LED Street lighting

[mr_pants]

Here in Essex they've been gradually switching the lights off in more and more towns after a two year trial (if I recall correctly). It reached us in September and now at midnight the orange glow disappears for 5 hours and it has made a real difference to stargazing. They keep some of the cycle paths and main junctions lit but I think it's a really positive move!

I agree that it's a positive move as far as energy saving and the reduction of light pollution goes, but it has caused me to get fat. I used to get up at 04:00 to be able to go for a run before going to work. Now that the lights don't come on until 05:00, I'm unable to do so (the lane where we live is completely and utterly black and I would fall over and faceplant at the earliest opportunity). When I get home in the evening, doing anything other than sitting down and vegging is most definitely not on the cards.

Looks like I'll have to sort out a head torch for the new year.

 

[arclight]

You youngster. I remember in the Manchester suburb I lived in. We had gas lamps cast iron lamp posts.

Yes, and an army of men came round every night to light them. They carried a pole with a brass "lighter" on the end plus a supply of calcium carbide. The calcium carbide was put in the lighter and water added. That produced acetylene gas that exited at the burner, which was lit with a match, and burned for quite long time and was used to ignite the street lights.

 

[arclight]

I agree that it's a positive move as far as energy saving and the reduction of light pollution goes, but it has caused me to get fat. I used to get up at 04:00 to be able to go for a run before going to work. Now that the lights don't come on until 05:00, I'm unable to do so (the lane where we live is completely and utterly black and I would fall over and faceplant at the earliest opportunity). When I get home in the evening, doing anything other than sitting down and vegging is most definitely not on the cards.

Looks like I'll have to sort out a head torch for the new year.

Get a LED head torch

 

[vetonbike]

Yes, and an army of men came round every night to light them. They carried a pole with a brass "lighter" on the end plus a supply of calcium carbide. The calcium carbide was put in the lighter and water added. That produced acetylene gas that exited at the burner, which was lit with a match, and burned for quite long time and was used to ignite the street lights.

We were a bit more modern. Ours had a pilot light. So the lamplighter only had to pull down a ring to turn light on or off.

 

[Steve Smith]

Back in 1983, I left school and got a job. I went to work by train. The railway station I got off at still had gas lamps. When I mentioned to one of the staff that they were still on during the day, I was told that they were lit 24 hours a day, otherwise the gas mantles* got too brittle and broke.

(* look it up you youngsters!).


Steve.

 

[Brian G]

Sounds more like poor planning and siting, rather than that the lights are "rubbish". It's well accepted that sited correctly LED's are superior to the older tech lights, cost cutting by just replacing the old light fitting with LED fittings will never work well.

The lamp posts are located in the same position as the previous sodium lamps, but they are all new and slightly less tall than the previous sodium versions.
The light is there, since the fitting is so bright you cannot look directly at it.
It's just that the intensity up in the air does not translate to a good light on the ground, so I would suggest its a matter of a poor reflector/diffuser design.
All the light finishes up as a hot spot underneath the lamp, with very little coverage between them, unlike the sodium lamps, which have a much wider spread on the ground.
My feeling about this particular type is that it's a reasonable first attempt, but they still need work to optimise them.
I was unaware that it is "well accepted" but logic says that in this application LED's should be ideal, it's just that my particular local ones need more work to improve them.
An A for effort but F for results.

 

[Dave *]

An A for effort but F for results.

Pretty average for a council then .

I would have thought the brighter LEDS should have been slightly higher, not lower, and had some sort of diffuser fitted to soften and spread the light.

 

[Brian G]

Finally, in between storms, managed to grab a few photos.
The actual light fitting looks like this, it doesn't look as if there is any kind of reflector or diffuser, just the naked LED's, which might account for the poor spread of light.

The difference between the old sodium lamp posts and the new LED ones can be seen here.
I'd estimate the new LED poles are 1 to 1.5m shorter than the sodium ones.
(Don't mention why it's necessary to have two lamp posts with about 6 metres of each other!)

Street view at night

Alternating bright and dark patches, no spread of light - horrible.

For comparison, an adjacent street with sodium.

Sorry about the blur, hand held, but you get the idea.
I might go back with a tripod and take the two shots in manual with the same exposure settings, so I can compare the actual light levels.

 

[Steve Smith]

It's not a very fair comparison as the two closest LED lights look to be about twice as far apart as the two closest sodium lamps. Also, your LED shot is sharp but the sodium shot is blurred despite the area being lit by more lights. What are the shutter, aperture and ISO settings?

I don't think the LED spread looks too bad. Bear in mind the lights are for pedestrians to find their way at night, not for us to take photographs at night!


Steve.

 

[Dave *]

It's not a very fair comparison as the two closest LED lights look to be about twice as far apart as the two closest sodium lamps. Also, your LED shot is sharp but the sodium shot is blurred despite the area being lit by more lights. What are the shutter, aperture and ISO settings?

I don't think the LED spread looks too bad. Bear in mind the lights are for pedestrians to find their way at night, not for us to take photographs at night!


Steve.

There is also the problem of either poor siting or a light not working in the LED shot, the lights should be staggered on either side of the road (like they are in the sodium lights shot), there is an obviously missing/unlit space to the left side of the LED image.

 

[Brian G]

Well, as I said in a previous post, the new LED's are sited in the same places as the previous sodium lights were.
That's down to the council, and is obviously nothing that us mere residents have any say about.
I don't see what the sodium shot being blurred has to do with showing the spread of illumination?
It clearly indicates there is a much better spread of light with the sodium than with the LED's.
The EXIF data is all there, but if you can't be bothered to read it, the LED shot was 0.5 sec at f5.6 and the Sodium was 0.4 sec at f5.6, both at 1600 ISO, although they have both been through Lightroom.
Considering the shutter speed, I'm pleased that the first one came out as sharp as it did for hand held.
I may go back one evening with my light meter and measure the actual brightness on the ground, but as far as I'm concerned, from a safety point of view the sodium lights win hands down.
As for the lights being intended for pedestrians to find their way at night, if that is the case then why aren't they directed onto the footpath rather than the road?
It's pretty obvious from the LED shot that they are doing an even worse job of lighting the footpath than they are of the road.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

They replaced the lights and poles in new positions and added a few more poles here. Much nicer light But I do not Know if they are Led. but they are all radio controlled.

 

[MWHCVT]

Well, I'd rather they turned off the street lights than the lights on the motorway at night

I've never got this, there was uproar a year or so ago local as they wanted to switch off motorway lights yet far less of the motorway is illuminated than is lit and the reality is most motorways that are lit are the busy areas where no matter the time of night there is traffic on them to the point that the illumination isn't really needed

 

[Brian G]

I've never got this, there was uproar a year or so ago local as they wanted to switch off motorway lights yet far less of the motorway is illuminated than is lit and the reality is most motorways that are lit are the busy areas where no matter the time of night there is traffic on them to the point that the illumination isn't really needed

I recall reading some time ago that the reason for motorway lights, and street lighting in general, was to balance the electricity demand between day and night time.
Without street lighting, electricity demand at night would be so low, they would need to shut down generating capacity, which was (at the time) not a simple nor straightforward thing to do.
Of course, those were the days of relatively cheap energy, and things have probably changed.

 

[Steve Smith]

I don't see what the sodium shot being blurred has to do with showing the spread of illumination?

I was wondering if the sodium lights were a lower light level than the LEDs, causing the camera to choose a slower shutter speed leading to more camera shake showing.

The EXIF data is all there, but if you can't be bothered to read it, the LED shot was 0.5 sec at f5.6 and the Sodium was 0.4 sec at f5.6, both at 1600 ISO

So the LED shot required 10% more exposure than the sodium but as there are fewer LED lights than sodium and the LED fittings are spaced further apart, that would lead me to believe that the LEDs are equal to or even brighter than the sodium lamps,

A good test would be to find out when a street is going to be changed and take some photographs before and after,

It's not a case of not being bothered to read the EXIF data, I just don't know how to.


Steve.

 

[MWHCVT]

I recall reading some time ago that the reason for motorway lights, and street lighting in general, was to balance the electricity demand between day and night time.
Without street lighting, electricity demand at night would be so low, they would need to shut down generating capacity, which was (at the time) not a simple nor straightforward thing to do.
Of course, those were the days of relatively cheap energy, and things have probably changed.

Maybe so in the past but it's also worth considering that there is probably greater demand than ever for over night electricity, as we live in an increasing 24 hour world just as a tiny aspect think of the several million mobile phones that are on charge every night, power to server farms more and more companies have advanced computer networks that never power down so I suspect things have changed

 

[antihero]

I've never got this, there was uproar a year or so ago local as they wanted to switch off motorway lights yet far less of the motorway is illuminated than is lit and the reality is most motorways that are lit are the busy areas where no matter the time of night there is traffic on them to the point that the illumination isn't really needed

I think turning any motorway lights off after dark is utterly stupid. Even more so when the weather is bad. Having to rely on catseyes during a torrential downpour is putting your life in the lap of the gods.

 

[MWHCVT]

I think turning any motorway lights off after dark is utterly stupid. Even more so when the weather is bad. Having to rely on catseyes during a torrential downpour is putting your life in the lap of the gods.

I just don't buy that, I'm struggling to find and answer to my question but I suspect that well under half the motorway network is illuminated in the UK turning off existing lights when not at junctions as it has always been said the lights would stay on around junctions..I just don't believe it's going to make any significant difference, you'll just do exactly what you do on the rest of the roads that don't have street lighting, use your vehicles lights and drive to suit the conditions

 

[Brian G]

I was wondering if the sodium lights were a lower light level than the LEDs, causing the camera to choose a slower shutter speed leading to more camera shake showing.

As you can see from the exposure data, the overall effect of the sodium lamps gave a slightly higher brightness level, leading to a slightly shorter exposure time.
I guess I just didn't manage to hold the camera as steady for the second shot as I did for the first.
TBH I didn't know how the images would turn out anyway, and I didn't originally intend to post them.

So the LED shot required 10% more exposure than the sodium but as there are fewer LED lights than sodium and the LED fittings are spaced further apart, that would lead me to believe that the LEDs are equal to or even brighter than the sodium lamps,

A good test would be to find out when a street is going to be changed and take some photographs before and after,

It's not a case of not being bothered to read the EXIF data, I just don't know how to.


Steve.

That's partly my point.
The LED's are much brighter than the sodium, but all the brightness is at the top of the pole, it doesn't translate to brightness on the ground.
Because I don't read any local papers, I didn't know the council were installing these LED's until the first time I walked down this road at night.
I assume it's a trial, since AFAIK this is the only street in the area that has them.

If you install "Photome" you can right click on an image and you can read all the EXIF that is attached.

 

[rambits]

LEDs are great for saving money, but horrible in foggy night