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i'm looking for a lantern for our trip to france and was considering something like the  'coleman northstar pr' or campingaz stellia cv are these type a good bye or would i be better with a battery powered led or similar? thanks Corny

To be fair Battery Lanterns are getting better, probably the best around at the moment is the Outwell 400LX also marketed by BaseCamp amongst others.

It uses 4 Cree LED's, so quite bright, and runs of 6 "D" cell batteries, of course some decent NiMh rechargeables would be best to use.

As for brightness, still only about half as bright as a single mantel CampinGaz lantern, which chucks out 80watt's in old money, so the fuel lanterns you mention are about double that.

Tube lanterns are OK, and at 7watt are about the same as a 400 lumen LED lantern, although Tube lanterns tend to attract every flying insect within a km of your tent, also the light is quite harsh.

I still have my old (1950's) Bialladin 300 Pressure lantern, a lovely 60watt Glow, but all that faffing around with meths and paraffin, it really must be considered as a museum piece, even though nothing can touch it for the Glow it gives.

http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/redirect.asp?redir=http://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/superior-400lx-r-p177799

We have and use a Stellia CV twin mantle lamp and it chucks out a very good bright light. We have transported it to and from camping trips without the mantle or the globe being damaged.

The only time we use it inside a tent is in our Vermont L (will not be used in our Nevada M) in the porch area which is well ventilated as it does not have a SIG in that section and the over window vents are also open.

Fantastic lamp outside.

Cheers