Fenix headlamps - 61R or 65R - thoughts?

[mazzgolf]

(ignore this thread if you don't want to discuss the nitty-gritty about a comparison between two Fenix headlamps and their lumens output)

tl;dr the Fenix 61 has shorter runtimes, but its lumens output remains steady throughout battery life - the 65 has much longer runtimes, but its lumens output starts to drop immediately and continually drops through most of its battery lifetime, lowering its lumens even below the 61. Which headlamp would you choose?

I'm seriously considering getting one of those Fenix headlamps (see earlier thread here where this came up).

I narrowed it down to two:

Fenix HM61R v2

Fenix HM65R

The 65 has much longer runtimes, BUT (and here's my hangup), the lumens output over time looks different between the two. The 61, even though the runtimes are less, hold their lumens output steady until the battery dies. The 65 is different - its lumens output drops immediately and continually drops the first 30 minutes for turbo, the first 2 hours for high, and first 4 hours for medium and low. They end up dropping below the 61 lumens output.

Look at the runtime chart for the 65 and compare it to the 61 (caveat, the 65 chart is ONLY for the spotlight - I asked Fenix and they told me they do not have a chart for the floodlight, which was curious in itself why they don't publish that data but whatever, I suspect it has the same kind of behavior):

65 runtimes:

61 runtimes:

Take, for example, Turbo mode. The 61 has a runtime of 2 hours, but for most of that time it is outputting roughly 1000 lumens continuously. The 65 turbo has 4 hours runtime, but most of that it is only outputing about 300 lumens (it starts at 1000, but immediately drops to 300 at the 30 minute mark).

So for Turbo, you can have 4 hours of mostly 300 lumens, or 2 hours of mostly 1000 lumens (half the time, but three times the lumens).

It's basically the same tradeoff for the other modes, too.

Look at medium mode. The 61 has 12 hours of full 150 lumens output. The 65 starts out at 130 but starts to immediately drop until at the 4 hour mark it is outputting roughly 50 lumens (it finally dies at 42 hours still holding at about 50 lumens). So you could have 12 full hours of 150 lumens (with the 61), or 42 hours with only the first hour over 100 lumens, the majority of the 42 hours you are only getting 50 lumens).

I'm leaning towards getting the 61 - it has a red light unlike the 65 (it's only at 5 lumens, but I really only want the red light to see things up close anyway) and its flashlight is removable so you could actually use it as a standalone torch. But the 65 has so much more runtime (even though its lumens output is less than the 61 for most of the time) that I'm waffling.

Curious if anyone has the 61 and can share experience.

Or what you think of the runtime charts between the two.

 

 

[hammer4reel]

70r has better solid run time overall .

at above a 500 lumens level , and has same 5 lumens red light (that Imo is almost worthless)

Edited January 12 by hammer4reel