the razor light is detachable from the handle. I've yet to encounter a need to remove the razor handle. It doesn't interfere with checking the SPG...

The only downside I've found with the Razor handles is when using a non-canister light. I knocked a Big Blue off the handle during my initial training and almost lost it in a crevasse.

That was easily remedied by adding a bolt snap to the back of the light and a loop of bungee to clip off on at my wrist.

As far as I'm concerned the razor is far superior to goodman handles, but to each his own I guess. These days I use a can light, so the ease of unclipping and clipping is great, and there's no chance I'm going to lose my light if I don't have a good hold of it.

 

[Imla]

The one I linked is a simple twist off. Only twists off one way, very firm twist too. Ill probably change my fixture to metal hose clamps because we all know know zip ties don't last forever, but other than that, totally solid IMO.

The glove itself slides off with little effort.

Would there be a possibility of this "very firm twist" being interpreted as a problem/outofair signal to your buddies every time you want to remove it?
Personally, one of the most annoying things in cave diving are sudden changes in lightpatterns. A goodman style handle will enable you to keep your light pointed calmly where you want it, even if you need to transfer to perform tasks. I would be worried that the style you are talking about would be misinterpreted as an emergency signal and would cause your buddies to be on their tippy toes throughout the dive.

 

[PEDiver]

I started with a soft handle and while it sometimes can be more comfortable than a hard handle, the pros of the hard handle definitely outweigh the soft handle in my mind. Effortless hand switching, the option to have a thumb loop, easier to mount bungee on the light head for cookies and line arrows, the list goes on. If you tighten the handle to where it barely squeezes your hand (with a glove) you really don't have to grip it much to keep it where you want on your hand.