So, you’ve just purchased all of your scuba gear, and you bought a great pair of goggles, you’ve taken the necessary classes, and even know which location you want to visit to go diving, and where it is located on the map. Plane tickets may have even been purchased.
You even have one of the dive watches that we recommended for you on our Best Dive Watches review article. So, it looks like you’re ready to get started, right?
Not quite.
Not to put a damper on your experience. Actually, rather quite the opposite. We want to ensure that you have the most awesome scuba diving experience that one could possibly have.
Which is why we’ve decided to create this article to explain why it’s necessary, that for your own enjoyment and safety, you need to purchase a dive light!
Which one you buy is up for debate, so we thought we’d help you make your decision, by explaining which ones, we feel, are the best buys on the market.
What is a Diving Flashlight?
In short, a dive light is pretty much a flash light that you use to see while you’re diving underwater.
So, I can just bring my flashlight from home, right?
Not quite. First off, your flashlight probably isn’t dive proof. Secondly, the purpose of a flashlight is merely to guide you in a dark room.
However, a dive light is specifically designed to illuminate through the density of the ocean.
Think about it this way: If the sun’s light can’t penetrate certain parts of the ocean, what makes you think a garden-variety flashlight will be able to do so?
This is where the diving flash light comes in. Diving flash lights have the capability to not only illuminate your path under the water, they also allow you to see the full spectrum of colors under the water.
This is important because the properties of the ocean are composed in a way that it not only blocks sunlight, it blocks color as well.
If you were to shine a regular flashlight under water, it would be the equivalent of shining a flashlight in dirty water.
The image displayed above shows the range of colors that can be seen at different depths. As you can see, it doesn’t take long before all light will become completely obstructed under the ocean.
If you’re having trouble reading the graph, here is a quick synopsis below of how light works under water:
- Within just 10 feet of entering the water, the colors red, orange, and yellow are absorbed to a great extent.
- At the point that one reaches 25 feet, a significant portion of the orange that was in the spectrum goes missing.
- At 35 feet, all of the yellow disappears.
- By the time you hit 50 feet, green disappears out of the spectrum as well. At this point, the only colors that will even be recognized will be blue, dingo, and violent.
- At 100 feet, blue is most likely the only color that you will be able to recognize.
- Once you get to 200 feet, you’ll only be seeing flashes of violet.
Now that you’ve been sufficiently informed about the properties of dive lights, we’ll go ahead and present to you our list of the best dive lights out there on the market.
