trekmogul 

Anybody using a 2600 Lumens Betty Six on there helmet and also strapping the battery to the helmet? Jerry

trekmogul 

Thanks to Dan for answering all my silly question and putting up with me. Lupine sure is a top rate company and of the higest quality..2650 Lumens..

socalrider

you have a great light from a good company.. I think using as a helmet light with both light and battery on there would be on the heavy side.. Is there a reason for not mounting on the bars?

trekmogul 

I changed my mind and had mounted the Betty Six to the handle bars and this morning at about 0430am i was out on the bike trail. I dont know how to compare this to any other lights but all i can say is that it took total darkness and turned it into day light. 2650 Lumens ..I am going to buy one of the Lupine Pico 900 Lumen Helmet Lamp and also one of those german helmets that accept the lamp as wel las battery being snapped right into the helmet..Decided against putting a betty six on the helmet..

maximushq2

Nice lights those Lupines. I should know, I bought two of them back in 2007 and they have been flawless and the many other lights I have owned don't compare in quality to them. I have and original Betty upgraded to 1,750 lumen and also a 1,000 lumen Wilma. I am even using my original batteries and they are still holding a charge fine. I charge them every three rides or so as I don't run them on high all that much. I have two of the 6.8 lupine battery packs from 2007. Right now I am using the Lupine Betty on the bars and running a Gloworm x2 light on the helmet, b/c it is quite a bit lighter weight than the Wilma that I had been using and it also has more output than my older Wilma. I like the Gloworm x2 a lot, but it still doesn't compare to the quality of the Lupines. For now I use my Wilma light on the Lupine headstrap I bought a while back for use around the house and it makes a killer headlamp. A friend of mine has a 100 lumen headlamp that he always raves about, but when I come out with my 1,000 lumen Wilma it just buries his poor little light. The 2,600 lumen Betty must be really sweet and Lupine is upgrading them again soon to even more output. :0

Burton

I can understand you being excited about first impressions with what is probably the brightest light you've ever bought, but really - if it actually did take " total darkness and turned it into day light", why are you already looking at a supplementary light?

trekmogul 

I think the reason was or is "Just Because".. There is totally no need what so ever for me to even have a 2600 lumens lamp. I had alreeady 2 days before buying the Lupine Betty purchased a Bush & Muller HID Big Bang Light too.. No real reason.. Looking forwatrd to my new Uvex Helmet with built in Lupine 900 Lumens Pico Light this am from UPS..

Burton

Actually I can understand someone wanting a 2,500 lumen light - or even two of them in some cases. I was just curious what your own rational was. Light output requirements actually depend on the beam width as well as reach and I apparently want more horizontal coverage than most cyclists so I'm currently running about 5,600 lumens. Its great coverage, but luminosity is still no brighter than what you might find under a shady tree on a sunny day.

trekmogul 

My Uvex and Pico Lupine arrived yesterday afternoon and about to head out this am for a run wiht the new betty and pico..What a nice helmet and light combo..

Burton

Can Inask you to post some beam shots once you get this all set up? Yup! I'd be very interested in seeing what kind of beam reach and spread you got for $2,000 as well as sone ride reports on battery durations.

trekmogul 

I have no idea and totally clueless about beam shots, however i have used the combo of the Pico and Betty 6 the last 3 days in a row at about 415am. Appears to be more then ample light for me. I am getting 2 rides out of each battery at full power I was lucky to find a Lupine Center Post mounting bracket for my Betty six as she is dead center on bar.

trekmogul 

JohnJ80

Beam shots at this level of brightness are a waste of time. Digital cameras cannot adequately show the spread from bright to dark. Your eye can see about 20 fstops of light. The camera 6 or so.

J.

Burton

You're entitled to your opinion - I just don't happen to share it. What I'm most interested in myself is the actual beam spread. That IMO is what makes a light useful - not just lumen output. In fact, it would take four times the light output to cover four times the area with the same luminous intensity - but the 'brightness' would appear identical in the illuminated areas of either. A larger beam spread would be a lot more useful to drive with IMO.

JohnJ80

That's exactly what you won't see. The gradations of light are not reproduced well with digital photography for the reason I listed. You'll not see the full beam spill.

This worked fine with lesser lights a few years ago but it doesn't work for lights this bright.

20 fstops of light is 20 doublings of light compare to 6 or so. Do the math.

I've been fiddling with this stuff since 200 lumens was bright. Qualitatively speaking, the beamshots sort of fell apart after about 600 real lumens.

J.

Burton

You really make it sound like you know what you're doing John - which I'm not swallowing since I've had no real problems doing exactly what you claim doesn't work. Of course flash photography has worked for lots of professionals for years too and that works with exactly the same limitations of film and camera sensors. Maybe in your case the issue is the operator.

PatrickGSR94

There are beam shots of this light all over the web.

But can someone please explain to me why a small LED light array and battery pack costs $1,000 or more?? I just don't understand that massive amount of money for a light.

trekmogul 

Its several things i guess.. 1 is that the quality and wormanship of making this light is unreal. Also it is a true genuine 2600 lumens and not the over rated Lumens the Chinese slap on there junk.. Not sure if its worth a 1100.00 but i wanted it anyways..

Burton

Yeah, there are beam shots taken in somebody's idea of a 'test environment' which is usually a back yard set up to review a variety of lights. Grass - especially dry grass - is much more reflective than asphalt - wet or dry and IMO isn't at all representative of the available light that a cyclist would actually have to drive with.

There are also at least three different versions if this light available - each with its own beam spread.


The reason these lights are so expensive is quite simple - they're marketed in small quantities so tooling and R&D are substantially more. Also the quality of the lithium battery packs is much higher than what you'll find on any Chinese lights, and there's a premium to be paid for that.


These particular lights have continuously set new limits for bicycle lighting and thats always expensive. The first digital cameras produced as a joint venture between Nikon and Kodak only produced images in black and white, but cost about $12,000. When color was introduced, the new models jumped to $26,000. Today consumer digital cameras are so cheap they're often considered disposable, but there are also still $45,000 cameras available - for professionals that need that kind of resolution. Most people don't.

I spent about $1,000 on a custom built lighting system myself, after looking at the Bettys. What did I get? As much beam spread and coverage as an automobile, about four times as much run time as the best bicycle light on the market, a lifetime warranty and a completely waterproof and vibration proof package. Absolutely ideal for MX competition. Would I do it again? I plan on it.

okhealthy

yes. i agree " think using as a helmet light with both light and battery on there would be on the heavy side" get best for it.

trekmogul 

Coming back this am about 0545am (still dark out) and I was wondering what this vehicle was doing parked on the roadside waiting for me as this is where the trail ends. I was coming down the trail with 3500 Lupine Lumens and he was just staring at me. He must have htought it was someone out on a motorcycle or something on the trail.

JohnJ80

Actually I do. I'm both an engineer and a semi pro photographer. Try it and see. The bright spot center spot shows just fine and usually fairly realistic. Now look at the edges of the spill on the beam and compare that to the digital image. The digital image will make the spill look significantly less bright than it is as seen by a human eye.

If the camera has 6 f-stops of usable dynamic range (give or take) it has to compress the entire beam from center hot spot to spill into those 6 f-stops. Yet, your eye sees about 20 f-stops or so. So, if you properly expose the center of the beam, the spill edges have to go and the beam shot looks not at all in the spill as it looks to your eye. You can see clearly in much lower light levels than your camera can. This is why you see something when it's fairly dark, take a picture with your camera (no flash) and it comes up black or very, very dark even with the shutter speed slow, the aperture at max and the ISO maxed but yet with your eye you can see it pretty well.

So, if you want to see the spill which is a big part of the benefit of the light, you need something that can represent the light in the dimmest areas of the spill. The other alternative is to expose for the edges of the spill but then pretty much everything towards the broad center of the beam will be blown out. The camera just can't do it.

I've been fooling with beam shots since I rode with a 200 lumen light all the way up to my current 2200 lumens. The beam shots diverge from reality at (my guess) about 600 lumens. After that, seeing the spill is really not at all representative of the actual beam. They all look more like tunnel then they really are because of this under representing of the beam.

Don't take my word for it. Go out and verify it for yourself. You'll see exactly what I'm talking about. It's not me, it's just the physics of the problem.

J.

PatrickGSR94

Someone really needs to go out on a large paved area and set up an array of light meters on the ground - say 50, 100, and 150 away and maybe 25 ft on each side of center (9 meters total). Then compare all these lights with them all a set distance from the ground and parallel to the pavement as much as possible. Then compare the light meter results. That should tell the real story - both of beam brightness in the center and beam width.

Burton

Actually I've already been doing it for the past year, in spite of the 'unsurmountable problems' facing this little task. So let me remind you what the original conversation was:

I said :
You said: So let me post a few beam shots at identical camera settings (ISO 100, f4 and 1s) and challenge the forum members if they can see any meaningful, useful difference between them. If they can and the general concensus is that the photographs are practical dipictions of differences in beam spreads between the two light sources - you get to invite all of us to your place for a BBQ. Otherwise the beer's on me. No hot spots in the photos - promise.

trekmogul 

I honestly have no desire or interest in beam shots from my Lupine betty Six 2600 Lumens Light. I am quite pleased with it as cost vrs Chinese junk was never a factor. I have always bought good quality and i feel this lamp is of very very good quality..