The End All, Be All HID Thread

[ethlar]

Ok everyone getting the HID kits for their cars is great and all but those of us still on the fence as to if its worth it or not, myself included find it very difficult to compare based on one major thing.

None of the pictures have any basis of similarity

So here is what I propose to everyone who has HIDs on their cars, be it PNP kit or full out retrofit. I think we should adopt a "standardized" HID photographing method and possibly go one step further and use this or some other thread as the location to post the pictures for ease of comparison. Take whatever pictures you want but please also post the pictures conforming to the 3 or so shots that would help in here.

The Shots:
wall shots at 25ft and 50ft (These are the biggies IMO)
a street shot from in the car or on the roof, drivers perspective showing light spread
a head on shot at the car, normal height (optional i think)

The Settings: (what good are the pics if they arent taken the same way)
This Im taking from another online HID resource I found but changing slightly to make them a little more easy to match what most cameras can do

Manual, flash off, white balance off (or sunny) with a shutter speed of 1/8th, film speed at 100 ISO, and F-stop at F3.5.
From http://faqlight.carpassion.info/car-oem-hid.htm

If for some reason your camera cannot be taken off automatic or you cant match those settings, get as close to those settings as possible and make note in your post what settings you actually used (can be found in the exif data easily retrieved by photobucket or google's picasa software)

Also please note what kit you purchased and color temp if PNP, ebay links if possible. And for Retrofit mark projector type, any mods done to shields, color temp, ballast type and who did the retrofit.

I think that if we do something like this it will help us to compile a much better means of comparing HID instalations in our cars.


Anyone else have any suggestions, think Im nuts or anything like that Id like to hear it.

-Ethan

[Izzy]

The ISO speeds are generally way off. Depending on the camera, at least for grain in the picture, especially on the lower end cameras than 300D/Rebel/D50.

Good idea though. I'll get mine done ASAP. :)

[Tim]

I've always wondered if that standardized shutter speed setting is accurate. 1/80th of a second is so brief that it only captures a VERY limited and very inaccurate display of the spread.

[ethlar]

im going to try to get a basline of my silverstars and will play with settings, the thing is that if you go too long then it just all turns white and we want to capture the detail in the light beam more than the surroundings.

its like when you look at the moon vs trying to take a picture at night. your eye can adjust to handle it but if you leave the cameara on auto you will just get a a pure white disc. you have to set it so that the moon is properly exposed and you will probably lose most of the surroundings.

I picked 100 ISO vs 400 or more because on most cameras the higher you go the more grainy the picture gets, the website had 160 but my cameras and i think most other digitals cant do 160 but can do 100, 200 and so on.

[caveman74]

Just make it sunny, no flash and hit the slow shutter speed. Most dig cameras will slow shutter if you hold the button. Atleast it does on my Olympus.

[si_civic]

Sweet. WIll do. I know my camera has these options. It even has options for the optional options! Gotta wait until Spring. I'm getting a nice McCulloch 6000k setup for Christmas.

[Tim]

But on a DSLR, you can adjust the shutter speed. And 1/80th of a second barely captures any light at all, even with HID. I'll have to take some example pics to show what I'm talking about. I wonder if that standard should read 1/8th of a second.

[ethlar]

shutter speed was based on what i found on that website, it can be changed based on what we find works best, the main idea is that we would have a set standard so that we could compare the pictures more accurately

[Tim]

Well here's an example of what I'm talking about:

I took that at F3.5 and 1/80th of a second.

[Tim]

And here's an example of what you get at F3.5 and 1/8th of a second:

[ethlar]

ok i see what you are saying, 1/8th does look much better than 1/80.

I changed the first post to 1/8 instead of 1/80.

[ethlar]

so i went out and took some baseline pictures of silverstars in the stock housing, got back here and noticed the camera was on auto white balance , so i have to go out and take more some time

[joonoo]

Originally Posted by ethlar

The Shots:
wall shots at 25ft and 50ft (These are the biggies IMO)
a street shot from in the car or on the roof, drivers perspective showing light spread
a head on shot at the car, normal height (optional i think)

The Settings: (what good are the pics if they arent taken the same way)
This Im taking from another online HID resource I found but changing slightly to make them a little more easy to match what most cameras can do

-Ethan

Wall shots: PnP kit cannot match retro fits.. Please... PnPs have huge light escaping above the cut-off line as.. first our halogens are like that... and second your HID bulbs are not same as halogens.. then third HIDs are MUCH brighter than halogens making it worse! This will not make ANY difference between PnP vs. retro just becuz of their camera setting. It is as simple as if there is a clear line without some portion of light escaping above it.

Street shot: Camera settings will make it different, but you know which setup will have proper beam spread without hotspot...

Head on: This will be VARY by large amount depending on whatever camera you have. Unless you could take this pic with similar camera of similar quality with similar settings, I wouldn't accept as comparable review. I'll take it as complete review when they are all taken with same camera at same time with same settings...


I think this post is only making an "excuse" to get PnP HID kit. Please don't do this. Many drivers on the road are suffering from the glare and eye fatigue from PnP Kits. And I say this because I'm one of them. FYI, on a dark 2 lane freeway... sometimes those aftermarket HID equipped cars blind me so bad that I have to force myself to literally search for the reflecters along middle lane just to keep me on the lane. On dark roads, the only thing you can count on is your own headlights, and when that light is overtaken by blinding PnP HID lights all the sudden, it is very hard to even locate the middle lane reflecters. With blinding glares, it is not too easy to do so with all my attention and I'm only 22 years old although I have weak eyes. Please keep the road safe.

[ethlar]

I am fully aware that the light output of a PNP kit cannot match that of a retrofitted HID kit. Im sure everyone else knows that too because in every thread on any forum mentioning it there is soneone else who says that a retofit kit is better, and yes they are I will admit that.

But not everyone has the $600-$1000 to drop on a retro, at least not all at once, so maybe they get the stuff to do it in parts, start off with a kit with rebased bulbs, put them in the car so they can enjoy the benefits of HID lighting, get the projectors, get a set of spare headlights and go to town, then get a set of non altered D2S bulbs.

Also please dont try to make it sound like only cars with PNP kits will blind people. I have had cars behind me with OEM HID projectors go over a bump in the road and have their cutoff flash accross my rear or side views. Those cars even have the auto leveling systems, what do you think is going to happen in your fixed position retrofit. Im not saying dont do a retrofit, im just saying think of that too.

Photographically, if you take a picture of something at a given setting, and someone else takes a picture of the same thing at the same setting with a different camera, as long as you arent comparing a canon 20D and one of those free digital cameras that come in the cereal box the picture is going to look fairly similar. Thats the whole basis of photography, otherwise professional photographers would have to leave their cameras on automatic all the time because there would be no way for their light meters to actually tell them the appropriate settings.

If people actually do what ive asked and take the pictures with settings that we all agree on there will be some basis for comparison, as opposed to what we have now. This thread would also show that the PNP kits glare a lot a and that retrofits dont. So why are you worried, this thread will prove your point anyway.

[sickyute]

can we just get the pics going :)

modded S2000 projector
Philips D2S 4300K bulbs
Philips LVQ 212-L300 ballasts

will have to read manualfor camera for white balance settings and iso setting...i can change them both but i don't know what is best...i see 6 different white balance setting, ISO only says auto but that may be because of the white balance setting i was on?? what is EV? i had it on -2.0 but it ranges from -2.0 to +2.0 with 11 setting in between... safe to say i need to introduce myself to the manual for this camera.

anyway this is what i came up with.
i'll update and edit with more pics later on.

from 25 feet away. camera i night mode...white balance auto, ISO auto, -2.0EV, night mode.


from 50 or more feet away(didn't measure)...same settings as above.


notice how the light bends downward to each side? That cuz of the slight color mod i had done. The unmodified s2000 shroud had a completely straight horizontal line .

i'll take pics at the colorband but i'm not sure of taking pics from the driver's perspective because all the area around my home are pretty well lit

[tennisfan16]

Originally Posted by joonoo

Wall shots: PnP kit cannot match retro fits.. Please... PnPs have huge light escaping above the cut-off line as.. first our halogens are like that... and second your HID bulbs are not same as halogens.. then third HIDs are MUCH brighter than halogens making it worse! This will not make ANY difference between PnP vs. retro just becuz of their camera setting. It is as simple as if there is a clear line without some portion of light escaping above it.

Street shot: Camera settings will make it different, but you know which setup will have proper beam spread without hotspot...

Head on: This will be VARY by large amount depending on whatever camera you have. Unless you could take this pic with similar camera of similar quality with similar settings, I wouldn't accept as comparable review. I'll take it as complete review when they are all taken with same camera at same time with same settings...


I think this post is only making an "excuse" to get PnP HID kit. Please don't do this. Many drivers on the road are suffering from the glare and eye fatigue from PnP Kits. And I say this because I'm one of them. FYI, on a dark 2 lane freeway... sometimes those aftermarket HID equipped cars blind me so bad that I have to force myself to literally search for the reflecters along middle lane just to keep me on the lane. On dark roads, the only thing you can count on is your own headlights, and when that light is overtaken by blinding PnP HID lights all the sudden, it is very hard to even locate the middle lane reflecters. With blinding glares, it is not too easy to do so with all my attention and I'm only 22 years old although I have weak eyes. Please keep the road safe.

Quit crying like a little baby, if you don't want to look at oncoming traffic with pnp kits then do us all a favor and jump off a bridge and quit complaing. We all know that they have glare.