Holding the Sun: First impressions of the Fenix PD36R Pro

Now – I’ve always had a torch, I use a Nebo Inspector 180 penlight (2xAAA) around film sets and find it absolutely fantastic for lighting up camera bags and finding my way when we’re on night shoots. I’ve also had one of those 1 Trillion Lumen Amazon Zoomies (which is about as bright as the Nebo and 5x the size) and it is absolutely godawful and flickers like the lights of a Colombian prison.

After many hours on this subreddit, and endless YouTube comparisons watched, I bought a Fenix PD36R Pro from Inglesport in the UK (Excellent locally owned company, highly recommend)

First impressions: the packaging, included instructions, wrist strap and holster are great – all nicely done.

The build is beautiful, feels like a real tool in the hand, superb knurling, nice heft and the clip is just perfect.

The button layout on the back is really easy to learn and perfectly comfortable.

Second impressions: JESUS CHRIST is this thing bright, my mouth was agape for about 30 seconds after I flicked it onto Turbo for the first time. Good lord, it felt like I was holding a collapsing star. In the attached video, the treeline is roughly 200 meters away, and is (with my eyes) very well illuminated indeed, the videos I watched on YouTube – and the one I’ve posted here – don’t quite do it justice, it is super awesome. The ACE variation of the PD36R pushes an extra 300 lumens! Which is gnarly, but the 2800 of the Pro is almost certainly more than enough for 99.9 percent of people.

If anything, my only gripe at the moment is that the Low mode puts out 30 lumens, and could actually be too bright in a tent, or when you’ve just woken up in the dark for instance.

After 20 seconds in Turbo, the head does get warm to the touch, but the indent on the clip perfectly fits the thumb and keeps your hands cool if you are blasting this thing into the night for a prolonged period.

Initially, I thought it was silly to spend £114 on a torch (which came with a free E03R V2.0!) and maybe it was, but for hikes and mountaineering in my case, this feels like a real tool that is an investment for future me needing to see in bad weather on a mountain somewhere, and I have absolutely no remorse buying it.

For those of you considering this lamp, feel free to ask me anything you’d like to know/see and I’ll do my best to help.

Edit: the dog is not called Mrs. Nips!

Peace ✌️