Flashlights for night photography and light painting

Flashlights for night photography and light painting.

We love night photography and have purchased a plethora of  flashlights, some are great and some not so great. Here are our favorites, and with an explanation of which we use under what conditions.

Do not use a white light flashlight at night for routine work, you will be blinded and have no night vision. We went to a recent night photo workshop and people had all kinds of bright white lights, and head lamps, they had no night vision and when they looked at someone they became blinded too.

This is the red flashlight for seeing in the dark. red preserves your night vision and allows you to see camera dials, etc.

This one is best for light painting (and it has red and Blue filters for fun color effects)

This one is good for painting things far away, like lighthouses and rocks. We find it too bright and it has a hot spot when you are close, but it is perfect for things further away. For things closer better to spend more time with a dimmer more even flashlight like the one above.

A headlamp is wonderful to have. It is great for hands free walking at night. preserves night vision. Do not use when photographing, as light will leak in thru viewfinder,etc. if you are standing behind your camera.

This last one has its own tripod, so it is great when you are on a dark night and need to focus. Turn it on, use auto focus, switch focus to manual focus and turn off flashlight.