Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Inexpensive Headlamp for Night Photography

On the right is my new inexpensive headlamp favorite: the Ozark Trail 150-Lumen Multi-Color Headlamp.
Center top is my expensive favorite: the Petzl Tikka XP 2 Core Headlamp, and below that is my favorite red
flashlight, the Smith & Wesson Galaxy 6 LED Flashlight. On the left is the charger for the Petzl Tikka XP 2.
The Ozark Trail 150-Lumen Multi-Color Headlamp is perfect for starry night photography and a great value at under $12. Ozark Trail is in-house brand marketed by Walmart. This headlamp has two white light settings and red. Many headlamps do not have a red LED to help preserve your night vision, and almost all the ones that do have a red light require you to cycle through all of the white light settings before you can get to the red (blinding you and anyone near you). This unit does not —just hold down the on-off button for two seconds and it goes straight to red! I highly recommend this headlamp over the Energizer 7 LED Headlight.

Although this Ozark Trail headlamp is not quite as well constructed as my $72 rechargeable lithium Petzl Tikka XP 2 Core or my heavy-duty $21 Smith & Wesson Galaxy 6 LED Flashlight, it does have impact-resistant construction, lifetime LED bulbs, adjustable aim and an adjustable head strap. It is powered by 3 AAA batteries (included). These will give you 6 hours of run time at 150 lumens (90 meter beam distance) or 66 hours at the low setting (15 lumens / 28 meter beam distance). The red setting has an output of 2 lumens, and 35 hours of run time.

Royce's 2014 Workshop, Lecture & Video Conference Schedule: NightScapeEvents.com


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2 comments:

  1. UnknownApril 16, 2014 at 5:32 PM

    I picked up a Black Diamond on sale for about $29 at EMS a few months back. It's got two RED led lights like the one you have pictured above, has a high and a low setting and can be dimmed at any setting.
    I also picked up a cheap hat clip light that had white, red and "night vision" purple light for about $6.00 at Wal Mart. I think it was Ozark or one of those house brands.

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  2. UnknownApril 16, 2014 at 5:34 PM

    I also recently picked up the Rokinon 14mm based on some of your previous posts. Great purchase and very happy with it. I didn't have any issues with the copy I received.

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