Headlamps

Hi people, given the fact that many forums have problems with spamming, I can understand your reaction, it's probably a quite natural kind of spam paranoia; I don't take it personal. At least you didn't simply block me :-) izogi, whether you believe it or not, my post is indeed an unsponsored, detached, objective, neutral, open-minded, evenhanded, non-biased, fair, impartial and unemotionally critical analysis - resulting from a very serious knowledge and experience background with flashlights, and after years of looking for a really good one at a fair price. And I do indeed not know anyone at XXXXX, nor do I get a cent for anything from them or anyone else. If it should be forum ettiquette not to state brand or product names, I apologise, I wasn't aware of that, please let me know in that case. I personally think that by misinterpreting my post this way, you are preventing yourself from having an interesting experience, learning something, and adding a very useful tool to your equipment. I know I haven't been active in this forum a lot until recently so you don't know much about me, but if you check Matthew, I have signed up with you quite a long time ago and have been reading every now and then. Recently I have decided that I want to be more active here, and that's what I'm doing now - that is really all there is to it. Matthew, if by "what's your deal" you mean "why are you writing this", the answer is really honestly very simple: I am honestly totally convinced by this light and that it would be THE way to go for any tramper. I am also convinced that most other head- and flashlights on the market are an absolutely overpriced marketing hype that is pretty bad value for money, in many cases I would actually call it a rip-off of the customer. Especially in New Zealand, retailers seem to think that people here don't know any better, so they feel they can do that - I dislike that, so I try to point people in better directions if I am asked for advice. As a true flashaholic, I humbly believe that I am quite qualified to do that - of course, everyone is entitled to make up their own mind. To do that though, you'd have to try one of these lights, of course, as you actually won't be able to understand the difference without seeing it. You may not be aware of it, but if you check, for example, candlepowerforums.com or google the word "flashaholic", you will find that there are tens of thousands of people like me who get very enthusiastic about flashlights, and just can't help themselves to let others know what they think, especially if like in this case the original poster actually asked for flashlight advice. I'm living in Christchurch, if anyone is interested, we can meet and you can check the lights out, and maybe have a coffee with me and realise that I couldn't care less how many or few lights XXXXXX sells - but I DO care about doing my bit to make people aware how they can get better value for their money. I'd also, by the way, very much like to find some people who do multi day trips with babies or toddlers, which we have found out to be pretty simple and enjoyable contrary to popular belief, and we'd like to share some experiences and maybe go on a few trips together. That's one reason I started to get active in this forum recently. Back to topic: Of course I am not saying that you can't happily tramp with other headlights, far from that. But in my opinion, if you're tramping regularly, the light that I named is by far the best deal available today, measured by quality, performance, and especially value for money. Mind you, there are (sometimes extremely!) expensive lights that do NOT provide good value for money as well, of course - quite a few, actually. In fact, there are only very few lights that have excellent quality and performance AND a fair price. That's why I wanted to point out this light. It is not very encouraging to contribute to the forum if an honest opinion on a piece of gear from own experience is met with such a response. But as I said initially, I do understand that assumption might be made easily, so I won't take it personal :-) Righto everyone, hope that clears things up a bit! Happy trips and good weather, Matt

PS: Just to avoid further confusion: I mean "cheack MY lights out" - I have none for sale and won't part with mine! Cheers, Matt

Hi Matt, people do often mention brand names on the forums eg 'I like Mont Bell sleeping bags' or 'my Olympus tent is really lightweight'. I think the problem was that your posting came across as someone in a business trying to 'hard sell' a product. The fact that you didn't have anything on your profile page didn't help you, as, peviously, spammers who have got into the forums never have a profile either, and so are regarded with some suspicion.

Hi Mariku, There is absolutely no problem with people making recommendations, including very enthusiastic ones. However, spammers do also post items much like you did. The issues I had with your post were that various aspects of your review read like marketing copy, and clearly weren't (IMO) "from your own experience". Now there is nothing wrong with that -- it's just that it made your post look like spam -- i.e. somebody simply using the forum cynically in order to promote their own product. We have no tolerance for spammers. The only reason I didn't delete your account was that I saw you signed up a few weeks ago and I wasn't completely sure you were a spammer. So, now we've got that cleared up, welcome along! I'm off tramping now, but I'll put your post back as it was when I get back. Sorry for the confusion. Matthew

IMO Mariku original post did not look like marketing. Anyone who owns a Zebra light would know they are a excellent product so are easy to recommend passionately. They can be imported direct from China for around $80NZD (mine arrived within 4 days), which is a great price for the best compact headlamp on the market.

(Note that about 3/4 of the original post and a follow-up post adding more were both deleted.)

(Note that I wrote original post, not edited version of post) It was typical of what you get from people who spend to much time on forums like CandlePower.

Wow it's a whole subculture! http://www.candlepowerforums.com/

Well, being a gram weenie fanatic, I've gone for the lightest but also quite expensive to run. The good ol' half price special from Katmundu that takes 2032 batteries and weighs 33g. Does anyone know a same weight headlamp as cheap as this would be and a cheap source of these expensive batteries in Chch? It does the job for night tramping on tracks but I wouldn't be so keen on off-track night travel e.g. alpine starts! BTW I tried the hand winding torches. Massive pain in the a...

I have one of those Kathmandu things. I use it in my tent. It hangs from one of the wee loops at the top and lights the whole thing. Not sure I would be keen to go night tramping with it. When you think about it any light is a waste of space in a pack. In the normal routiene of tramping one eats ones food and goes to bed when it gets dark. Apart from getting up for a nocturnal there isn't much use for ne at all.