Which light for recreational night diving?

[diverjen]

I had this same conundrum and ended up with three different lights to test

Dorcy 220 lumens wide angle
hog pigtail I think about 120 lumens?
piranha dive live manufacturer 130 lumen small light

Of these the Dorcy 220 wide angle works the best for me because of the wider beam and more powerful lumens, although all were bright enough for night diving. For the day time I am thinking about getting a DRIS 1000 lumen shorty as none of these really worked for crevice hunting or highlighting, but that would be way overkill for Caribbean night diving IMHO. I like the push button feature of the Piranha one a lot and didn't like the screw on/off of the others although I got use to it.

Just my two cents....

 

[UrbanJungle1966]

I've gone though this. Borrowed a couple of lights which were good and ended up with something like this.

1600LM Cree XML T6 LED Underwater Scuba Dive Diving Flashlight Light Torch Lamp | eBay

Played around with a couple of different brand batteries as the cheap batteries only last 20 minutes on full, 30 minutes on low.

With a good quality battery I get 1.5hrs out of it on low which is all you need as on high it is a bit bright.

Yes I know when you see the price you will go you're kidding me. Nope they are fine. It uses the same LED as lights which are 10x the price. Also as the cost is pretty much nothing so I ended up buying 3. Another good thing is they are small and very light.

For day time diving they are great and as I now have a good battery the one charge has done me for the last 4 dives.

 

[rongoodman]

I just bring along one of my Halcyon Scout back ups.

 

[GrandpaScuba]

Here is what I recommend to students for recreational use (including night dives).

In cold-water or green-water diving, I recommend an 8 C cell LED light as the primary light and an 8 AA cell LED light as backup.

For warm water use, and taking into account that it's going to take room in your luggage, I recommend the 8 AA cell LED light as the primary light. And, a 4 AA cell LED light as a backup.

It's important that the batteries be fresh before night diving.

Some kind of marker light, tied to your tank valve is a very good idea too.

 

[Hatul]

Check out the XTAR D06. I believe they're available on Ebay for about $60 or so.

 

[Centrals]

I use UK SL-4 eLED.

 

[Thais Lordelo]

Hello,

I am about to engage in a night dive cert course and was looking on the web to find out which light would best fit my recreational intentions with diving.

Any suggestion?

Regards,

Barcellos

*NEWBIE ALERT*

After an extensive research on night dive lights, I decided to get this light for an upcoming trip to Bonaire: [100% new original authentic] ARCHON D11V (W17V) Underwater Photographing Diving Flashlight Torch (2*CR123/1*18650)-in LED Flashlights from Lights & Lighting on Aliexpress.com

It has a wide beam angle and it doesn't seem to be blindly bright. Free shipping to BR.

 

[Hatul]

*NEWBIE ALERT*

After an extensive research on night dive lights, I decided to get this light for an upcoming trip to Bonaire: [100% new original authentic] ARCHON D11V (W17V) Underwater Photographing Diving Flashlight Torch (2*CR123/1*18650)-in LED Flashlights from Lights & Lighting on Aliexpress.com

It has a wide beam angle and it doesn't seem to be blindly bright. Free shipping to BR.

110 degrees is a very wide angle good for still photography as a focus light or as a video light. I'm not sure how this will work as a general dive light though.

 

[Barcellos]

So I ended up buying the BIG BLUE AL900 Lumens LED. The visibility was of around 5-6 meters on the dive site and it was good that the light allowed me to choose between four different light intensities - I used the weakest one for most of the time and thought it was just what I needed...

Thank you all for the help.