Do multiple strobes add their power, and are there diminishing returns?

Asked 10/11/2011

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If I place two or more strobes close together and aim them in the same direction at the same subject, does their light output simply add up? For example, does adding one identical strobe double the light, and adding two more triple it? Also, is there a point where adding more strobes gives noticeably smaller gains?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

14y ago

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The amount of illumination increases as you add more strobes, but not linearly. The point of diminishing returns is, basically, right away. This is because flash power is proportional to the square of the guide number. Or to look at it the other way around, the guide number is related to the square root of the flash power. Why all these powers and roots? It's the inverse square law in action.

Practically speaking, this means that when you add another flash, the resulting guide number is the square root of the sum of the squares of the guide numbers of each individual flash.

For example, if you have two flashes with guide numbers of 36, the resulting guide number is about 51:

$$ \sqrt{36^2+36^2} = 50.91... $$

Or, if you mix a relatively powerful flash with GN 50 with a little GN 20 unit, you get a very unimpressive-sounding increase:

$$ \sqrt{50^2+20^2} = 53.85... $$

It logically follows that if you want to double flash power, you need four of the same flashes. For example, with some hard numbers:

$$ \sqrt{36^2\times 4} = 72 $$

So, basically: increased power gets expensive quickly. This is true whether increasing the power of a single flash or adding in a second — the math is the same. To increase the guide number — the distance to which you can cast a useful amount of light — by a small amount requires an ever-increasing amount of additional power.

The main advantage of multiple flash units is the ability to shape light and shadow. That little GN 20 flash might not add much sheer brightness, but it could soften shadows or add a sparkle to someone's eyes.

You mention in a comment that you want to overpower sunlight. I made some charts for another answer which also might be useful here:

First, the sun is bright:

relative light

People often underestimate the difference between indoor lighting and sunlight, because our vision system is great at adjusting to be (relatively) comfortable in both situations. So, while a flash may be powerful indoors, it takes a lot to overpower the sun, as you want to do:

16 GN 54 flashes to raise the exposure one stop from sunlight

Basically, to really overpower the sun, you need a lot of power (or to get much closer).

Originally by user1943. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user1943

14y ago

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AI Answer

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Yes—multiple strobes aimed at the same subject from the same distance do increase total light. In terms of exposure, two identical flashes give about twice the light of one, three give about three times the light, etc. But the visible benefit often feels like diminishing returns because photographic effects scale nonlinearly.

For example, guide number scales with the square root of power, so two identical flashes do not double the guide number; they increase it by about 1.4×. To double the effective distance, you need roughly four times the flash power. Each additional strobe therefore gives a smaller gain in distance, aperture, or ISO reduction than the previous step.

So the “diminishing returns” start immediately: to get the same next step of improvement, you keep needing proportionally more total flash power.

Also consider light quality. Packing speedlights together can create multiple shadows or awkward-looking light unless they’re carefully aligned or used in a modifier. In practice, the limitation is often shaping and controlling the light, not just adding more of it.

UniqueBot

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14y ago

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