Fenix hp-11 or Spark st-6 500cw

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Re: Fenix hp-11 or Spark st-6 500cw

Postby Chads93GT » Sep 19, 2011 11:33 pm

Sorry, my river trip isn't until THIS Saturday, the 24th of September. Don't expect me to post any pic's up till LATE that night or sometime sunday. Video will take other tiems to upload due to the sheer size the files will be and I can't compress them down. I may be flying out to PA/MD/VT/NJ sunday/monday, so if that happens, I will have a lot of time on the road next week to upload video's.

It will be a 10 hour trip, lots of water, probably take my helmet off in the easy walking chest deep water portions and video tape the light underwater to see how it holds up. If i destroy it, ill send it back, but I want to know its worth keeping. as I said Ill have my hp10 with me to show comparisons in video, but one guy on the trip should have his HP11. If he doesnt go (his hp11 and helmet are in my RV, then Ill simply use his HP11 with his permission to get a great comparison on video of these lights for all those who wonder which way they should go. I did a 12 mile hike today before work and had the spark on the head band on my head, and it really wasn't a noticible weight. Yeah it was daylight i just felet like wearing it to see how it felt.

One thing I have noticed, when the spark battery gets low (im currently burning through the 2 rechargables i bought for it) it simply shuts the light off after it gets so dim. I dont really like that option, but I think that has more to do wtih the micro chip in the batteries than anything.
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Re: Fenix hp-11 or Spark st-6 500cw

Postby Caver John » Sep 20, 2011 7:18 am

Really looking foward to your pics and video!
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Re: Fenix hp-11 or Spark st-6 500cw

Postby Smells_Familiar » Sep 20, 2011 3:37 pm

DeanWiseman wrote:As it came to pass, I also had the good fortune to have two cavers on the trip wearing Fenix lights. Not sure if they were the HP-11s or not. But these were brand new rigs, so I'm thinking they were. From my perspective, I think the Fenix looked like a decent rig, too. Maybe even great--these two folks sure weren't complaining. One thing I noticed was the Fenix had the diffuser lens was permanently mounted to the housing with a hinge, so you could swivel it on or off at will. Not a bad idea, but I was worried about the durability of having that diffuser hanging "out in the wind" like that, susceptible to either impact or jamming from debris in the hinge. Other than that, and the battery pack being mounted on the rear of the helmet, performance seemed fairly similar to mine, with the high-power edge going to the ST-6.


My son and I were the two cavers with the Fenix lights on the Suicide Cave trip with Dean.

We have HP-10's, and while the throw is insane and the lights are just leaps and bounds better than the old Petzl headlamp I used 14 years ago in Monroe County caves, I do have to say that Dean's Spark was much more versatile for caving. The combo of spot and flood, and the much less visually extreme contrast between the two on the ST-6 just makes for a much better caving light. Plus it's brighter.

That being said, we're going to stick with the hp10's for the time being as we've got other gear to buy first, plus the hp10 is no slouch. Another plus (in my mind) is that it runs on AA's which simplifies my life a bit. I think that the diffuser, while still intact, does a good job of diffusing the light once the perimeter of it is painted an opaque black. However, it seems to cut down on the light output quite a bit. It's just a matter of time before it breaks though...

BTW Dean, the diffuser's just slide on to the bezel rim of the light. They may have looked like they were part of the light due to my painting them a flat black with model paint.

Anyway, it was a great trip and I can't wait to get underground again!
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Re: Fenix hp-11 or Spark st-6 500cw

Postby Chads93GT » Sep 24, 2011 10:49 pm

Trip today was great, The water flow was low, but that doesnt matter as the water pools are always deep in the cave no matter what.

collection of photos i took can be seen here.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 534&type=1

one photo in particular to look at.
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id ... =1&theater
im standing on the left with my spark on turbo or whatever, ray is on the right wall with his fenix hp11 holding perfectly still. This is a 7 second exposure and he didnt move, you will notice the throw of the fenix far down the borehole, and the outer ring of the ambient light clearly defined above and around him.

the last couple of photos in that album was just me ahead of my own camera, 7 second exposure looking ahead and you can see how well it lights the passage up for photos. I generally take all photos now with either painting walls method with headlamps or simply aiming somewhere and holding still. its much easier than lugging around a side flash. the spark is definately a flood lamp with a ton of throw.

What I love most about it, I dont have to remove my helmet to change out the batteries if i dont want to. on this trip i had my fenix hp10 mounted above it so when the batteries went out, it was easy to turn on the backup till we stopped, get out the case and pop in a new battery.

It still isnt a great video light
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... =652286534

this particular cave, the passage is just too damn big, as seen in the top video of the list, but the 2nd video down the list in rimstone, i was right next to people,. Anyway, photos great, video...........gonna need something brither, lol.

videos are on my profile as well and are public

one other thing, the trip was 7:15 long and both of the rechargeable batteries i bought wth the lamp were dead by the end, but I was running on high and turbo a whole bunch. ITs too hard to walk through boreholes of that side and not shine your light on bright. Having the ability to SEE is just too much to resist so run the lamp on low.

hope you enjoy the pics, even though the majority are of the entire group in the shot lighting up the passages, the shots were so long as you can see by how far we are strung out, that you simply cant light that kind of passage up with just 1 spark head lamp.
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Re: Fenix hp-11 or Spark st-6 500cw

Postby RobertSzabo » Sep 25, 2011 1:42 am

Been watching this tread because I want to get a Spark. I just wanted to say your pictures look great Chad! Thanks for sharing them. I realize your Spark was only lighting the foreground but it looks really good to me.
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Re: Fenix hp-11 or Spark st-6 500cw

Postby DeanWiseman » Sep 25, 2011 8:27 am

Chads93GT wrote:It still isnt a great video light
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... =652286534

this particular cave, the passage is just too damn big, as seen in the top video of the list, but the 2nd video down the list in rimstone, i was right next to people,. Anyway, photos great, video...........gonna need something brither, lol.


When it comes to video, I hold no expectations... you'd have to spend orders of magnitude more money to really get the kind of equipment to do solid video lighting. Only headlamp I've seen that really pull it off is a Scurion, and even then they have to pick their shots carefully. I actually thought some of the vid you shot (the plunge pool in particular) was quite good.

I'd love to see some of the real pros at work during a filming...

Great post.

-Dean
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Re: Fenix hp-11 or Spark st-6 500cw

Postby rlboyce » Sep 25, 2011 8:37 am

Yeah Chad, thanks!!

I agree that the light still leaves something to be desired when it comes to video, but... it's a world of difference compared to other lights I'm used to. Considering the fact that most of the caves I take video in are much smaller than the one you went to, I think for my purposes the video will turn out significantly better.

LOL, that's funny. I bet you did find it hard not to use the light on high most of the time. Who wouldn't? That's the beauty of using replaceable cells though... just pop another one in.
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Re: Fenix hp-11 or Spark st-6 500cw

Postby Chads93GT » Sep 25, 2011 9:58 am

I didn't browse the website enough when I bought the lamp else I would have ordered 4 more of those rechargeable batteries. as it is i only have 2.......need more.
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Re: Fenix hp-11 or Spark st-6 500cw

Postby Caver John » Sep 25, 2011 10:15 am

Great write up, thank you! So did running on turbo alot make it drop down in power level from the thermal limiting?
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Re: Fenix hp-11 or Spark st-6 500cw

Postby Chads93GT » Sep 25, 2011 10:19 am

It did, but I generally only switched to that high turbo mode to take a photo then i generally turned it back down, but yes it w ould automatically switch after several minutes.
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Re: Fenix hp-11 or Spark st-6 500cw

Postby DeanWiseman » Sep 28, 2011 9:00 am

Ellison's trip coming up this weekend... will report.


:bananabat: :exploring: :bananabat:


-Dean
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Re: Fenix hp-11 or Spark st-6 500cw

Postby Chads93GT » Sep 28, 2011 9:46 am

cant wait to go back to ellisons with this new headlamp.......i remember being at the bottom the first time i went down and seeing the guys with sten lights spinning around slowly while rappelling. .
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Re: Fenix hp-11 or Spark st-6 500cw

Postby Caver John » Sep 28, 2011 6:03 pm

Well as I'm sure you've all seen rude Nora by now. Wow that thing is amazing!
With that said, $500+ usd is quite alot.
+1 for spark!
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Re: Fenix hp-11 or Spark st-6 500cw

Postby rlboyce » Sep 28, 2011 6:42 pm

Yep, it is quite a chunk of change. We are fortunate that lights such as the H600 and 500CW have come on the market, because they are a cheap alternative to more pricey caving lights and they still put out a respectable amount of light. Traditionally, cavers who didn't want to spend a lot of money had to deal with very low outputs, but I am pleased to say things are finally starting to change.
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Re: Fenix hp-11 or Spark st-6 500cw

Postby Chads93GT » Sep 28, 2011 9:23 pm

I see no need for a sten light now. They are over priced. perhaps now that their R&D costs have been recouped, they should lower their prices, as they aint all that, and i have had plenty of friends with stens suffer major malfunctions that werent covered by a warranty.
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