Need help with outdoor light bulb selection

[Super Dave]

Aloha,

I have a couple of lights high in a tree that are hard for me to change the bulb. These light up a parking lot. Currently we are using fixtures that have 300 watt halogen bulbs.

I'd like to replace these with a fixture that uses a bulb that doesn't need to be changed very often. Here's the bulb options at Home Depot and I was wondering if any of these are suggested for long bulb life?

metal halide bulb
high pressure sodium bulb
mercury vapor bulb

Thanks,
Dave

[jtr1962]

Lifetime is comparable for all three, and is on the order of 24,000 hours (assuming 12 hours per start). Mercury vapor is least efficient and has poor color rendering. Sodium vapor and metal halide are comparable in terms of photopic lumens per watt but in terms of scotopic lumens metal halide beats the pants off sodium vapor. It also gives a nice white light instead of the yellowish light of sodium vapor which makes for better color rendering. I'd say go with the metal halide.

[Super Dave]

Wow, you know lights. Thank you very much for your help.
Dave