LED torches
Some of the earlier posts in this thread asked about LED torches / flashlights. I have recently bought one and I think it's very good.
One of the disadvantages of most LED lights is that they give a cool, white light which when used outdoors can make things look a bit two dimensional. I purchased a Dereelight CL1H V4 because it's available with an optional 'warm' 5A Q2 LED which gives a yellower output, which is far closer to a conventional spotlight. As far as I can tell Dereelight is the only manufacturer to offer that.
The light is the length of a pen and weighs only 120 grams without batteries. Yet the output is very impressive. I have tested it next to a friend's rechargeable Maglite (which I know from personal experience is powerful enough to find owls in the tallest of forests) and we struggled to see any significant difference when shining it into trees. I have also compared it to my usual spotlight, a cheap one with an inbuilt rechargeable battery and labelled as 500,000 candlepower. Whilst the torch isn't as bright as that spotlight, it is perfectly adequate. You wouldn't choose it to scan for Barn Owls over open country (though there are LED torches available that would have greater reach), but it does the job very well in forested areas.
As well as the obvious advantage in size and weight for travelling, using such a small light handheld with binoculars is easy. No more holding a light in one hand and binoculars in the other - you can place the torch alongside the binoculars.
Depending on the driver unit you choose to purchase you have a choice of what batteries to use, including both rechargeables (18650 size) and non rechargeables (2x CR123). Battery life should be something like 1.5 to 2 hours on high output. There are three different brightness settings - 100%, 30% and 5%. At 30% the output is still quite strong, but battery life is closer to eight or ten hours. Using the high setting to find animals, and then dropping back to the 30% setting to watch them, has worked well so far.
Cost was around A$95 for the torch. That's about GBP45. Rechargeable batteries were around A$16 each and the recharger A$22. I think that's very good value for what it does.
I got mine from
www.torchworld.com.au . Or the manufacturer's website is
http://www.dereelight.com/cl1hv4.htm
Murray Lord