In a festival environment, we used the max brightness mode to find our way across the field to the portaloos and the standard beam to do the camp cooking. We used the dimmest mode to sort out our messy tent after dusk, and the red light while chatting and socializing. It's perfect for all scenarios, except one. The Petzl Actik Core has a water resistance rating of IP X4. This means it is acceptable for light rain but should you find yourself out in a storm with lots of driving rain, you'd probably want to put it away, and it definitely isn't submersible. Petzl ACTIK CORE 450: Functionality We have spent the past couple of weeks using the Actik Core headlamp for various activities, including late-night dog walking, sky watching, festival camping and using during wildlife rehabilitation activities. Here's what we think. Petzl ACTIK CORE 450: Design

The BioLite HeadLamp 330 is ideal if you want to save a bit of cash and don't need as many lumens as the other BioLite models that sit in this guide offer. It is so tiny you'll soon forget you have it on. It has a 'no bounce' design that rests flat against the forehead which is mostly useful for runners, but it also means that it won't get in the way of you looking through a scope or viewfinder.

As we've already mentioned, you can power it with either three AAA batteries or the included CORE rechargeable battery. The battery compartment sits behind the lamp and is simple to open with your fingers when it's time to recharge but secure enough that it won't pop open unnecessarily. This powerful headtorch is the result of endless testing and research from Petzl. At full power the Actik will pump out 350 lumens and will run for two hours before it requires a charge. If battery life is more of a priority, the Actik can run for a massive 160 hours on Petzl's Max Autonomy mode.

The torch has three main settings 7 lumens, perfect for finding something in your tent, 100 lumens for running and such at dusk, and 600 which is perfect for any night time activities in the full dark. It also has a red light setting for when you don’t want to disturb your camping buddy Continuous red lighting to preserve night vision without blinding those around you, and strobe to signal your location, especially in emergency situations These different features help in different scenarios — for example, you'll need the extra straps if you're running or climbing. It takes a while for our eyes to adapt to seeing in the dark but even a millisecond of white light can stimulate the rods and ruin your night vision, so the red light allows you to see but doesn't affect your ability to see in the dark once you turn it off. You can turn on the red lamp without having to turn the white LEDs on by long pressing the button; this is excellent news for astronomers and astrophotographers as this virtually eliminates the risk of ruining your night vision. With some other headlamp models, you have to turn the white lamp on and cycle through to red which isn't desirable if night vision preservation is important.

The Olight Perun 2 is an innovative design in the headlamp market since it doubles up as a headlamp and flashlight all in one. While it's not a traditional headlamp, we felt that it was underrated as a multi-purpose light and deserved a place in this list, awarding it 4.5 stars in our Olight Perun 2 review. ACTIK® with a rechargeable battery! The ideal rechargeable headlamp to extend your dynamic outdoor activities. Casting 600 lumens, ACTIK® CORE provides powerful and comfortable lighting to go with you when you're running, trekking, or mountaineering. Its phosphorescent reflector makes it easy to find in the dark and red lighting keeps you from blinding those around you when you’re with a group. ACTIK® CORE comes with the CORE rechargeable battery and also works with three standard batteries, thanks to its HYBRID CONCEPT design. While the fact that the Petzl Actik Core can crank out 450 lumens of light is impressive, what truly makes this headlamp special is that it can achieve that brightness while still weighing just 2.6 ounces (75 grams). That puts it amongst the brightest and lightest head torches on the market, offering outstanding performance with little bulk. The headlamp includes multiple illumination levels and offers both a flood pattern for illuminating a wider area and a “mixed” option for a narrower–but still dispersed–beam. The unit comes with a red-light (both continuous and strobe) for night vision as well, which comes in handy when using the headlamp around others. If you're looking for a more traditional headlamp design and you require a red light as well as a white light, then the Nitecore NU31 headlamp is the brightest option. It offers 550 lumens on Turbo mode whilst still maintaining a five-hour runtime thanks to its 1,800 mAh rechargeable battery. What makes a good headlamp? WARNING: This lamp is not certified for road use: when used in an area governed by traffic regulations, Petzl lights are not a substitute for required standardized lights.

We will keep customer information safe and secure and will not distribute or sell this information to a third party. Compatible with the HELMET ADAPT and BIKE ADAPT 2 mounts, so you can fix the lamp on a variety of helmet types or a bicycle (1) Not all headlamps have a flood light option, but it’s a great function to have for proximity lighting. Best for around camp or in a tent, flood lights cast a wide beam and maximize the view right in front of you. Some headlamps will have two LEDs, one for spot lighting and one for flood lighting, while others (like the Coast FL75R) allow you to shape one single LED into a distance beam or an up-close flood. In their specs, most manufacturers will call out a lamp’s beam distance—for example, the BioLite HeadLamp 325 has an 10-meter flood and a 70-meter spot. The Petzl Actik Core features both a flood and spot beam I hate the feeling of not knowing how discharged my batteries are, but with a rechargeable ‘Core’ battery I can keep my head torch 100% topped up and ready to go. I would have liked to have seen a setting for an even narrower, more focused, beam, but as is it is hard to fault the Actik Core too much. The bottom line is that it is incredibly bright, even on the lower settings, delivering plenty of light when and where you need it most.Durable, comfortable, and versatile, the Petzl Actik Core is a fantastic headlamp for use in just about any activity. We appreciate its bright lamp and rechargeable batteries, which should be standard on just about every high-end headlamp these days. This model features Petzl’s trademark reliability and great build-quality too, making it easy to recommend to anyone shopping for a new light source for use in the outdoors. Overall the best headlamp is the Petzl Actik Core 450because of its reliability, build quality and versatility. However, the Knog Bilby 400 Headlampand BioLite HeadLamp 425are also both incredibly good headlamps thanks to full waterproofing and 60 hour runtime, respectively. What is the best headlamp for camping? This headlamp also comes with a host of other useful features. It's rated at IP67, meaning that it is fully waterproof and dustproof for up to a meter (which we successfully put to the test in our Knog Bilby 400 headlamp review). What makes it the most customizable headlamp on our list is its ModeMaker app for PC or Mac. Simply plug the headlamp into a USB port and you can set up 14 different saved modes for your headlamp to suit your preferences. It takes a whopping 4 x AAA batteries, so we'd recommend getting yourself a charger and some rechargeable batteries to keep long-term costs down. It has a useful battery life indicator (green 100%-50%, yellow 50%-25% and red 25%- 0%) so you don't get caught out. WARNING: This lamp is not certified for road use: when used in areas subject to traffic regulations, Petzl lights are no substitute for required standardized lights.

Any customer information held on our computers complies with the rules and laws contained within the Data Protection Act 2018.Silva Terra Scout XT: A fairly typically styled headlamp that can be tilted anywhere from 0-90% from your forehead. We love that the materials are responsible and recyclable.