[flash]

what you perceive as brightness is relative.  our headlights already produce more than enough useable light.  new headlights may produce more, but it is not useable.  it only results in glare, which reduces the human eye's ability to see in periphery, discern motion and color, and react to changes.

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[ds968]

I referred to it as a difference in brightness but perhaps it's much more a matter of the greater distance covered ( by a brighter light ) . Take the deer in the headlight example ; glare or not, I can see a deer in the middle of the road much earlier if I have the high beam on, or with a brighter headlamp allowing me to stop in time , whereas no such visibility happens with a dimmer headlamp, and by the time I see that deer the two seconds delay may be too late. Venison for dinner that night and body shop appointment the next morning for the car. Theories or not, I can categorically see objects, motion, and peripherally far clearer with a high lumens bright white LED flashlight pointed at any given spot than I do with a " conventional " flashlight which actually casts a diffused yellowish light ....and the exact same scenario happens when I drive.

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[williamoss]

I always thought yellow light was best in heavy rain or snow while white light in all other conditions. The way I try to explain my problem with head lights is not a description of color but the amount or volume of light one preserve's down the road. I have seen tests that show how much light is casted down the road both down the centerline and to the right. Much of the time there is hardly any light near the center line, so a person crossing the street from the left is completely in the dark until he is almost in front of you, when you lamps are on low beam. Now on high beam the light not only goes farther but wider so the appearance of more volume. Modern cars lights don't even do that description. they have more of a pencil light effect. 

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[ds968]

Also have to realize that vision differs from one person to another ( and I'm not talking about " 20/20 " and any other variations of that, or cataracts , or other ailments .). Genetically some people have greater or lesser sensitivity to light than others, different color distinction, different depth perception , different peripheral parameters , and so forth . This even varies, sometimes vastly , among different ethnicities, not just from one individual to another . So there is really no true norm which enables one to make a general statement when it comes to what works best in all characteristics of a given type of light . And as logical as saying that brighter dashboard and interior cabin lights reduce your ability to see the outside environment is, I'm not so sure even that theory can be applied to everyone . Perhaps the majority but not all. As for headlights , based on MY vision ( the current state thereof, as poor as it may be , lol ) I'd fare a lot better if I had a headlamp that mimic the Hollywood sky search flood lights ...

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[flash]

the key to seeing at night is to NOT look at where the lights are pointing.  the human eye reacts differently to light at night than during the day.  things in the periphery show up much more easily that way.  use your peripheral vision to see things at night.  you will be amazed at how much more you see, and how much less stressed your eyes are.  people also tend to only look as far as the headlights reach.  you should be looking well past that, and allowing your peripheral vision to pick up what is beyond the beam.  the brain sees more than you think it does.  it actually works.  it is akin to what driving instructors will teach you about not looking at the car in front of you on the track, but rather 4 or 5 cars ahead.

 

while there may be individual factors which affect how much glare is an issue each person (for example, i have hardened corneas from a flash fire) it is still very universal genetically speaking.  myopia will exacerbate this issue too.  

 

what most people tend to do is exactly opposite of what they should do.  they want to see their dash more, so they crank up the dash lights.  instead, you should dim them, and change them to red.  they add brighter bulbs, without looking at the color of the light, or the dispersion pattern.  the lens is far more important than the bulb.  old fogged headlights can reduce the effectiveness of the light by 50%.

 

i have continually referred to an over 400 page study on this.  it is posted here on the site.

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[Bulti]

Come over and start a life over here. Give me a ring when you find a spot which is dark enough to need better headlights :-))

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[Bulti]

Seriously, are you guys with the dim lights sure they function the way they should? A faded mirror or perhaps too much resistance in the wiring? I always had the impression the 968's headlight beams were pretty strong, even the low ones...

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[ds968]

Hmm, I'll have to pay close attention comparing them with my MBZ headlights, considering they're both German ,though abut ten years apart ( the MBZ is almost a decade newer ). I just know that all my Nissans , ranging from '99 to '11 and the '14 Jeep Bramd Cherokee headlights are significantly brighter . Then again, it may very well be faded mirrors, wiring resistance , etc which has degradated with age , just as the drivers eyes have degradated with age, so the combination of the two could be the issue , lol.

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[flash]

once again, with headlights, unlike other lighting, brighter is NOT necessarily better, and in most cases it is worse, as it comes with glare, which increases geometrically with brightness

 

this does apply to home lighting too though.  with the new EPA laws, light bulbs have changed a lot over the past couple of years.  first i had to find CFL bulbs that didn't make me crazy with the jittering.  now, i have had to spend countless hours searching for LED bulbs that are not all glare.  the ones i have found that actually  work well, dim into yellow, not white.  the LED patterns are much less spread out, and the intensity is very white and in the center.  i have had to adjust the beam patterns off axis, in order to provide a light that is not harsh.  i attribute this to the fact that LED bulbs are not bulbs.  the light comes from a very small device, and does not pass through a lens, which would normally scatter and smooth the light.

 

in all of our new cars, i have noticed that the light produced by the LEDs reduces the depth of field.  things look much more 2 dimensional.  yes, they are brighter lights, but it is much more difficult to actually see things.  you don't notice it though, until you start paying attention to your peripheral vision.

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[Bulti]

Old bulbs can also get more dim with age. Most of my dash bulbs were still ok, but when I renewed the whole bunch, the new ones were significantly brighter while the same colour and wattage. Don't know if this applies to halogen bulbs though.


When I was a printer we had special lighting above our heads, right where we would check the stuff we were printing for any defects on colour, scratches, stains, etc etc. The light used is supposed to show as many defects as easy as possible. It's intention is to emphasize all details, no matter how minute.


The lights used are bright and cold (blue as opposed to yellow or warm).


Off course, this applies to indoor lighting.


Mercedes' adaptive lighting works pretty darn good (BMW and no doubt others have adopted the idea). You can just drive with the high beams on all the time and the sensors will detect oncoming traffic and adjust the beams accordingly. Really awesome 21st century stuff.


I'm still pretty convinced that our headlights work very well, if still functioning as they should. Even in comparison with Nissan and Jeep, lol.

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[flash]

it is incredibly common for people to think these headlights to be too dim.  unfortunately they fail to take a look at them first, and see that it is because they are "milky".  they figure a brighter bulb is a less expensive path to a better light, but then find out the hard way that all they did was create more glare.  what they should have done was buy new lenses.

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[Kim]

When I had my 968s I thought that the lights, especially the low beams, were better than anything that I had driven. Only the HID bulbs in my Cayenne and Cayman seemed to be better. High beams were excellent also. I did note, however, that they really needed to be aimed properly, as the light is "cut off" above a certain point and, if aimed too low, I couldn't see very far ahead.  Aiming, If I recall, was fairly easy to do using the small star wheel inside the housing.

 

I also did not ever need to replace a low beam headlight bulb in about 7 years and 220,000 km of driving, although I did need to replace hi beam bulbs several times.

 

My lenses were, to the eye, as clear on the last day I drove the car as they were on the first day.

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[ds968]

With quite a bit of embarrassment, I must apologize . The 968 headlights are perfectly fine , it's my MBZ ( 2003 ) headlights which are actually a lot dimmer. I've been driving the MBZ for much of the last six months and in the process I completely forgot what the 968 headlights were like ... until tonight ! No clue why I mistook one car for the other , but now I kinda feel somewhat " dimmer " myself :-) :-) .

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[Bulti]

Lol this way we at least got something to talk about :-)

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[az968]

So I will now stop looking at how to convert my 968 headlights to MBZ lights. :-)

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[ds968]

Car lights and I have a rather disfunctional relationship ; when I first replaced my fog lights ( both of the lenses were cracked from gravel or rocks or whatever other similar road hazard hit them ) I managed to mount the new ones upside down. If you think that's difficult to do, think again ; you really have to be attentive to details ( and for someone with ADD it just not natural ) It's nearly impossible to tell the difference when they're installed, until you turn on those lights and realize they're pointing toward the sky in search of UFOs rather than straight and down toward the road ahead . So yeah, it takes several of me to " screw in a lightbulb"

BTW, I did subsequently buy the lens protection film for the fog lights . Those things are not cheap !!!

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[az968]

Yeah, a friend told me the fog light he recently bought was one of the last 8, I think, in Germany, so prices for those little lights are going to go up. After he told me what he paid, I put protective film on mine.


And my fog lights point down :-)

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[Langley968]

With quite a bit of embarrassment, I must apologize . The 968 headlights are perfectly fine , it's my MBZ ( 2003 ) headlights which are actually a lot dimmer. I've been driving the MBZ for much of the last six months and in the process I completely forgot what the 968 headlights were like ... until tonight ! No clue why I mistook one car for the other , but now I kinda feel somewhat " dimmer " myself :-) :-) .

 

As I was reading through this thread I was wondering: "What is Dan talking about?" ;i++){var>

The headlights on my 968 are very good, considering the car is 23 years old! ;i++){var>

Then I cam across the post above, and everything made more sense... LOL;i++){var>

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