Before you drop coin on a multi-color LED flashlight, test your theory and optics with $1 blue and red LEDS from countycomm - see http://www.countycomm.com/light10.htm. $2 + shipping/handling (plus whatever else you can't resist on countycomm) should give you an idea what you can see and what you can't under blue or red light. I'm not sure where to get green or yellow LEDs but hopefully they aren't far off in price. I did see some somewhere, probably the same place they stock black light LEDs for following blood and rodent trails etc.

I also bought a cheap red light filter on lighthound.com that slides on over the end of a Fenix model Cree LED light - not sure if they have other colors but the red light is pretty good for preserving my night vision. They have these http://www.lighthound.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=3523, RedBlueGreenYellowOrange sized for something called a PentagonLite, (I suspect they refer to a 90 angle head light like they carry at CountyComm), but for $16 you could try them on your LED light and at least try the different color spectrums.

Good idea but a $2 buy from countycomm becomes $20 (or more) when shipping to Canada. I told myself a long time ago I'd never buy from countycomm unless they stop shipping with UPS exclusively.

Colored LEDs (just the diodes) are easy to come by but are to impractical to try in the field...especially at night. I could play at home but I don't think it would be the same or show me what I want to know...especially since I'm still just learning about how to use these lights to supplement mantracking technique.

I ended up ordering the multi-color flashlights from eBay...they were too cheap to pass up. I got 2. Even if they don't work out for me, I know plenty of people who I could pass them along to and easily get my costs back. If they work I'll have a backup which is nice since these are hard to find new now.

I've also been reading up on how LED lights can be bad for night vision because they are too white or a little blue. There's actually studies which prove that the slightly yellow light of an incandescent bulb is better for focusing on stuff at night because of a lack of blue in the spectrum...I guess we naturally have a hard time focusing on blue light.

I do tracking for SAR and color blind as well. I started using yellow and amber tinted glasses on occasion and I can see detail that I would have normally missed.

I just got the eBay lights in the mail and despite my concerns about lack of quality I'm fairly impressed.

They are full metal construction with o-rings and seemingly water resistant switches. The lens is an actual lens which focuses the beam so there are no hot spots...the optics are not flawless but it gets the job done. The instructions rate the white light at 60 lumens...pretty good.

There are 10 modes (7 colors, 2 sequenced modes which scroll through the colors, and a sleep mode)...all colors are bright enough to use during the day as long as it's not too bright out.

I might get a chance to try it out on a Mantracking exercise next week...in the meantime I'll try to take some action shot pictures or a short video.