eelnoraa
Contributor
I think the dropping a light argument is pretty lame. Do you drop your reels? Spools? Arrows?
With say the Dive Rite QRM soft handle a can light on a cord or a cordless light aren't going anywhere.
If im diving for an hour to 3 hours with a surface interval before a second dive there is nothing prohibitive about swapping a battery in a cordless light.
Now- you won't get an 8 hour dive (and how many people do these dives regularly?) or 50,000 lum brightness but if you aren't shooting video does that even matter? 20,000 is plenty bright. For the cost of most 25watt systems you could have 3 Dive Rite LX20s any two of which could be swapped mid dive for the same Burn time on high output - and redundancy to boot.
They weigh less- are less overall drag- and easily rechargeable by swapping the battery at the surface.
I'm by no means saying they are better- but they have advantages and are certainly great gear....
I don't see anyone making a 50,000lum light. Most are 10x less. The DiveRite LX20 is being quoted for 20,000 lux, which is a different measurement. Using XML-L2 LED, this light producce about 500 actual lumen on the optimistic side. Most XML-L2 lights produce 300-400 luman only. So from brighness point of view, it is less than half of traditional LED canister by LM