Comparison Shots of Light & Motion HID and Two Triple LED Lights

Hi everyone! I've been promising some beamshots to compare these LED bike lights (that you can build from the instructions on this web site) to an HID light. I finally got around to borrowing my friend Gina's L&M HID light and went into the backyard and took some comparison shots. I don't need to say too much other than all shots were at the exact same manual camera setting (F2.8, 1/4 sec,  ISO 200). The camera was on a tripod to give the exact same view for each shot, and I tried to aim the hotspot of each light in the same location.



I tested all lights on freshly charged batteries, and I let the HID warm up for about two minutes before taking the photos. The Light & Motion ARC HID draws 13.5 watts on its high power setting and 11.5 watts on low. The upper left and upper right photos represent those two settings for the L&M. It's a nice lighting system. Gina's light is a couple of years old but still looks pretty bright. The lower left photo is one of my Triple SSC P4 all-aluminum lights like the one shown below, execpt that it has a 5 degree reflector on the middle LED and 2 x15 degree optics on each of the other two. The lower right photo is my Triple SSC P4 Copperhead light shown below with 2 x15 degree optics and 1 x 5 degree optic. The L&M does have a wider light beam than my LED lights as you can see from the larger lighted area of grass. But all in all, I think the DIY LED lights hold up fairly well against the L&M HID especially when you consider the power consumption figures into the comparison.
Comp