Silva have been making torches since 1935, which we would consider pretty solid pedigree. The Zoomlight 1000 is their most powerful flashlight, with 1000 lumens of retina-searing brightness and a twist-to-zoom front that means you can illuminate your campsite with a wide-beam floodlight or switch to a narrow spotlight and pick out craters on the moon (probably). The knurled aluminium body offers plenty of grip for cold or wet hands, while the IP68 rating means it'll survive being dropped in a puddle or left out in the rain. Not every task demands the intensity of a military searchlight, so there are three brightness modes to help you conserve power. The rechargeable 18650 battery (USB-C charging) will last up to 20 hours on low power, and there’s a useful battery level indicator so it doesn’t peg out half way through a night hike.
| True Lumen ANSI | Burn Time ANSI | Light distance ANSI | |
|---|---|---|---|
| MAX | 1000 lm | 2 | 70-170 m |
| MED | 400 lm | 5 | 45-105 m |
| MIN | 70 lm | 20 | 22-50 m |
It’s a bit of a cliché to say, ‘this brand needs no introduction…’, but sometimes it really doesn’t. If you ever did scouts, guides or cadets, got epic blisters on a D of E expedition or went on an outward bounds residential, chances are you did it with a Silva compass in the pocket of your boil-in-the-bag cagoule.
Like so many world-changing inventions, the Silva compass began as a problem that needed solving. Back in the day, your standard compass wobbled all over the shop, making it tricky and time-consuming to get a decent reading. That is, until 1933, when four Swedes invented a liquid-filled compass. The resistance from the fluid slowed and stabilised the needle, meaning you could nail a reliable bearing in seconds. Navigation was never the same again.
But iconic as the compasses are, they’re only one part of the Silva story. They were one of the first companies to make reliable electric head torches for the outdoors, and they’ve also branched out into optics, trekking kit and other navigational gear. Tried and tested for the better part of a century, Silva’s precision instruments have literally been the difference between life and death for generations of outdoor adventurers – and as brand pedigree goes, that’s pretty much impossible to beat.
