If you require nighttime illumination for sport, work, safety forces, hiking, biking, photography or camping; you won’t do much better than the Fenix HL60R – 950 lumen headlamp. Hands-free light where you want it when you need it.
You get up to 950 lumens of illumination, which is good to see 300’ or more, or you can turn it down to five lumens for general nighttime activities.
If you are a photographer or astronomer, you’ll appreciate the dual red lights, putting out just one lumen, which doesn’t ruin your night vision while trying to obverse the night skies. As this photo shows, it’s plenty bright enough to see and open this latch in a garden gate.
A light as tough as nails
Have you ever had a plastic headlamp that was cracked just when you pulled it out to use it? Plastic isn’t made for the rough and tumble adventures many people take them on. One drop on the pavement and your illumination possibilities could drop to zero.
The Fenix HL60R is made entirely of metal and appears super-durable. No flimsy plastic knobs or switches – just durable aluminum housing and rotating knobs.
It’s rated for one-meter impact resistance (primarily for the glass lens) and carries an IPX-8 rating – good down to two meters underwater.
A light to light up a football field
With the maximum lighting setting (Turbo), you could conceivably light up the entire length of a football field with its 116 meter distance rating.
Here’s a shot looking down into a ravine, about 50 yards behind our house.
Obviously, the higher the intensity, the less runtime you’ll experience, but even at its most brilliant, you’ll get 48 minutes of full field illumination.
A light that’ll last more than a week
On its lowest power setting, which you can see from these photos is plenty enough to walk comfortably, the light will last 100 hours, illuminating up to 25 meters. At eight hours per night, that’s more than 12 nights of use.
If you just use it in camp until you go to sleep, that would be enough to last a whole month.
USB rechargeable
The unit comes with a 2600mAh rechargeable Li-Ion battery which is removeable and replaceable just by unscrewing one convenient end cap. But, you’ll probably never need to. With handy USB charging, you can charge it at home, in the car or even with a portable solar power pack if the power is out.
You’ve got better things to do
When you need a light at night, chances are you have better things to do than stand there holding a flashlight in one hand. You can wear it two ways, with just the horizontal strap that circles your head, or with the auxiliary additional strap that goes up and over the top of your head or helmet.
It’s really quite comfortable, yet stays in place. You can then swivel the light up to down to suit your situation. If you are biking, you’ll probably appreciate a slight downward direction.
Move up to the freedom a headlamp gives you with the Fenix HL60R headlamp.
Doug Bardwell @photodb
Writer, Photographer, Volunteer
Doug presently is a feature writer for Properties Magazine and maintains two personal blogs – DougBardwell.com and Stop Human Trafficking. He is also an active volunteer with his local church where he publishes their Social Concerns magazine. His writing and photography have appeared around the globe on CBS, CNN, Huffington Post, NBC and dozens of publications.
Doug is currently very active as a volunteer with American Red Cross, where he is part of their national Advanced Public Affairs Team, a regional Communications Correspondent and is a local Disaster Action Team Leader.
Filling out his calendar, he and his wife try to keep up with their 19 grandchildren, who are active in baseball, softball, football, volleyball, swimming, basketball, soccer, cheer, drama, band, and gymnastics.
Disclosure of material connection: I received a Fenix HL60R headlamp for free from Fenix as coordinated by Outdoor PR Gear Review in consideration for review publication.