Field and test information
The Apex headlamp has seen solid use through the field test period. It was invaluable for some not-too-serious caving in the ice caves of the Shawangunk Mountains (NY); saw use on a late-returning bushwhack hike that I led for the Catskill 3500 Club on two remote peaks; and has been on two Catskill backpacks for use amounting to three field nights. The maximum elevation at which I have used the Apex has been about 2800 ft (850 m). The lowest temperature it's been used at has been around 35 F, 2 C (or perhaps a bit cooler); the high temperature was around 55 F (13 C). While there was snow and ice in the narrow canyons in which the ice caves are found, this was an anomaly resulting from the unusual environment, and weather in my region was generally mild during these two months. The lamp has not yet been used during rain, though it has been used in damp, cold caves.
Product use and performance
Although not by intention, as it turns out the main hikes and backpacks on which I have used the Apex to date have been group trips. I was leader on three of these, which included two backpacks (one of two nights that was led for the Appalachian Mountain Club, one overnighter for another organization), and a bushwhack day-hike that ran way past dark. On the remaining trip, also a day-hike, I was an informal co-leader. I mention this because use while leading has influenced my evaluation of this headlamp. The superior brightness of the Apex (it is indeed far brighter than any headlamp I have used previously) really comes into its own when there's a need to assist others in a party. Quite simply, it blows away the output of most headlamps in general trail use, if I can take those used by my companions on these various adventures as a fair sample. I feel it important to remark this at the outset of this report.
While this is an excellent headlamp for solo use in all regards except (perhaps) weight, it might be considered overkill, unless night travel over tricky terrain is anticipated. There simply aren't that many situations that demand the level of lighting supplied by the Maxbright LED at full blast. However, without reservation, it's a downright terrific tool when guiding (or traveling with) a group. A number of awkward backcountry nighttime stream crossings on one hike were simplified by use of the headlamp (this for a group of over a dozen people). While all in attendance had headlamps, as invariably happens some had batteries that were nearly exhausted, so the supplementary illumination I could supply as they hopped from rock to rock was very useful. This likely saved some of my group from wet feet or worse.
In the cave descent, I used the Maxbright LED on full power to guide the cramponed feet of several companions, while we clambered over underground boulders covered with glare ice. This was not a good place for a slip or fall. The lamp opened up the various vistas in a very large, very dark subterranean chamber. The beam cut straight through the slight cavern mist, and illuminated areas at a distance of up to 200 ft (60 m) to a degree where good detail of the rock walls and floor could be seen. While I'm not a "real" caver (not nearly skinny enough) I do like to enter caves (mostly tectonic, not limestone) that I know to be reasonably safe, and a powerful light like the Apex is a huge advantage in such underground settings.
I used AA lithium batteries for most of this test period, in part for the weight savings and greater power, but also because I wanted to see how well the low battery indicator would work when the cells finally ran down. Lithium batteries suffer a very sharp drop-off in output when they are close to exhausted, and I needed to test whether I was given adequate warning of this by the low battery indicator light.
When this finally showed red, indicating very low batteries, I still had enough juice to use the Maxbright LED at the lowest power setting, as well as run the Ultrabright LEDs on low. An interesting observation is that the first time I turned the lamp on after noting the battery supply indicator was red, the beam flashed three times in succession, twice. Though I didn't remember this at the time, I've since re-read the literature, and this is a programmed behavior, intended to alert the user. Clearly, the batteries were just at the low charge level when the lamp was turned on again.
Useful run time after the warning, using the low Ultrabright setting, proved to be approximately 180 minutes of usable light (i.e. the light was bright enough to perform basic tasks and perhaps, with great care, some walking on trail. though this portion of the test was conducted at home). The low Maxbright setting continued to be available, offering higher intensity lighting, but this exhausts the batteries faster, and the intensity available on this setting decreases far more rapidly with the time the lamp is on (these times are at an ambient temperature of about 70 F, 21 C). Some dim light was available for several hours beyond that, though only sufficient for reading or very simple tasks, not navigation.
If I were indeed in an emergency situation where I had run low on battery power and was without spares, I would conserve power like crazy. I'd prefer to use the low Ultrabright setting as much as possible, reserving the low setting Maxbright for brief use on specific tasks needing focused light. As an incidental note, if the lamp is turned off and allowed to rest for a couple of hours, it will start up considerably brighter than when it was turned off. I believe that this is a battery phenomenon, not anything to do with the lamp, but it's a potentially useful fact.
To reiterate, this was using lithium cells; other battery types may vary in the amount of residual charge and behavior. Total battery life has been hard to judge, in part because I was alternating between brightness settings a great deal. I will be assessing this using alkaline batteries for the Long Term Report.
The voltage regulation appears to be very good in this headlamp. I have not yet done a formal test to see how stable maximum output is (part of the test mentioned in the previous paragraph), but I certainly noticed no obvious decrease while using the lamp on the maximum power setting. It seems that the power decline that triggered the red (low battery) light on the battery meter most likely occurred while I was using the Ultrabright 4-LED area light in camp, not while on the Maxbright setting, as I had previously been using the high intensity Maxbright setting with no problems. I noted the red glow when I settled down in my tent that night. I changed the batteries in the morning, but reserved the existing ones to test for residual power. I do sometimes wish that I could briefly override the battery life indicator, which blinks like a rogue firefly for 24 hours after use. It's not a big issue, as I can always cover the lamp.
Unless I forget where I've pitched my tent (which has happened!), or if I were to otherwise urgently need to illuminate a distant spot (perhaps to see if I have an ursine visitor) there's generally no point to using the Maxbright setting in camp. It merely blinds other people. The Ultrabright LED illumination is more than adequate for finding a nice spot for the tent, putting it up, installing a bear-bag hang or placing a canister, cooking dinner and cleaning up, reading (the lowest setting is fine for this), and all routine camp tasks that I've encountered to date.
I have really not noticed much downside to the Apex headlamp. I did have a small problem with the battery pack riding up, making the headlamp feel less than securely attached to my head, but I think I had the strap tension a little too tight, which may have caused this. I have to play with the tension a bit more to make sure that was indeed the cause. The large battery compartment isn't uncomfortable (or at least I don't find it so) and I've noticed no warmth on my brow from the lamp, even when it has been in use for a couple of hours continuously. Clearly the elaborate cooling system is doing its job well. While the lamp instructions mention that the lamp may dim if it overheats, I have yet to experience this, though I'll be curious to see if this happens, now that warmer weather has arrived.
I find switching between lighting modes very straightforward, although the mechanism does seem to have defeated a couple of people I have let play briefly with the Apex, particularly when it comes to turning the lamp off. I suppose holding the switch down for a second or so to switch off isn't that intuitive, but (knowing this is the method) it hasn't bothered me at all. I find that I can distinguish the embossed design on the two control buttons by touch, in case I've forgotten which is which, as I sometimes do. Lightly gloved hands present no special problem when it comes to operation. A heavy mountaineering mitten does make the switches a little awkward, but not (with care) impossible. Then again, mittens make most things awkward.
I was curious to see how effective the collimation in the Maxbright LED would be on full beam. To do so, I shone the lamp on a white wall from a distance of 3.4 m (about 11 feet). The distance chosen was arbitrary, and not significant to the results. I used a digital luxmeter to measure brightness. (Lux is the International Standard unit of measure for luminous flux density at a surface. The meter has a stated accuracy of +/-5%, indicated on the graph below with error bars.) I measured along a horixontal axis, centered on the visually brightest portion of the beam. at 10 cm (4 in) intervals. Since the illuminated area was larger than my wall I measured only the brightest region. The profile I mapped is shown below.
There are no great surprises here. Collimation is even from left to right across the illuminated area, and a high percentage of the light is concentrated at beam center, although beam focus is not so tight as to make peripheral areas poorly illuminated (a very narrow focus has, in my experience, no real advantage, especially when looking for markers or blazes on trail, which are likely to show up better with a broader beam of light). My field testing has demonstrated that the Maxbright light output is remarkably intense, at distances considerably greater than those chosen for this test, though the light intensity doesn't approach daylight (which is generally around 500 lux horizontally on a cloudy, overcast day) except at very close range. There are no collimation artifacts of any note evident (e.g. brighter zones ringing the central illuminated portion). The color of the light is (on a visual assessment) a pretty good facsimile of white, with only a faint blue tinge, not enough to cause color distortion when viewing objects. This is true for both the Maxbright and Ultrabright LED settings, although the latter LEDs seem to me to be slightly bluer in tone.
Summary
I am very pleased with the Apex headlamp to date. It has already proven itself invaluable, and very well-suited to use when guiding groups under low-light conditions, as well as for use around the campsite etc. The headlamp's weight, particularly when lithium cells are used, is not so high that I would not consider it for a solo multi-day trip (unless I was seriously ounce shaving). That would be especially likely if I knew that after-dark hiking was a distinct possibility. The light intensity is impressive, and appears to be up to any task (including off-trail hiking and scrambling) that I'm likely to encounter after dark.
Future testing strategy
In the remaining two months of testing, I will continue to use the Apex headlamp under a variety of conditions, and will continue to evaluate its performance as discussed
in the Initial Report.
I thank BackpackGearTest and Princeton Tec for permitting me to participate in this intriguing test.
