Lighting

Perhaps I’m giving my age away – but do you remember when all men wore the same thing to go hiking – Tesav rugby shorts, cotton T, red loop stitched socks & T5’s ? When it rained you pulled out your Drimac and got sweaty ! Then Goretex arrived, followed by Polarfleece and Pertex – and suddenly dressing for the hills became a more technical (and expensive) endeavour. Shortly there after the competition started – everyone & his pet dog started to make Polarfleece and the original morphed into Polartec – in different series 100, 200, 300. A plethora of waterproof “breathable” fabrics arrived – Ventex, Sympatex, X-Country DriClim etc.

Soon it became apparent that it wasn’t enough to recognise brands – one has to understand the underlying technology and, more especially, what function various fabrics are designed to perform so that you can choose the fabric best suited for your intended pursuit. With so many new technologies, brands, manufacturers and retailers popping up in the realm of technical outdoor clothing, consumers quickly learned to “get with the programme” or get burned with sub-performance or over price choices.

Headlamp technology has gone through similar technological changes and while most people have adapted to the complications in clothing choice – the shift in the manner in which consumers choose their headlamps (or personal lighting) has been much slower.