Quote:
| Originally Posted by thehappychappy Are the 35 watt and 50 watt HID's too bright?
I do a fair amount of UK diving when I can get in the water (not enough recently) and plan to do clear water caves in the future.
Should I be looking at two different lights?
What's wrong with the 18/21 watt versions?
Davie. |
Too bright...? Nah... I've never understood that POV personally. I have dived in uber shite vis with a 35W Salvo and never suffered from back scatter.
On a night dive in the Red Sea then sure, I'd leave the big guns on the boat and dive LED back/ups (or moonlight).
18/21W are superb lights and plenty good enough for pretty much every application. I own two 21W's at the moment and I am very happy with them - including scootering in poor vis. But the difference in beam projection between the 21W and the 35W seems be about 20%. So the difference between the 21W and the 50W could be around 40%. That could make a real difference in some situations. It's not going to be that relevant to that many divers but I would like to play with a 50W because I rather suspect I have a good use for it...
Clear water caves would be absolutely fine with the 21W's as long they don't start to silt out at which point you may wish you'd gone for a bigger one... Another factor will be burn time.
My 15.2ah 21W gives 8.5 hrs burn time. The 21ah 50W gives 4 hours. How long are your caves dives going to be? Will you be charging between dives? I'd rather have a working 21W than a flat 50W...