Photographing Xenon and LED headlamps

[rdfcpete]

Hopefully the right place for this question guys (?).

With a point and shoot camera or even a respectable smart phone on board camera, is it possible to cleanly capture xenon and/or LED light? Is there a particular approach to doing this successfully if it's feasible or is more serious hardware the only option?

Purely a question out of interest as I find unless you pivot the camera well above the beam pattern, it blurs too easily.

Thanks.

[jonm]

All depends on what aspect of the xenon light you're trying to capture?

Colour? difference?

You'd need to use the manual features to adjust the aperture...

You cannot just simply take a photo of the headlight head on... as the camera sensor will have nothing to lock onto thus giving you the blur

[rich83]

Hopefully the right place for this question guys (?).

With a point and shoot camera or even a respectable smart phone on board camera, is it possible to cleanly capture xenon and/or LED light? Is there a particular approach to doing this successfully if it's feasible or is more serious hardware the only option?

Purely a question out of interest as I find unless you pivot the camera well above the beam pattern, it blurs too easily.

Thanks.

Post a picture of what issue you are having... ill try and advise!

[rich83]

Xenon Dipped Beam by Rich Wigley, on Flickr

[rdfcpete]

All depends on what aspect of the xenon light you're trying to capture?

Colour? difference?

You'd need to use the manual features to adjust the aperture...

You cannot just simply take a photo of the headlight head on... as the camera sensor will have nothing to lock onto thus giving you the blur

LED strips and OEM Bi-Xenon's on my MY10 A3 Black Edition to be precise Jon. I only pick them up well if I'm above the beam pattern, but that might be right with point and shoot stuff. It's just always bugged me to ask.

Xenon Dipped Beam by Rich Wigley, on Flickr

That's exactly what I can't achieve Rich, but I know for a fact you've got some serious hardware & components. Does only serious kit capture it properly and I'm wasting my time with a 12mp P&S or 8mp Galaxy SII phone camera? 

Cheers.

[B3n]

No reason why you couldn't get similar results with a point and shoot Pete The only thing you may struggle with on a P&S is getting the White Balance (Colour) accurate.

Does it have a manual setting? Or the option to adjust the shutter speed?

Ben

[rdfcpete]

No reason why you couldn't get similar results with a point and shoot Pete The only thing you may struggle with on a P&S is getting the White Balance (Colour) accurate.

Does it have a manual setting? Or the option to adjust the shutter speed?

Ben

Doesn't seem to dude, it's a Samsung ST60.

The phone manages it in the daylight if I point outside of the beam pattern (above the car basically). At night, nothings happening. Just get a big blur.

Is there an Android app that maybe helps things on the Galaxy SII? Ta