Thursday, December 5, 2013

FENIX TK 76 GEAR REVIEW

TK 76 lighting up a room in Blowing Hole Cave from the back
I had a chance to give the TK 76 a good run through a couple caves the past few weeks and I wanted to share my honest opinion on this light.  When I first got my hands on it,  it appeared to be a photon gun star trek looking device that had some blue energy level lights on the sides of it.  The construction was similar to the TK 75 but the TK 76 has the option of utilizing three different lights in one lighting system.   From what I understand, This is designed to be used for search and rescue and it was actually able to be used as a search light underwater in our gear recovery trip we went on last week.
I like how the devices main light is a thrower and the two side lights are flood lights, one side is a cool white flood and the other side is a warmer flood light.  This allows the benefit to utilize a warm floor, cool flood, both warm and cool, the main throw light, or all three together.  I was most impressed with this as this allows for colors the warmer colors to pop out when taking photgraphs in caves.  The cooler flood also allows for some colors to pop out so when the warm and cool colors are combined, It appeared that the light system worked well with taking pictures inside of caves. 
The TK76 was tossed around in dirt and mud, dragged through gravel, dirt, and mud without any problems.  The cave enviroment is pretty unforgiving when it comes to tearing away at the life of your gear so when I am able to test out new equipment inside of a cave, it can help to understand how reliable this gear can be in other situations. 

Overall, I recommend the TK 76 as a solid light to light up the darkness.  This light is great for LED cave photography BUT it is bulky and can turn on inside your bag from time to time with ease.  It will need to be kept in a box which can create more bulk and weight in the bag not to mention the TK76 is a bit bulky and heavy.  Personally, I dont mind carrying this light with me for cave photography as I have found it to be worth its weight in value to me.  
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