Well, I would avoid a film and just change the bulbs. Well, that is if you dont have xeons.

 

Red lights look pretty cool as well - saw these at MINI Challenge last weekend - not sure if they are road legal though

 

If you don't mind me asking, why bulbs over film? not both or bright whites with yelllow film?

Red looks neat, but I'd need them to also have blue and be able to flash if I wanted a chance of getting away with that around here.

 

Red is almost certainly illegal! ...Impersonating an emergency vehicle will be the charge.

BTW.....any time you are coloring the light rather than actually changing the the bulb to emit the proper spectrum of visible light....you are just trying to look cool rather than actually enhance your visibility and reduce glare to other drivers you are asking for and deserve a large ticket from the police

 

White is always accepted, blue (due to xenons and other HID type colored bulbs) is generally tolerated in all places, yellow is a no-no with the po-po, and any other colors will result in citations or worse.

Ya gots two choices, white and blue. Chose your color wisely.

 

Lighten up it was a joke b/c any forward facing red light is blanaltly illegal
Changing the spectrum that the light emits in, be it bulb or film is still putting the light at the same frequency. The intensity may be different but that can be changed. And even Daniel Stern admits that birghter is nessacarly better. As long as the light coming out is the same I don't see how a blub swap is any better than film cavering the lens. Esp. if you have already upgrade to brighter white bulbs. Ohh and here is the code for my current location and where my vehicle is registered, since there is a misconception asto weather or not I'd be doing this legally.

 

Ok so here are my questions...
I can say that honestly we have done this yellow tinting to the headlights so many times with our race cars, GT3, M3, 330i. All of which helped a ton on the track. My question comes with a curiosity of why people think that changing the bulbs is better. We replace the film on the lights because of the protection it gives to the actual glass/plastic that the light is covered by. No to be honest I think that the MINI's are easy targets for rocks or anything else to chew that plastic cover apart. I think that the film would be a better way to go but here is another question. Has anyone done this with Xenon lights? because the xenons are non changable bulbs and therefore you have to use film but I am curious what it looks like since by standard the xenon lights are brighter than the HID. By the way we use Lamin-X on all our race cars. Best film I have seen. So let me know what you think. Thanks

 

Now I am cetainly no expert in the light and geometrical optics, But what my physics book tells me is that the INTENSITY of polorized light is one-half that of un-polorized light. Think about it, light waves that are "white light" contain the full visible spectrum as the polorized films block all the other components of light you will lose intensity. As opposed to a light that is designed to emit light in one band of the spectrum in it's full intensity.

By adding film you are only polarizing or filtering the light, On the racetrack It is hardly important at all but I have a feeling that the desire to color headlights has more to do with the "Hey look at me I have cool lights on my car" crowd than a genuine concern for better visability and reduce glare

 

So do you rde aroun with the high beams on or did you somehow mod your headlights?

 

I have Lamin-X film on my xenons (blue for the headlights, clear for the signals and yellow for the fog lights). Works great, and one of the reasons I went with film was for its protective qualities vis a vis road debris. Check out my gallery for pics.

 

You are correct but the films are not polarizers. They are just filters that allow only the yellow tinted light through. They do lower the light output as all frequencies are not being transmitted but I'm not sure it's as low as a polarizer would be. The thing about yellow light is that it's the easiest color for the human eye to see so even at a lower intensity, it will look brighter.

Also, I think the light color of endurance racers is specified by class. This allows the slower cars to know what class the person behind them is in so they can let them by at night.

 

Kapps,
You are exactly right about why we do the yellow tinting. Also you will notice that during our races it does emit a yellow light, unfortunatly the teams dont change the bulbs because we do not want to reduce the brightness of the light we just want the glare to be reduced as is my goal with the tinting of my xenons. I dont want to loose the brightness that they carry I just dont want it to hurt someone else on the road with the glare they put out right now. These are all great comments by everyone.

 

you can change the xenon bulbs to yellow too if you wanted. just get 4300k temp...thats a nice yellow.

 

I've seen 3000k temp HID's (supposedly) on Ebay. I won't be getting any for a test any time soon though...

 

How bout black and white?:

 

poloriziation = filter....they are the same thing....are they not? the process by which white light is "filtered" is called polarization! You agree that the light output is lowered thats because only a portion of the original light wave is passed. But I believe you are wrong about yellow light being easier to see...I posted this earlier

- From Daniel Sterns...."So, why do yellow fog lamps work better? It's because of the way the human eye interacts with different colors of light. Blue and violet are very difficult for the human optical system to process correctly. They are the shortest visible wavelengths and tend to focus in front of our eyes' retinae, rather than upon it."

In other words ...glare....not visability....even if you have a white light and yellow light at same intensity, the waves WILL NOT travel the same distance.

SO.....Yellow lights are only intended for FOG USE....

Because the fog is going to reflect light back to you giving you LESS visibilty using conventional lamps. Yellow is ideal because of the mechanics of that spectrum of light.

So as I said before, anytime someone is using yellow lights on the street in normal weather conditions they themselves are the ONLY ones thinking they are cool, and It's likely that they will get a ticket, as they should from the 5.0

 

i dont know much about lighting.....but would red be even easier for our eyes because their waves are even longer than yellow? Or is yellow the ideal? (based on the above concept that white and blue are too short...thus the longer yellow is better..is longer better?)

I'm just curious and willing to learn from somone who might know .

 

Red light light would be the easiest b/c of the longest wavelength, but would provide the least intesity and conflict with the backs of all the cars. Green is actually the color your eye is most sensitive to (hence the reason it is the color of choice for nightvision goggles. Blue and white light have the shortest wave lengths and so will give you the most reflected light, which is why they're reach may be farther than yellow but the contrast isn't always there, because all colors a reflected.

 

makes sense so yellow is the perfect happy medium...long enough to work well with our eyes, but short enough to work well as lights.

 

Well not exactly, and it is much what has become a matter of debate in this thread. everyones eyes see differently and eyes work different at noght than day theoretically white is the best because itis closest to day. But that creates issues with peripheral vision and glare, IMO any slightly filtered light is better than white because that glare is reduced. Also my eyes are adapted as such from year of doing theatrical work that I could easily drive or read on a moonlees night without anything beyond starlight light. However I don't do this nor do I recommend it as it would create a very unsafe situation. Right now everything is still academic. I know that right now with my current wight lights, the glare will illumionate signs, eyes and reflectors ahead of me, but when I encouter animals that are positioned in a manner where I can't see their eyes, my lights are only good for 1k to 500 ft which is far too late to prevent the need for evasive action. It has been these types of encouters that have lead me to research other means of illuminating the road ahead with grater contrast even if some of the distance has to be sacrificed, as I'd rather know about the deer a 1/4 mile ahead, than a speed limit change 3/4 mile ahead. I'm hoping that this type of improved contrast will result from switching to a yellow headlamp. ANd again to bring back the racing aspect of this, if yellow was only helpful in inclement weather and the majority of racing is done in good weather, what good would it do them to change color on a purpose built car. The largest issues in France (where yellow was required for headlamps until 1993) was enforcement not visiblity, also they road markings in the us would likely be harder to distu=inguish as we have a color coded system, however I think that I can read signs well enough that I'm not too concerned about that. It is a very subjective matter. And to those who say they are illegal, please read the law excerpt I posted, in my state there is no legal issue and in fact legal permission to have ellow headlights installed.

 

Daytime running lights....