The Lens-Light, like many inventions, was born from a need. Leonard Chapman, the maker, wanted a good flashlight for his mother who is suffering from macular degeneration. The idea was simply to make reading easier. Unable to find a light which met her, needs, Leonard decided it was best just to start from scratch and develop a light which would serve the purpose. The result is the Lens-Light Model 01.

Having worked for several years with professional laboratory equipment, I can tell you that the Lens-Light is something I would expect to find in a medical lab or research facility where precision and quality really count. It has the look and feel of a precision tool designed for experts and professionals.

The Lens-Light Model 01 uses two AAA alkaline cells for power and utilizes an interchangeable lens system with a focusing tube to change the light beam from a round smooth spot to an almost perfect focused projection of the LED die. A current regulated Luxeon I LED supplies light to the lens system and on the tailcap is a boost switch to momentarily increase output by 50%.

Body: The body of the Lens-Light Model 01 is Type-III anodized aluminum and has 3 knurled areas - one around the lens for easy removal, one around the tailcap for the same purpose, and one around the center. These knurled parts are currently available in black or gold finish. The body is available in a variety of anodized colors. The body tube is smooth with the largest diameter area near the front which steps down twice in diameter to the tail end of the light. The tailcap contains a boost switch for a momentary increase in output. Twisting the front of the body tube turns the light on and allows for focusing and a safety stop prevents the focusing tube from separating from the body.

Bezel/Head: The very front of the light contains the lens system/focusing tube, the LED and the current regulator circuit. Two types of lenses are available - the smaller Single Lens system, and the larger Triple Lens system. Both are aluminum housed glass lenses with O-ring seals built in.

The Triple Lens is larger in diameter but allows the light to be focused into a tighter beam. Simply unscrewing the lens allows you to swap one out for the other. Behind the lens is the LED and a mode selection switch. This selector allows you to engage or disengage the auto-off timer. When received from the manufacturer the auto-off timer is active. In use, the light will remain on for about 7-8 minutes and then turn off. Twisting the focusing tube to the off position and back on resets the timer. You can flip the selector inside the head to deactivate the auto-off timer if you find it to be an inconvenience.

I did notice that the glass lens in the Triple Lens module does protrude slightly beyond the face of the metal lens housing, resulting in the lens touching the surface it is set on, if placed face down. This could potentially result in damage to the lens if placed on a rough surface. [See UPDATE, below, regarding this...]

Output: The white light produced by the LED is a high color temperature and produces good color rendition weighted toward the blue end of the spectrum. The spot of light created by the lens system ranges from a wide smooth spot of clean light to a nearly perfectly focused image of the square die of the LED, depending on the particular lens used. In fact, with the Triple Lens system, it's so good that you can actually see the 4 individual sections of the LED die. I have never seen this degree of precision in a flashlight optics system before now.

It is interesting to note that if you use the Single Lens, the light starts out at a wide focus and becomes more narrow the more you turn the focusing tube. If you use the Triple Lens, you start with a narrow focus which can be spread out to a wide focus.

   
Single lens system - wide and narrow

   
Triple lens system - narrow and wide

Runtime Plot: It doesn't get much better than this! Nearly dead flat regulation for over 4 hours (a bit shorter than manufacturer's claims, but great nonetheless).

Runtime completed with Energizer brand batteries. More information on runtime plots is available HERE.

Switch: In the Lens-Light Model 01 you have two primary switches. Unscrewing the focusing tube just slightly serves as the switch to turn it on, tightening the tube turns it off. Once on, you have about 7 minutes of use before the auto-off system shuts the light down to preserve battery life. As mentioned before, the auto-off system can be turned off by changing the position of a mode selector inside the head behind the lens. On the tail is the other switch which is a momentary click switch. Pressing this switch while the light is on gives you about 50% more light output than normal, until released.

This secondary switch is where we find one part of this light that I really don't care for. The switch inside the tailcap is attached to the electronics in the front of the light via a wire. When you remove the tailcap, the switch remains behind and must be pushed aside, while still attached, to access the batteries. The wire appears to be reinforced with shrink-wrap tubing, but it seems to me that there should be a better solution which does not require that the switch to be connected to the body with a wire and instead is permanently installed in the tailcap.

On a little bit of a picky note, I did find one other thing that was of slight concern. Tolerances are so tight on the Lens-Light that if the lenses are not tightened down well and the body tube is not tightened down when attempting to turn the light off, it may not turn off. Sometimes I had to apply fairly significant pressure - especially with the Single Lens installed - when twisting the focusing tube back to the "off" position in order to actually make the light turn off. [See UPDATE, below, regarding this...]

Seals / Water Resistance: The Lens-Light is advertised as water resistant, but it actually is fully waterproof and based upon the tests conducted by the maker, it should withstand the rigors of diving with no trouble.

On the off chance that it gets wet inside, just disassemble as much a possible without tools and let it dry before using again.

Ergonomics: It is small and slim. You may want to add a clip if you choose to carry it like a pen light in your breast pocket. Very easy to turn on and change focus.

Size compared to a common 2AA aluminum light

Batteries: Two AAA cells power the light.

To change out the batteries: unscrew the tailcap and remove. Carefully push the attached switch aside and drop out the old cells. Place in new cells observing proper polarity. Place the tailcap over the momentary switch and reattach the tailcap.

Accessories: No accessories are currently available beyond the Single and Triple Lens attachment.

What I Liked: Waterproof, Tough/impact resistant, Regulated and good battery life, 2 levels of output, Two types of focusing lenses, Lightweight

What I Didn't Like: Tail switch remains attached to the light by a wire when tailcap is removed. You must hold it aside when changing batteries. Triple Lens module lens protrudes slightly beyond the protective aluminum housing.

Picky Little Things: On-off switch very sensitive to tolerances - make sure the lens system is very tight.

Conclusions: A very nice light, and a great first offering from the maker. It has a few little things that may need improving in the future, as is to be expected, but this does not stop the Lens-Light from being a very high quality and very well made illumination device.

UPDATE from Chapman/Leonard:

Here are some comments I received from the nice folks at Chapman/Leonard regarding some clarifications that may need to be made. I'm always happy to include information like this in order to help out my readers.

Thank you very much for your quick response with our Lens Light review. We were impressed with the quickness of your response and accuracy of your comments.

There's a few things we'd like to point out: The reason why we used wires in the back was because our tests showed that any exposed, unprotected metal parts promoted internal corrosion and over time, can cause a degrading of the performance of the flashlight. We're hoping that people will accept this configuration.

We appreciate you pointing out the lens on the front of the flashlight protruding beyond the bezel. We, subsequently, checked out our latest versions of the flashlight and found this has already been corrected. We apologize for sending you an earlier version. We checked 100 off-the-shelf Lens Lights and none showed an extended lens. A few prototype models did show this flaw and it was corrected. We must have inadvertently sent one of these to you.

About the LUX vs time curve, in our test we had the same results as you did. We would like to point out that subsequent "on" and "off" uses of the flashlight gave us another hour of "on" time. So, when we reported on available light, it was based on this test.

The "on" and "off" sensitivity is an adjustable feature. The device that secures the lens can be slightly extended to decrease the sensitivity to the "on" and "off" function. One last note of possible interest to you, our selections of the economy mode was based on obtaining the maximum area from the LUX vs time curves to obtain the greatest efficiency.

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