Polaris Sportsman Battery Light Flashing

This is a very nice headlamp, without two levels of white light, a red light and a flashing red light.  Having the battery pack on the back makes it much easier to balance and the straps are adjustable over a wide range.

As many others mentioned in the reviews, these batteries are now new old stock, as the newest ones were made in 2022 and will arrive completely discharged. DO NOT give up on them - the charger will initially show an error (chamber and calibration light flashing) - keep taking the battery off and putting it back on, and eventually it will start to charge. The key is to not leave it in the charger if the charger is showing the error code, you have to remove and replace the battery until the charger shows that it is charging (chamber light and 50% light flashing). After a few hours the 50% light should glow solid and 80% should start flashing, and eventually it will charge fully

My APC UPS sounded off every few hours with beeps and a flashing red light to let me know it was time to replace the battery. I ordered online and the battery arrived sooner than expected. I installed it and it's been working fine since. The part I especially like, I didn't have to shut everything off to install.

I bought this a month ago when the battery died (I unfortunately did not notice the low battery flashing light indicator). The replacement battery arrived very promptly, was easy to install, and my backup is operational again — and just in time because a tornado hit here a few days later and I lost power for 8 hours.

but it is unsettling to have the upstream light flashing

I live in heavily light-polluted Phoenix where it is very difficult to see Polaris. I therefore use a telephone app to get a rough polar alignment. Even then, the SkyGuider Pro tracks stars well. It is easy to set up. The battery last a long time and is easy to recharge. It holds even a small telescope. The SkyGuider Pro was a great buy.

To be honest, I didn't want to buy this meter, I wanted to buy a back up of a similar Polaris flash meter that has proved itself to be absolutely wonderful, not just as a flash meter, but as a general-use incident reading light meter for cameras of all sorts. But it turned out it was no longer available, nor any other Polaris meter. This one is so similar I suspect Sekonic bought Polaris so they could make it a bit more spiffy and sell it themselves. To compare them, the Sekonic is a little bit smaller, and it does have certain cin metering functions that are of no interest to me. The display is smaller and harder to read, and instead of an analog scale showing between whole-stop values, this reports them as decimal places (eg f2.9 or f6.3) which causes me to pause and think a bit longer - the Polaris showed the whole stop with a series of ten dots on the LCD indicating how much light above that whole stop was being registered. But Sekonic love their complex displays (I sold an L-758DR to fund this one, and that was a nightmare!) Both meters, Sekonic and Polaris, give the option of giving results in EV, which is very nice for users of older Hasselblad lenses! Comparing the two, they seem to agree within about a quarter stop, which is good enough for me. The Sekonic does have the ability to to fine tune its sensitivity, but it's close enough that I don't feel the need. I think both are more accurate than the L-758DR was at incident readings (seems unlikely, but that's my experience), and an awful lot more accurate than a cheaper meter like a Gossen Digisix.

Seriously, this thing is great. Just plop in up to 2 batteries, tells you their status and juices them up. They still have a good load, just take out the battery and skip the charge. Very easy to manage your set of batteries. Clear indication of battery status no reading, arcane, flashing / not flashing, is that amber or orange.... Works well in car also and does not require a power brick just a universal 2 prong power cord. Charging is quick but not overly (quicker = less battery life due to the heat). I have use mine with Fujifilm X I understand other adaptors are available. Most fujifilm users have or should have multiple batteries: I Higly recommended this

This sportsman mount has been a great addition to my kit. The description mentions that it works good for hunting and sports equipment, and I agree. It would be very helpful for those purposes because it attaches very securely and having a tilt function is very helpful when positioning the view/shot. But I've found this mount is helpful for all kinds of different scenarios. It has a fairly large opening so it's easy to attach to a pole, light stand etc.. Even a boom pole if you wanted some kind of overhead shot. And because the jaws tighten down very securely, you don't need to worry about it falling or shifting. One feature I really appreciate is that the tilt mechanism has rosettes' which are basically small notches, so it eliminates any slipping, meaning the camera stays securely in place. That is fantastic. Build quality is also very good in my opinion. This mount should last a long time. Its built strong, mounts securely and is not very heavy, which is great. [I have received this product in exchange for my honest review]

Great size, love the built in light (it has flashing mode for some reason, just if you need to give someone a seizure on a film set?) I have always wanted this Porta Brace bag but kept talking myself out of it. I finally pulled the trigger on buying one and I'm glad I did. Sometimes I have a small lens in it if i am shooting an event with a smaller camera, but on a full set I kit it out with all the tools I'll need. for camera department. If you are on the fence about it, do it.