^^ No problem. Saw a good thing, why not share? I'm sure you've noticed by now that the batteries rattle in the light. Wrap in normal printer/copier paper to get a tight fit, and you've got a nice, solid light.

I'm looking forward to my trip to the hardware store today. I really hope they have those conduit clamps. I'm excited to have mounts for each of my bikes for this light. Still fighting the wing nut vs. regular nut thing though. I will only be moving the light bike to bike @ home, where I always have tools handy. I think regular nuts would be better in the theft deterrent department, as well as look neater. On the other hand, the wing nuts would be faster, and allow for adjustment as I ride without breaking out the multi-tool. I'm leaning toward getting both, and only using the wing nut when off-roading, since that's the only place I see myself wanting to really adjust the angle.

You can just use an O-ring to reinforce the ziptie. Thanks for the tip on the light.

hmm... it looks very dim, and it is center spot only, not enough flood.

do you have any shots of long distances, say hitting a stop sign, or street sign from far away?

That's my poor photography, not the light. While it is indeed focused more on spot than flood, there's still plenty of flood, especially for night riding. Notice my Beamer 5 barely lights anything up at all, in reality it's not that poor of a light. I'm that poor of a cameraman. Very dim it certainly is not - read around for the reviews on it on the CF forums, r.b.t, etc. The general concensus is that it's very, very bright. It's brighter than my 4D Mag light.

I don't have any such shots, but I could take some. I can accomodate - how far would you like these shots to be?

Without a tripod I'm afraid my night shots are going to remain poor. Perhaps I can set the camera on a saw horse. I'm also using the camera's generic "night" mode, as I have no idea how to mess about with F stops.

If you'd like to add a little more foreground flood for the off-roading, get some typical "invisible tape" (the stuff you use when wrapping presents in gift wrap), cut a piece to cover approximately the bottom 1/4 of the lens, and stick it on there. Awesome budget diffuser material

The front of the flashlight unscrews from the body, and you can remove the collimator by unthreading the plastic retaining ring behind it, if you want to get the collimator out so you can work on it easier.

i used the Lowes receipt for the light itself - works great!

and this flashlight is *very* bright (subjective i know, but this is one light you don't want to look at directly with naked eyes)

one indication that this is a good light at a good price is that ScamBay sellers are now flogging it for $6 more than Lowes, plus charging $7 for S/H...

:-)

Regarding night photography, and assuming you can put the camera on a tripod or a stationary object: if your camera has a manual mode, set it to manual and then bring up the options (on my Canon, this is done by pressing FUNC/SET in the center of the 4-way ring).

• Set ISO. 100 is fine. On my camera, using 50 will significantly reduce "grain," the tradeoff is that longer exposure times will be required.
• Set the white balance to an arbitrary setting of your choice, such as Daylight, so the camera doesn't get to interpret the color of the light too radically.
• Set the shutter release to a delay setting, like 2 seconds, so you can push the shutter release button and get your hands off the camera so you're not shaking it while it's shooting (this presumes the camera has been set on a stationary object).
• Set the color effects to OFF. Shooting in black-&-white is another option, particularly if you're depicting different lights that have much different color temperatures (e.g. halogen and HID).

If your camera has manual focus, then it may be worthwhile to manually set the focus to, say, 5 meters or further. I often zoom the camera in a bit, too, because that narrower field of view represents what I see when riding.

Now that that's all done, you can manually set the exposure time, and take a few shots to see what exposure time will come out looking true-to-life compared to what your eyes see. Optionally, you can adjust the f-stop setting (lower f-stop = more depth-of-field blurring, but allows shorter exposure times; higher f-stop = less depth-of-field blurring, but requires longer exposure times).

Consult your camera's manual if you're not quite sure how to get at the settings

Thanks for the tip, I'll have to give that a go. A kind poster offered to send me a flood style lens for this light, which he says gives amazing coverage at the expense of throw. If it does this as well as he says it does (and he's sending me this for free, so it's not like he's trying to scam me) I may just buy a second light for MTB use only, and use this lens on it. 2 of these in the woods, one normal and one with a flood pattern - I'll be riding in near daylight!

Flood beams are good for off-roading, go for it.

Thanks for the tutorial! I think I'm going to drill out a saw horse to accept a 1/4-20 screw, and use that as my "tripod". With that and the info you just provided, I should be able to take significantly better night photos. If this works out I'll post better beam shots. It's raining tonight, so this likely won't happen until tomorrow at the earliest, although I may play around tonight to learn the camera.

I won't be dragging my sawhorse off to the nearest street sign, however, so GTALuigi is going to have to settle for a different object in the distance, like my shed, or maybe one of my bikes leaned against a tree on the far side of the yard. We still need to know what he means by "far" though. The ramp in the pictures I took was a good 50' from me, and that thing was lit up like daytime (although my poor photography didn't show it as good as IRL, I think the point was still made). Maybe he's thinking 100'? I'm not sure what kind of throw is typically expected from a bike light.

I plan to. I'm going to try the lens he's sending me on my light to make sure I'm happy with the pattern, and if I am I'll buy a second for MTB use only and use the flood lens on it.

Did this kind fellow member say where he got the flood lens? I have had 2 of these flashlights 4 about a year now, and love how bright they are. I just wish it was a little more "floody"!

T.Y.
Chris

No, he didn't. He's also a poster from another group, so he won't read your message here (at least to my knowledge, it's possible he reads here too). I asked him for a paypal to reimburse him for the shipping at least, and have not yet had a reply to my email. I do know they only come in packs of 5, which is why he had a few collecting dust and was willing to send me one. If I get said lens and it works out, I'll ask him where he got it in my thank-you email. If you're feeling impatient and want to search, he referred to it as a "beam dispersion lens". If you can wait, I'll post a review and pics once I get the lens from him, and ask where he got them.

I went to Lowe's last night and bought one. It's bright, but it really needs a diffuser. It throws so well that there's almost no useable light between the hotspot and the bicycle.

mechBgon, thanks for those photography tips. I was having trouble figuring out what techniques to use to photograph lights in a consistent fashion with useable results.

Interesting. I and a few others found there was plenty of spill to illuminate right in front of the bike, for on-road use anyway. I wonder if the lenses vary, or if it's a difference of how much light in front of the bike different people are happy with.

Perhaps you could use mechBgon's idea and cover the bottom 1/4 of the light with clear tape, creating a free and simple light diffuser?

Did you buy the one that says 60x bright on the package? Is yours a white star or black star version? The white star can be identified by looking at the lens/bulb (while the light is off). If it's almost all white with a small black ring, that's a white star, which is what I have. I wonder if you might have the black star, and if there's a different light diffusion? I'd expect diffusion to be controlled by the lens, not the Cree emitter, but then again I really don't know.

If you end up getting some good beam shots with these tips, please post them here. I'd be curious to see the results. I plan to do the same when I get the time and weather to do so.

You're welcome By the way, if your camera can't take long enough exposures to give a realistic-looking picture of what your eyes see, boost the ISO setting, and then readjust your exposure times. The higher the ISO setting, the brighter (but grainier) the image will be, all other factors being equal.

Dan: Thank you! I will see if I can find it, if so, I will post a link. If not, I will wait patiently! lol

Chris

just ran out and bought one and took a quick spin around the block. very nice! thanks for the tip.

By the way, for those of you who'd like to use rechargeable batteries in the Task Force light, I see BatteryJunction has NiMH C batteries for $5.95 each and a charger for $16.95. They have an ongoing coupon code, cpf2006, which IIRC is good for 6% off.

green814: Sounds like exactly the way I'd handle the situation in your shoes!
Creakyknees: First, man, I know the feeling with your handle there. I've got a bum knee, and I think I can hear it complain on the bad days. As for the tip, no problem. How do you have it mounted?
mechbgon: I'd like to nominate you MVC (most valued contributor) of this thread! Thanks not only for all the photography tips, but for the heads up on those C cells as well. I think I'll order a couple of those C cells up. I'm going to hold off on the charger, I have multiple NiMH R/C chargers, so I really should be able to rig something up that'll charge them from a charger I already have. An old junk C-cell light would sure make a handy starting point. Then again, I bought a roll of 1/8" music wire yesterday, I suppose I could make a spring, use PVC as the tube and make a tab for the positive end, and charge them in stick configuration. Or, I could look around for an old junk C cell flashlight. That might be less work.

Yeah I think that's proabably accurate.

I mounted mine with rubber bands looped under the 'bars. the light rests on my (padded) handlebar tape. It wiggles a bit but I can also aim it as needed.

Yes, the beam's narrow but that's ok for my purpose - to be seen, mainly, and to point at the road as needed.