hey there I'm Miranda with REI when you're choosing a headlamp there are a
lot of different features to consider lumens might be the most common but you
should look at other things such as the beam type and the beam distance just to
name a few let's talk about how to choose headlamps
so the most prominent number that you'll see when you are choosing a headlamp is
probably going to be the lumens so lumens gives you a general idea of how
bright the headlamp is in all directions in ideal conditions so batteries full
room temperature things like that well this gives you a really good general
idea of how bright the light will be lumens are not measured with a
standardized system so this means that you can't necessarily compare lumens
alone when you're comparing headlamps across brands or manufacturers but again
the higher the lumens the more light output you get the lower the lumens the
less bright the light is going to be so it's a good way to generally compare but
after you've decided how bright you probably want your life to be there are
several other factors to consider the first one is going to be the beam
distance so headlamps will tell you how far the reach of the beam is both on the
light is its brightest and then when it's its lowest or its dimmest so this
gives you again a measurement of how far that light is going to reach in addition
to the beam distance you'll also get beam types between different headlamps
many will have two types of light that's the spot light like this one and then
the flood light which is like this so the spot light gives you more distance
but less peripheral light and then the wide lighter the flood light is going to
give you more peripheral light but not as much distance in the light the spot
light is going to be great for night hiking or for night climbs where you
really need to see a lot of distance but don't necessarily need to see what's on
the sides or as the wide light is really great for cleaning up at camp or a
reading or anything that's sort of close to your face so another measurement that
you'll see on headlamps is the run time so run time will tell you how long the
light will last at its maximum brightness and at its minimum brightness
this is again just a general idea of how long the light will last because you of
course will probably be using it at a variety of different brightnesses and a
variety of different modes and this is just how long you will have light on the
headlamp and doesn't necessarily mean that you will have maximum brightness
for that number of hours and again it just gives you a good idea of the life
of the batteries in that lamp itself ok so we've talked about lumens B
distance beam type and the runtime of the headlamp but there's still lots of
other features to look at when you're choosing the right lamp for you one
really common and really helpful feature is a red light so a red light like this
or a different colored light it's great for using at night time because it'll
help to preserve your night vision and also preserve your friendship with your
tent mate because this is not nearly as annoying when you need to get up in the
middle of the night to go to the bathroom as the white light might be
another really cool feature that many had less will have is a tilting feature
like this I like to call this the courtesy tilt so you can tilt your
headlamp down to the ground so you can see what we're where you're walking
without pointing it at people and blinding them as you pass on trail a few
other features that headlamps may have are things like water resistancy so how
long the headlamp will survive and water it without ruining the light many
headlamps now will have what's called a regulated output on the light so what
this will do is the lamp will basically be at its brightest output for the
majority of the life of the batteries and then it will drop off drastically as
the batteries begin to die this is as opposed to having a headlamp that dies
slowly over time as the batteries drain this is really helpful because
essentially when that light drastically drops off you know it's time to change
your batteries sudden headlamps also will use rechargeable batteries as
opposed to just standard double or triple a this is great if you know that
you'll always have a source for recharging the batteries but it's still
a good idea to carry extra batteries with you in case that source becomes
unusable another one of my favorite features that you might find on a
headlamp is a lock ability feature so what this will do is it will lock the
light so that you can put it into your pack and not worry about it turning on
and then draining all of the batteries how intense a crisis button the lights
not going to turn on I have definitely personally put full batteries into my
headlamp put it in my pack at it turn on and then drain completely before I even
got to camp so this is one of my favorite features and it's super helpful
as if all of your camping and backpacking gear you'll want to balance
these features with the weight and bulk of the headlamp so you'll have some
really bulky headlamps that have big battery packs and will last a long time
and then some much lighter headlamps where the strap is just a simple string
or a and you'll pick a very different light
depending on whether you're doing an Alpine climb or if you're just trail
running at night if you have any other questions about gear check out either of
our videos here and if you haven't already please subscribe below and we'll
see you later oh I'm stuck oh hold on