OP; If going with a flashlight format, highly recommend ones which use the 18650 Lithium rechargeable batteries. You can bet a box of 10 of them on ebay for about $12 delivered and chargers are dirt cheap also. Nothing in the AA format comes close to them. And they can output up to 6,000 mah each. I use several of the 5,000 lumen zoomable lights as bike lights ($15 on ebay) and also use the ones that house two of the 18650 batts with a gun mount on the shotgun which is great for spotting during the annual tree top raccoon hunts.