Originally Posted by
AndreyT
The way anything "looks on a camera" is not even a remotely good approximation of how it will look to a person (a driver).
Firstly, exposure settings on the camera can essentially turn night into day, and make a barely visible taillight look like a spaceship-destroying laser gun. Secondly, camera flash, being a very compact source of strong light located very close to the lens, will exaggerate the apparent effectiveness of reflectors far beyond anything that will happen in real-life situation.
Your pictures are good for illustrating the layout of your reflective setup. They are not in any way representative of its effectiveness.
I agree, in real life with just the human eye and headlights of a car reflectors never look that bright! That brightness is obtained by angling the flash towards the reflectors then when the pic is taken the iris on the camera didn't have time to close down because it was exposing for the darkness of the overall pic, so you end up with an extremely bright looking reflection off the reflectors...not even close to what you would see.