Some another good and bad lamps in Brno

The camera I used (hp315) is purely automatic one, so it chooses its exposure time so as to get enough light for most of the scene. In a result, the nighttime streets appear to be lit very brightly. In some cases they really are, but to the eyes it may not appear so -- as, unlike camera, their adaptation is spoiled by the glaring lights.

As all common digital cameras, this one is just an 8-bit one. It means, that it can barely reproduce ratio of luminances 1:100. However, the glaring lamps are at least 1 000 times and sometimes 1 000 000 times brighter than the surrounding scene and are completely overexposed in the images. So, traffic signals, both red and green, appears almost white on the image. Also the yellow hue of high-pressure sodium lamps may be not apparent. In spite of that, spill electrons from the heavily overexposed pixels of the CCD chip give some hint on the amount of glare present.

The first pictures I took from the ramp going from the bus station to the railway station. There is just one distinct well-working lamp on the picture: a humble one over the platform. It has no glass below, it's an old good railway type -- probably less efficient after long years of service than a tight luminaire with a flat glass and modern mirror inside would be, but surely more efficient than equally old luminaires with dirty plastic belly. Well lit pavement below the lamp is apparent just as a thin line from this perspective. Another such lamps are barely visible lower right, over the distant part of the station (just at a better resolution). Those horrible glare bombs at the left speak for themselves.

Another pleasant view appeared when I looked from the (horribly lit, but not shown here) Zelný trh (Krautmarkt) down the short Kvetinárská street connecting the square with the Masaryk avenue. Two Victor lamps from Thorn Lighting (white hemispheres with flat glass) are over the street axis, with MH bulbs inside. Thanks to the slope, the second lamp is not disturbing already (otherwise the luminous intensities of Victor type lamp above 75 degrees are a bit too high in some azimuths).

Another pictures have been taken at Husova (Jan Hus avenue) when I walked toward the Red Church. The overhanged lamps are again those Victors, here for years already. The orange hue of the lit terrain hints the bulbs are HPS ones, however, overexposed lamp interiors appear almost white. Curiously, the red bricks of the church do not appear any redder than the road, as the church is lit by MH lights with a strong blue component. The two rows of quality streetlamps turn less and less conspicuous as receding from the observer, a pleasant view. They do their job excellently.

Some other lamps on the images are not good at all. The row of them at right is annoying, being more apparent than traffic signals just left from them.

Here the traffic lights (green at the moment) are most dominant (apart from the nearest lamps above the scene), but another lights spoiling the view are distinct behind.

From the corner of Komensky square (the camera sat on the last window-sill of ``Besedni'' house), some lights more distant than the end of the row of Victors are more apparent (globes around the Red Church, old sag-lens cobrahead luminaires). Two posts with pairs of Victor lamps on both sides of the church manifest some lack of art by their montage: due to slight differences in orientation, two are bright and two have invisible interiors.

The most horrible scene is at left, however -- glaring low and high poles. They give almost no useful illumination, just make an obstacle to see the pavement, mainly to people with sight disabilities. The dangerous lights in the ground try to illuminate a statue of Thomas Garrigue Masaryk -- however, the statue still remains the darkest object at the scene, apart from the black maples.

Another time (March 11 late afternoon), I made a comparison image. (And a bit farther from the church, an image with the crossing at the beginning of the square:)

The space around the Masaryk statue from the opposite side. A really stupid lightwork. On the other side, it has some symbolic meaning. Masaryk has been a modest man, his thoughts and deeds made him shining throughout Europe. Not a bombastic appearance...

From the same point, a view eastwards through the Jost street toward the face of St. Thomas. The two rows of Victor lamps disappear in the exceedingly lit facade of the church. The two lamps at the right side are old sag-lens ones, two glaring lamps left are ``decorative'' globes (to be decorative, a CFL bulb <=20W should be inside). Overly broad cone of light from the next-nearest Victors is apparent, the lamp from the right row sitting accidentally just over the top of the church face.