Been lurking and reading a lot on here, but its been a while since I posted anything.
I've got an '07 GS500F with original bulbs in place. This bike is wonderful, but has a few quirks that bother me...the first of which being the horrible lighting it comes with.

I would like to change the light to something that provides brighter light and started doing a little bit of reading on the forums, but I'm still a bit confused. 
I'm looking for the easiest and least invasive way to brighten the bulbs a bit. I am partial towards HIDs and LEDs, but to be frank, I don't want to be drilling the housing etc, etc, etc. I also don't want to accidentally draw too much power from the battery or generate too much heat. I'm willing to sacrifice a bit of bulb brightness to save on installation labor/annoyance, because honestly, anything is better than what I've got now.

If anyone can just point me in the right direction, I would really appreciate it because everywhere I seem to look people are advocating for different options and claiming theirs is the best.

Thanks!!!

You can upgrade the light to brighter lights at the cost of shorter life (which is still plenty long) lights dim over time and should be replaced anyway, many folks have had good success with Sylvania Silverstar H4 45W/65W which is a drop in replacement.

Hey thanks for the reply! It's a cheaper alternative so I'm gonna give it a shot, but are there any drop-in LED bulbs out there that may work better? (I know it wont be 100% drop-in because the power needs to be regulated, but 'somewhat' drop-in) I looked a lot for something like that, but no success...the last thing I wanna do is drop in an HID bulb without a projector and get this:  from other drivers hehe

I just went to Oriley and told them I wanted the brightest light available (took in the bulb. And housing that I removed). Cost me 30 bucks, but the difference is night and day. No pun intended.

ADVMonster makes an LED / H4 bulb:

http://stores.advmonster.com/led-lights/

But it doesn't have the same dimensions as a normal bulb, so it may not for with zero modifications. On the plus side, there are no real modifications to the electrical system. It draws less current than a normal headlight.

Awesome! Thanks for all the suggestions you guys. I'm gonna head to Autozone tomorrow and try out the cheaper Sylvania bulb, and if that's no good, I'll return it and go for the LED, I'm not opposed to slight modification, just drilling new holes and all that stuff for a retrofitted projector HID is a bit more than I'm comfortable with.

I emailed ADV about the LED bulb, and asked if it would fit a stock GS headlight (the round sort) and they said no, not without cutting the bowl.. i cannot imagine it would work on the even smaller space available in the late F style lamp, or the earlier rectangle-ish lamp fitted to some GS's.. the only one i can see it fitting is the earlier GS500 faired model with the twin round lamp.. as there is only a rubber cover over the rear of the bulb holder, so it wouldn't require modding the light itself just the cheap rubber cover. I think i am going to go down the HID route as its cheaper and requires less modding of the light itself. but i will be fitting it to a aftermarket twin lamp setup on my project

If someone finds LED bulbs that work without chopping into the bowl, or other permanent modifications.. i would love to know.. as I'm sure a lot of others would.. great lighting is something that i am anal about on all my bikes. its one mod i don't gripe about ruining the originality.. after all its our life on the line when headlights are like a candle in a jar.

well, I got the LED headlight from ADV for my GS500F (2006). Rather than drilling the housing on the bike, I decided to resize the LED's own reflector. The spherical part was a b#$@% to resize, but 3h of chilling out in the garage with a dremel and some epoxy - I got it to fit into a standard H4 housing (1" I believe, original ADV bulb is  ~5/4"). It took some attention to keep the geometry the same, so I keep the beam nicely focused. I absolutely LOVE the brightness of the LEDs. They are almost neutral white (a 1% tint of blueish, not enough to bring attention from  ), the beam has really sharp cut-offs so nobody's blinded and you see the road perfectly. For night riding on really tight twisties I'm planning to install extra LEDs with a separate switch. My headlight takes only 16.8W now, so I have lots of power to spare.

When I was resizing that bulb I was pissed, but now after riding with it for a few months, I'm very happy I took the time and put it in.