Bicycle Light Testing/Photo Setup (Fenix L2D Premium 100, in This Case)

[varuscelli]

I thought this might be of interest to some of you light-testing/photo-oriented people. This testing setup could apply to doing photos with many types of lights while testing (not just bike lights), but I wanted to do some beam shot photos with my Fenix L2D Premium 100 lights (as used on my bicycle) and didn't want to have to use my bike or other separate stand to hold the lights. So, I mounted a compact monopod as a crossbar to one of my tripods (using Velcro strips, in this case) and mounted the lights to the monopod/crossbar using TwoFish Lockblocks. The crossbar was set to bike handlebar height and the camera was set roughly to head height (head height while on a bike). The monopod I used could have easily been replaced by a sawed-off broom handle or short length of PVC or whatever.

In any case, this made the one-man operation of taking nighttime beam shots with these lights much easier. The same concept could be applied to doing indoor comparative shots of most any lights, I'd think, as long as there was a way to mount the light to the crossbar. A longer crossbar could be used to set up lights a little farther apart, too (if desired) or one light at a time could be attached to the crossbar.

 

[BentHeadTX]

Al,
Like the setup and love your page how the dual L2D RB100s look VS a single light. Thanks to you, I'll have to buy another light!

My setup is a L2D CE for frame mounted light and a "L1D RB100" for helmet light. I like the combination but plan on getting another L2D CE with (hopefully) a Cree Q5 or better. The Q5 will go on the helmet with a single AA body and the RB100 will be converted back to a L2D. If the beam quality is really screwed up, I'll just keep the RB100 on the helmet and run two Crees on the frame. I need to work on the frame mount as the lighting system is on a recumbent and mounts below the pedal boom.

My three Powerex 2700's are charging for the ride into work early tomorrow morning.

 

[varuscelli]

Al,
Like the setup and love your page how the dual L2D RB100s look VS a single light. Thanks to you, I'll have to buy another light!

Hey, thanks for the nice comments.

Just from the little testing I've done (not so much the photo captures as the real riding of the bike with lights on) there's really a big difference between using one L2D and two. If I ride with just one and turn the second on, it's difficult for me to envision riding with just the one. I can't help but think you'd be pleased by the difference you see if you mount two of the lights.

As a side note, I'm finding the photography of flashlight beams particularly difficult. And by that, I mean getting exposures and such done in such a way that the photo comes close to what the eye really sees. I'm a photographer (make most of my living that way) but I'm a portrait photographer and not so much a commercial, product, or technical photographer. Thus, I'm finding that the subtleties of actually capturing the light as the eye sees it it very difficult. I think the biggest problem is that the human eye has the ability to adjust, so when you glance toward the edges of the light, you actually see into the darker areas better than a digital photo image portrays it. The camera can only show the light one way. It's almost like having your eye adjusted to brightness then not having it able to adjust to the darker areas when you turn your eye that way. Photos are static, but the eye is dynamic in it's adjustment to bright or dim light. Thus, I'm not sure it's really possible to show in a photo what the eye really sees in life. (At least, that seems to be my initial impression, not having attempted to capture beam shots before.) Best I seem to be able to do is give a relative sense of how one light compares to two, but not how the human eye sees the things that are illuminated by one light compared to two.

I'd love to be pointed toward a thread or two where people explain how they go about capturing what they consider accurate images of light beams. Anyone got any links they'd care to share about "beam photography" and methods used?