"LED's don't really put out that much light, compared to "tactical" lights." - me!
"This isn't a personal attack, but y'all are waaaaaaay off base. Look into the Surefire L4, L5, and L6 lights." - TechBrute
-Well no offense, but I don't know anywhere near me that stocks a bunch of different $150+ tactical lights for me to try--but among lesser flashlights, the LED's just don't put out as much apparent light as a regular krypton or zenon bulb will, and the colors are usually no good, and the pulsing nature of the light makes it look funny too (sometimes you see a "stroboscopic" effect). If I had the chance to
see one first I might change my mind, but I wouldn't believe an advertisement claiming as much. A
typical single LED looks extremely bright when viewed from the front--but because of the way they are made and packaged, they throw most of their light in a forward-facing cone-shaped area. A regular light bulb by comparison gives off basically the same amount of light in all directions. Consider how we are seeing cheaper LED flashlights with multiple LED's become available--the reason is that a single LED just doesn't work that well.
- Also note: it is now common (at least in the US) to see red LED's used as brake lights in automobiles--but there's a couple things to realize about that. The
actual reason that LED's are used is because of their vastly-longer lifetimes--and because they are less bright, it is necessary to use
multiple LED's where previously just one regular light bulb was used.
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There
might be special/high-cost LED's out there that can directly compare with krypton and zenon, but wherever they are, they aren't cheap. One of the highest-output brands are the Luxeon LED setups, but many of these types of LED drivers run their LED's extremely hot--and it is not unreasonable to wonder if they will last that whole advertised "10-year lifetime".
~
). Works great with night-vision scopes though: