UKH

Extreme sports call for an extreme headlamp. Spectra's incredibly strong light output of 10 000 lumen turns night into day and gives you more training hours, more commitment, more speed and more adrenaline. Spectra comes in two models: Spectra A, designed for action packed sports such as skiing, MTB, enduro and snowmobile, and Spectra O for night orienteering or trail running. A headlamp that helps you push your limits.

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In reply to UKC/UKH Gear:  £629 ?? Bloody hell is that correct ?

In reply to leon 1:

It is indeed. Suffice to say this is the very top torch within their range!

In reply to leon 1:

They all come in those sorts of numbers, the Lumenite Leader is €500+ and the Task maybe €450.

In reply to UKC/UKH Gear:

I wonder if they'll be allowed for ML night nav 😉?

In reply to Rob Greenwood - UKClimbing:

At that price I'd want a crystal chandelier with it 

In reply to UKC/UKH Gear:

I presume making something so expensive is really just a marketing gimmick for publicity. I mean, did anyone know that Silva made anything other than compasses? Probably no sane person is going to spend their own money on one. A bit like Renault or whatever making an F1 car.

Mind you, if it is actually reliable and doesn't get stuck in stupid flashing modes all the time, I might be writing speculatively to Santa........

In reply to Robert Durran: Err yes, well known for headlamps and I see a lot of their rucksacks,  But yes, it's a bit of a gimmick to have big numbers, and it's hard for them to stay that bright in use as they get too hot... but still.

I doubt many of the other really big headlamps sell in big numbers also.... oh.. wait .. mountain bikers..

In reply to wbo2:

Silva have been a player in headlamp for years, the Silva 478 (massive reflector, 9Ah battery you wore on your back) was *the* headlamp to have in orienteering and night fell races in the early 2000s.

Can't imagine you'd get anything like 10,000 lumens for more than a minute, even with a massive amount of cooling. Probably as well as if you looked at your map the reflected light would set your retinas on fire.

In reply to leon 1:

mmmm, portable light pollution!

Still doesn't help you know what is lurking behind you in the shadows!

In reply to UKC/UKH Gear:

I seem to recall that on a sunny day light reflected on a light surface is around 4,000 lumens, and beyond that is very uncomfortable for the eyes.  Does it come with similarly pricey sunglasses to cope with the light? 

In reply to J72:

I think the idea is to illuminate your way ahead, not to shine it in your own face.

In reply to wercat:

It’s worse than that.

it makes the shadows darker

it makes them deeper

In reply to wbo2:

The getting hot is a hassle because the cooling housing gets large and heavy,  a few of the specialist companies instead make two smaller units instead which also makes them better balanced and lower profile when used either side of the helmet. My Task one is like this with a 4800 lumen lamp each side. Apart from being better for your neck and safer having them split allows one to use a yellow filter on one which is far better for seeing relief in snow.

And yes, they are popular. There is a whole world of off-road bikers and snowmobilers out there and a lot live where it's dark nearly all winter.

In reply to Fiona Reid:

I tied the brightest light I could find on my winter ML night nav. It lit the fog and clag up really nicely; sometimes less is more 😮

In reply to Robert Durran:

That’s where I’ve been going wrong all these years… 

In reply to jimtitt: i guess that movement = air flow and that = cooling and output is very sensitive to temperature.  Most runners won't go fast enough.  Two smaller units looks a lot more sensible to me but c'est la vie

In reply to UKC/UKH Gear:

This looks like it will be useful in niche applications. Moving fast at night on an MTB, snowmobile or ski's where you need to see some way ahead will be the target market. For runners, a quick burst to see a stile across a field might be handy but not the intended audience. Search and rescue might find it useful to light up a hillside, even briefly. If you use it in colder climates than here and have a handy power source, I'm sure some of the objections / limitations could be over come.

Do I need one? Nope. Could I justify spending that much on one? Nope. Would I like one, for the sheer manly overkill and willy waving? Yup.

In reply to UKC/UKH Gear:

Let me count the number of failed headtorches I have had over the years (as in 'early failure requiring replacement')

BD - 0/2 (both still operational)

Petzl - 1/6  (3 still working, 2 obsolete, one failed)

Silva 4/4 (all failed, including one replacement under warranty)

Not sure that I'd want to splurge that much on a torch with that track record....

Looking at similarly expensive torches/lights:

Exposure 0/4 (all still in daily use, but one's looking well past its best now - it's ancient)

Lezyne - 2/2 (both failed)

Maglite 0/3 (one lost after 10 years, two still going strong after 30 years)

Cycliq - 3/3 - (two battery failures, one software failure)

In reply to nniff:

have just found a tikka 'hybrid concept' by the roadside but alas it doesn't work;(

In reply to nniff:  My experience of Silva lamps is the exact opposite of yours . Ditto BD sadly. 

In reply to Robert Durran:

I'm not sure whether it was the first time Hollywood made this blunder but I do remember in my cornucopia of useless recollections that the critics mentioned a lot in the media how silly Sean Connery must have felt in Outland in 1981 with his face illuminated inside his space helmet by lights all around shining in.  It has been much copied since. 

I assume it was a trick to make character's faces show more easily inside helmet faceplates but it does look pretty silly, always.  Presumably it makes what lurks outside the lights even more terrifying ...

In reply to Fiona Reid:

I took my petzl tikka on my ML assessment (it had settings of something like 30 / 180 / 300 lm) and was told to turn it down from 180 as that was too bright and unfair on the other candidates (I then had to do the rest on 30 lm) then I suspect you already know the answer to that!

There are plenty of 1000 lm headtorches which UK orienteers tend to use, but the top competitors will use the 3500-7000 lm ones with up to 8x Crees like they use at Jukola and Tio-Mila (look up Jukola mass start on Youtube). Due to lack of daylight in Scandinavia it is worth spending money on a decent headtorch.

In reply to nniff:

I thought I liked adventure but are you saying you've owned 24 headtorches? I think I've owned 3 and one of those is a really cheap one to keep my 3 year old from playing with my Petzl core one...

In reply to elliot.baker:

12 headtorches in 40+ something years (starting with an orange Petzl with one of the old tabbed batteries).  The rest are bike lights and regular high spec torches.  Some were disappointingly short-lived.

One has been purloined by #1 son.  It's gone to Louisiana and is used for looking inside horses (sic). 

In reply to elliot.baker:

I've owned numerous headtorches as well. Lost count of the Petzl ones (never again) plus BD, cheapo energizer etc etc used for leisure and work, all have failed. I not afraid to re-wire etc to keep them running either.

Not had to buy one for over 6 years now, since buying a Lupine Piko, but their new Alpha light is calling to my ego.

https://www.lupine.de/products/helmetlights/alpha

In reply to nniff:

still got my zoom from 1987, companion on alpine early starts and lots of adventures.  I still love it.

In reply to wercat: Serious question, but why? They were dull, unreliable and hammered thro' batteries and bulbs.

In reply to UKC/UKH Gear:

If you can get 10 hours at 250 lumens (based on 10% battery for 1 hour info) there’s no way you can have 10,000 lumens for 3 hours. It would imply roughly 750 lumens for 3 hours. Assuming the power input to lumen output is linear.

In reply to wbo2:

because they are virtually indestructible and totally weatherproof.  I have a large stock of batteries that came for nearly nothing and they certainly are not dull with the warm white LED replacement bulbs that I have made which make a battery last so long I can't believe it.  I have a modern BD LED headlamp with more bells and whistles but it is fragile and fiddly by comparison

I haven't had a homebrew LED replacement go yet

In reply to Brass Nipples:

That's not how it works, when the batt gets to 10% they allow 1hr at 250 lumens but it will then switch off to prevent the battery becoming fully discharged.

In reply to jimtitt:

How much charge is left when it switches off?

In reply to Brass Nipples:

Why ask me? I'm only explaining that all of this kind of appliance turn off before you destroy the battery.

In reply to UKC/UKH Gear:

Can you cook a meal with it heat?

Dave

In reply to jimtitt:

You said that’s not how it works, thus you must know how it manages its power when low.

In reply to Brass Nipples:

"It" was regarding the calculation.