I finally got fed up with telling customers "sorry... i... um... can't really make blue lighting. if you wanted to pay me hundreds of dollars to develop it.... maybe...." and other such crap like that. It was unacceptable. I decided to do something about it, so I totally revamped how I make these things and now can offer a TON more lighting options. More colors and more evenly-distributed lighting.
I was even going so far as to warn people away from LEDs before. Screw that! Now you can use any bulb you want. There might be a few brighter spots with LEDs, but it's not really noticeable.
So... without further delay, here's more lighting colors than you ever wanted to see.
Amber lighting with OEM bulbs
Amber is my favorite lighting color. The light output is bright and the amber tint gives a soothing glow.
OEM-Green lighting with OEM bulbs and condoms
Here is my Race Tach in the middle of a set of OEM bulbs. Notice the color match? It's exact. Also, notice how uneven the lighting is on the factory gauges?
White/clear lighting with OEM bulbs
This is a set of gauges with no gel layer to add pigment to the lighting color. I have stock bulbs installed with no cover over them.
White/clear lighting with LED bulbs
LED lighting is around 4x as bright as the stock incandescent bulbs. That's two stops of light brighter for fellow photogs. I'm using superbrightLED.com's HP5 bulbs. They have 4 LEDs firing radially and one firing straight ahead. It makes for very bright, very even light and an awesome, modern look.
Blue lighting with OEM bulbs
After years of effort, I finally produced a lighting gel that gives blue light with OEM bulbs. Seriously, years of effort. Every time I've done this before, it's ended up looking quite purple and dim.
Blue lighting with LED bulbs
The LED bulbs really make a good thing better here. The blue changes from an aqua to a true-blue. LEDs also add a lot more brightness. These are every bit as bright as my beloved amber lighting. With OEM bulbs, the blue lighting is about 1.5x dimmer.
Red lighting with OEM bulbs:
This was hard to capture with my camera. It looks a bit more red and less orange to your eyes.
The red numbers and red wedge look to be the same shade. That's huge. I've never been able to achieve this.
Red lighting with LED bulbs:
I was surprised by this result. The LEDs took away some of the redness and washed the color out. This didn't happen with blue or purple.
For folks who want the reddest red possible, white lighting with red bulb condoms is best. Next is red with OEM bulbs. In last place is red with LED bulbs.
Purple lighting with OEM bulbs
Does this look very purple to you? It's about the same to my eyes. There's a lot of red in there. It's not a bad color, really. Kinda neat.
Purple lighting with LED bulbs
THIS is purple! This is why I made this color. It looks amazing with LED bulbs. For anyone who wants purple gauges, I'd suggest LEDs to power them. It's really damn cool.
Yellow lighting with OEM bulbs
This color is similar to the uncovered OEM bulb option, but with a bit more yellow tint. And... how to put this delicately... this isn't "pee" yellow. It's quite pleasant and non-offensive.
White lighting with OEM bulbs and colored covers (condoms)
This is a set of gauges with white/clear lighting and amber bulb covers. The amber color is a bit more yellow than my own gel layer above, but it's still quite nice. Very bright and soothing.
This one has the OEM green condoms in place and white-lit gauges in front. It's a very pale green. It looks more white to my eyes, but the camera picked up a lot of green.
And here's a red bulb condom. It's amazing in person. It's a deep blood red that my camera just couldn't pick up. It's stunning.
Another shot of the red.
Blue condoms installed. This is pretty dim. The blue really removes a lot of light. If someone wanted blue, I'd nudge them toward my blue-gel gauges and some white LEDs.
Lastly, here's some purple bulb covers. It's really awesome in person. The camera didn't quite get the purple color. And these are not as dim as with the blue condoms. I was surprised.
Next up: red!
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Originally Posted by psulja
