Taillamp: Spanninga Brasa
I tested the battery version as the battery version was available earlier than dynamo version.
Beam shots
See the camera settings page for more on the setup and settings to make pictures of the beams of taillamps.
Out of a corner (showing how much light is cast upwards, forwards and to the sides) [ F3.9 & F1.8 ]:
Wallshot (showing the beam pattern):
Visibility from various angles (0°, 45°, 90°, 135°) [ 0.5m, zoom x3, F3.5, ISO80, 1/250s & 1/60s ]:
Comparing taillamps
Experiences
Tested from: 2012-2-24
On the main page I wrote:
Spanninga Brasa with more light to the sides, but fugly.
25-1-2012: I couldn't get my hands on the dynamo version yet, but I'm pretty sure I saw this lamp on a bike today, and I thought the lines were way too bright and esp. it looked almost like it had 2 point sources of light, so this means not a good, even distribution of light. If this was indeed the Brasa (I don't think any other types are similar), this means yet another bad taillamp.
When trying it out I didn't see the 2 points sources, but when I moved back some way away from the lamp I saw what I saw then: The lines give the appearance of 2 point sources as the brightness varies somewhat at each position depending on angle (a bit from above from ca. 5m away for example) such that the brightness of the lines increases towards the outer 'light lines'. These are not point sources from direct light from the LED, but the light in the middle is. This can be a bit annoying, though it's nowhere near as bad as many other taillamps. From some testing it doesn't look like the Brasa has collimated light like the Lumiring, so I suppose this means its long distance visibility will not be as good. I will test that.
The lines of light go around the corner which could give better visibility from the sides than with other taillamps. I did a direct comparison with a Philips Lumiring and it was clear that the Brasa is not better visible. I made some pictures side by side too, which clearly show that the Lumiring is better.
For the battery version: The button is pretty stiff going, too stiff for my taste, at least when doing the tests with the loose lamp. Perhaps fitted to a bike it doesn't matter much.
I'm not going to use this lamp in a upcoming long distance test because this lamp isn't a top lamp, and it doesn't interest me enough to keep it until I can do another long distance taillamp test (this will be early to mid March 2013 at the earliest) so I sent the lamp to a friend for evaluation.
Design- and thus review considerations for taillamps
See Theory for taillamps.
Conclusion
Sideways visibility is fairly limited despite Spanninga's attempt to guide the light around the corner. The LED's light in the middle is somewhat annoying and visibility to the rear does not stand out compared to the top LED taillamps. Looks also don't appeal to me. I see nothing really bad but also nothing of interest in this lamp.
Last modified: Tue Feb 26 18:19:56 CET 2013
