Let's compare our car lights (photo challenge)

[jtbo]

I find it interesting to try to take photos where you get same visual appearance in photo that what you get with own eyes. I have found out that it is very challenging to achieve that when taking photos of car headlights view, but I think that finally I did got some success in that area.

So let's go and try to take photo of some quiet road without additional lights and try to capture real view from our driver's seat

My two takes, still would need to do dipped beam shot:



Sorry for lack of Volvo content in this one as my 360 is in storage at the moment.

[mat 91]

lights ive got them on my car but u cant see much with them
i say were there are street lights hahaha

[atroch]

Hi! Jtbo that is what I needed! A shot of your landscape! This road looks amazing! You should make more fotos and start new topic "Roads in Finland!"

Or maybe we should start a new post with some kind of shots from drivers view showing interesting streets like yours.

I'll try make a shot with my lights soon.

[trabitom99]

I'll try make a shot with my lights soon.

That's also on my "Todo" list, but it's taking a while

Tom

[trabitom99]

OK, first attempt with this lot:


Dipped beam:


Dipped beam + spots


Dipped beam + spots + fogs


Maybe I shouldn't have tried it in town

Tom

[jtbo]

Yeah, in town it is quite hard to get pic to show what your lights actually light up, eye works so different from the camera, maybe it would be possible if one takes two exposures and combines them, but I doubt that it would still be what one see as any bright spot will be overburn when trying to get that dimmer area correct.

Place where no artifical lights are present is best, not hard to find such spot in Germany, but in UK that could mean quite long drive what I have heard.

[SteveP]

Place where no artifical lights are present is best, not hard to find such spot in Germany, but in UK that could mean quite long drive what I have heard.

Not as bad as you might think... I live in one of the largest cities, but a 15min drive away you can find completely unlit roads with little light pollution. Infact it's hard to believe what difference a short drive away makes to the look of the night sky.

[sven360]

Place where no artifical lights are present is best, not hard to find such spot in Germany, but in UK that could mean quite long drive what I have heard.

You don't have to travel too far in Newcastle.Well,not the way I wire the streetlights up.

[jtbo]

That, depends from your standards, see
http://www.threehillsobservatory.co.uk/ ... ion_uk.htm

Here is part of Europe:


I'm lucky to live in such blue island at middle of light pollution, however local light pollution here is quite severe and serves no purpose. I have visited in some red areas in this country and I must say that there were no dark shadows anywhere, just eerie gloom all over the place in cloudy weather that reaches many miles outwards from lights, really horrible.

However that does not compromise this photo shooting, as light levels are relatively low compared what light level car lights do produce.

Here is free tip, eat some blueberries and you can see better in dark, because blueberry causes blood vessels in eye to become bigger = better working eye, it's like night vision booster, albeit quite small effect, but good for night rallying etc

[jtbo]

Here is something to compare, same place, some logs have appeared and this was perhaps few meters different spot. but should give some interesting thoughts.

So this is with car's own lights only, full beam (For comparision I add below earlier shot with my extra spots only):



As you can see there is slight difference, it is like that level of difference what I see with my own eyes, that is how I did try to get view captured with camera and I think that it came out rather well.

Car's original lights are adjusted quite bit upwards, actually they will not pass MOT with that setting, but to be able to see at least something I have to keep them that way, load compensation is what I use to adjust lights down so that when there are other cars, those will not get blinded.

Those extra spots are not legal with this car, they are perfectly legal to but into 360 however, Hella FF320 Jumbo Xenon is what they are.

I really don't care if those are illegal, if I would have 2 years older french crap, totally same car in other ways, there would be no problem by law, those would be legal, however it is not so with same car, but 2 years recent, stupid, imo.

It's still dark so you have good opportunities to try to take photos of what you see from driver's seat at dark

[jtbo]

As it is again lovely dark most of the day, I did some adjustments and took a photo:


Idea is to blind the moose before it runs to road so it starts running in circles at side of the road