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Scuba Dive Light Buying Guide

Scuba Dive Light Buying Guide

Written by Scuba.com
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Published on September 19, 2022
scuba diver with dive light

Are you thinking about buying a scuba dive light? You have come to the right place! Buying a dive light can be quite overwhelming. There are many great dive lights on the market, all designed for scuba diving. This guide is written to help you decide which dive light is the best dive light for you. We’ll cover all the different features dive lights have and when these dive light features become important. This will help you to pick the dive light that matches your diver profile best.

What is a Dive Light?

A dive light is basically a flashlight or torch that you can use underwater at depth. This means that the light must be waterproof up until at least the depth that you’re allowed to dive — and ideally a bit more as a safety margin. For recreational divers such as a diver with an Open Water or Open Water Advanced certification this means that pretty much all dive lights will be suitable for the depths they dive. For technical divers it’s wise to pay extra attention to the maximum waterproof depth.

Technology has come a long way with dive lights. These days, most dive lights have LED lights that are powered by Lithium rechargeable batteries. This is the most advanced technology, and good for incredibly powerful light. Also, these days there are many different brands with great dive lights on the market. There’s a lot of competition, which is good for the price, and it also means technology and quality will keep developing. All great advantages to a diver that’s shopping around for a good dive light.

two scuba divers with dive light in cave
Image via Shutterstock

Why Do You Need a Dive Light?

Night Diving

The most obvious reason to carry a dive light with you is when you do a night dive. A night dive is a dive that starts after sunset or before sunrise. At this moment it will be dark in the water and without a dive light, you will simply not see anything. A night dive is by far the most common reason to bring a dive light. Without a dive light, most dive shops will not allow you to come on an organized night dive.

Diving in Murky Water

Another reason you need a dive light is when you dive in murky water during the day. Sadly, we don’t have beautiful clear blue water everywhere. In fact, a lot of diving is done with very limited visibility. Think about local lakes and rivers, for example. When water is very murky it doesn’t allow a lot of light through which results in darkness the deeper you go. In those dive locations a dive light — suitable for murky water — is an absolute must.

Cave, Cavern, and Wreck Diving

Planning a cave dive, cavern dive, or wreck dive? These three types of dives are also good reasons to bring a dive light. Once inside the wreck or cave natural, light will be very limited to non-existent. Whilst cave and wreck diving are restricted to specifically trained divers, cavern diving is considered a recreational dive and thus within the limits of most divers. One of the big differences between cave and cavern diving, is that with cavern diving you always will be within 60 meters of sunlight. Having said that, 60 meters is a long way, and you can end up in completely dark areas.

Communicating with Your Diving Buddy

And finally, a dive light can be used to communicate with your buddy, the boat, or someone on shore. Many dive lights have S.O.S. features that will come very handy in an emergency. In a non-emergency situation, you can use the light to tell the boat to come pick you up or to grab the attention of your buddy when you want to show them something. In an emergency, you can use the S.O.S. feature (this will start making the light flicker) to grab the attention of whomever is required. It’s always important to discuss emergency and safety procedures specifically for diving at night or with limited visibility.

scuba diver with dive light
Image via Shutterstock

Features to Look for in a Dive Light

You would be surprised how many different features there can be found on dive lights!

Spot Beam

Let’s start with the most common one: The spot feature. This is the strong beam of light that you are also familiar with from a regular torch. This feature can be found on nearly all dive lights except specific dive lights such as video/photography lights.

Besides the spot beam it’s also possible to have the feature called ‘wide’. This feature spreads the light without having the hard ‘spot’ at the end. Especially for videography it’s a favorite feature as it allows taking beautiful video without an obvious light spot in the frame.

Brightness

Lots of dive lights allow you to modify the brightness of the spot and wide feature. Meaning if you want as much light as possibly you can set it to a 100% brightness, whilst if you just want a little bit or barely any you can adjust to for example 50% or 25% brightness. In some cases, this can really be a desired feature as too bright can just be blinding.

When it comes to brightness, another very important detail plays a role: the amount of lumen. Basically, the higher the amount of lumen, the more powerful and brighter the dive light is. A basic one will have around 500 to 1000 lumen, whilst mid-range lights start at 2000 and the powerful ones can go over 5000.

Kelvin

As we’re getting a bit technical, let’s get the ‘Kelvin’ property out of the way as well. Besides brightness, light also can come in cold or warmer colors – this is displayed in amounts of Kelvin (K). The higher the amount of Kelvin, the bluer the light. Meanwhile, the lower the amount of Kelvin, the redder the light. It’s good to know that 4000-4500K is natural white light and 7000k is cool (blueish) light. Warm white can be found around 3000K. Some very advanced dive lights will offer several Kelvin settings, but the majority of dive lights will just have 1 setting.

There are also lights that have a full blue or full red setting. The red-light setting is often used by photographers as the light has proven to disturb sea life less. It allows a photographer to set up his camera whilst his subject is unbothered.

The blue light is also called UV-light, and it is used for UV night dives. UV night dives are something from a different world! Especially in the tropics you can find an array of corals that turn fluorescent when you shine blue light on them. It’s fun and different, something like a 90’s disco theme but underwater. You probably won’t be using this feature a lot, but it’s just very cool to have.

S.O.S. Feature

And the last feature many lights have is the S.O.S. feature. We already covered this mostly in the previous paragraph where we discussed the reasons to have a dive light. The S.O.S. feature is a flickering light option that can be used to get the attention of boats, other divers or people on shore in case of an emergency.

The Best Scuba Dive Lights

Looking for inspiration? Here are 10 of the best dive lights in no particular order.

OrcaTorch D550

OrcaTorch D550
OrcaTorch D550

This compact dive light for diver who don’t want too many features on their dive light but instead a solid spot light with a good output (1000 lumens). At high mode this light last a total of 125 minutes, making it in most cases possible to use for two dives before needing to recharge. As a bonus, it’s also a very budget-friendly light.

Bigblue 1300 Lumen Narrow Beam

Bigblue 1300 Lumen Narrow Beam Dive Light

This is Bigblue’s best-selling light of the past 5 years! It’s used as a main light for recreational divers and often as a back-up light by tech divers. At the highest setting this light provides 1300 lumens and the battery last 2 hours! You can turn down the lumens to 650, 325 and 130, then the battery will last even longer.

Underwater Kinetics Light Cannon L1 eLED

Underwater Kinetics Light Cannon L1 eLED Dive Light
Underwater Kinetics Light Cannon L1 eLED Dive Light

This light has a very nice output of 1100 lumen. It can run a total of 11 hours in high mode and 16 hours in low mode. This light will nicely light up a wreck or night dive. This light has both a pistol handle option as well as a lantern handle possibility.

SeaLife Sea Dragon 1300S Dive Light Power Kit

SeaLife Sea Dragon 1300S Dive Light Power Kit
SeaLife Sea Dragon 1300S Dive Light Power Kit

The Sea Life Sea Dragon with 1300 Lumens is a great primary or back-up light. The light has an incredibly bright 8-degree narrow and long range beam with a total of 5 light modes, including the S.O.S. signal and three brightness settings. At full brightness, the battery will last about 220 minutes, good for at least three hour-long dives. This is a suitable light for a liveaboard holiday, as charging doesn’t have to happen after each dive.

Underwater Kinetics Sunlight SL3 L2 eLED Dive Light

Underwater Kinetics Sunlight SL3 L2 eLED Dive Light
Underwater Kinetics Sunlight SL3 L2 eLED Dive Light

This is a very nice light suitable for a lower budget. It’s a good primary light during the daytime and a back-up light on night dives. It has a total of 425 lumens and the battery last about 5.5 hours.

Bigblue TL8000P, 8000 Lumens LED Tec Light

Bigblue TL8000P, 8000 Lumens LED Tec Light
Bigblue TL8000P, 8000 Lumens LED Tec Light

This light is one of the brightest on the market. With a total of 8000 Lumens, the output is incredible! A total of eight LED lights are inside and you can choose to run a brightness of 8000 Lumens, 4000 Lumens, 2000 Lumens or 800 Lumens. The beam is an 10-degree narrow beam with a 6500 Degree Kelvin.

Light & Motion Gobe S 500 Spot

Light & Motion Gobe S 500 Spot
Light & Motion Gobe S 500 Spot

Looking for something colorful? Look no further! This nicely looking dive light comes both in grey and pink. It has an innovative design and very bright 500-lumen spot beam. This rechargeable dive light can also be used as a bike light or general multipurpose torch.

Dive Rite HP50 Handheld Light

Dive Rite HP50 Handheld Light
Dive Rite HP50 Handheld Light

This is a great dive light for travel — compact yet with an impressive output of 3500 Lumens with a clean center spot beam that punches through the water lighting. It’s definitely a primary light that is handheld but can also be placed in goodman handle. This light is also compatible with the Slimline Canister and the Expedition Canister.

5 Questions to Help You Pick the Best Dive Light for You

All the dive lights that we have listed above are great lights and one isn’t necessarily better than the other. In fact, they’re all the best dive lights, depending on your needs. They all have distinctive features that meet different requirements and they come in a wide price range. It’s important you have a good idea of your own needs and dive profile so that you can find the best matching dive light. Below, you’ll find 5 questions to ask yourself to help you find the best dive light for you.

What is the maximum depth you will dive with these lights?

This will give you the minimum depth requirement.

How long do your (night) dives usually last? And do you do multiple dives in a day?

This will give you the minimum time your batteries need to last and if you should consider a light that is compatible with a canister. A canister is an extended battery with a lot more power.

How do you want to hold your dive light?

Many lights can be attached to Goodman handles and the likes, especially the smaller round lights. However, the bigger lights or those with a pistol handle with be less compatible to attach to a handle.

What is your budget?

The best thing you can do is look for a light that meets all your requirements and then see if it fits in your budget.

Is it your back-up light or main dive light?

In general, a back-up light does not need that many features as a main dive light. The back-up light is to be used in case of failure of the main light. When that happens, it’s often not a bad idea to cancel the dive altogether, depending on the circumstances.

Consider a buying a second dive light as a back-up light

Many divers don’t just carry one dive light but instead dive with two lights: a main dive light and a back-up light. The back-up light is intended as a second light in case the main light fails. You don’t want to be at depth, in a shipwreck, or in a cave and your dive light stops working. You’ll be in the dark and in the worst case, no longer visible to your buddies. This can lead to serious safety issues fast and for this reason, it’s very responsible to have a second light.

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