Nitecore P23i Rechargeable Tactical LED Flashlight

Heavy-duty, bright, small, versatile

I like this flashlight because it fits the bill I had for a bright and durable rechargeable flashlight that wasn't very large. It wasn’t clear to me before I bought it how many levels of brightness it has, but it has many levels, which I find very useful. I don't always need to see hundreds of yards, but when I do, I can. I bought it for light painting, and I wanted it to be small enough to fit into the universal adapters from lightpaintingbrushes.com (it fits beautifully). Light painting typically doesn't require the brightest light, and I was grateful for the low power options. But as I said, the brightest settings are also useful: when I do my light painting I'm often out in nature, and this will let me see if there's a bear or mountain lion approaching from way too far off (or a strange person)! It feels very comfortably heavy. In that, it reminds me of the quote from the original Jurassic Park movie about the infrared goggles: "If they are heavy, they're expensive." Yes, it's not super cheap, but implied in that quote is that if it's expensive and heavy, It's also high quality. And that applies here: this flashlight is really well made. I wish the strobe had more controls, apparently it is a variable strobe meant to confuse someone you're shining it at. I was hoping the strobe might be more predictable for my light painting, but maybe it'll be interesting having it variable; I haven't tried using the strobe in a light painting scenario yet.