New Hella Headlamp and a Sunset

Today, the Hella Headlamp I ordered from Amazon a few days ago arrived.  It had shown impressive lighting abilities on RichardM's Ural Rig whilst he blew away all records for last winter's Polar Bear Challenge.  Of course, the fact, he was riding on snow, and everything around him was covered in snow probably helped reflect light but still, it had to be better than the headlamp I'd been using.

Image src: amazon.com

The install was pretty straightforward but I elected to use an upgrade version of the H4 bulb that came with the Hella headlamp.

Then it was time to wait for dark to see how the new headlight performed.  I will say this, while shooting the below pictures, I couldn't use the hi-beam setting as it was flaring out the camera sensor.  (This, is a good thing in my mind).  In fact, with low-beam engaged, there was still some flaring issues, so the new headlamp is definitely brighter.

Clouds blocked the setting sun pretty effectively, I had to adjust the rig's position to take advantage of reflected sunlight on clouds to the south west of me.

Mount Evans

 Sunset Mode

All three shots below were with the headlamp in the low-beam position.

 underexposed by one full stop

 Sunset Mode

-0.3 step underexposure

There was still some light in the sky as I rode home so it wasn't fully dark but I could see my path lit by the low-beam headlight just fine.  The high-beam option lit up distant signs well once I was in the darker neighborhood streets away from the sparse street lights.

More testing to be done of course, but this Hella Headlamp appears promising!