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Today, practically all lamps that produce continuous light are using LEDs. Indoor lighting, street lighting, flashlights, etc. all use LEDs.

However, the flash in a camera has to create a huge amount of light for an extremely short amount of time. I do know the response time of LEDs is very fast, so that's not a problem, but the sheer amount of light that needs to be emitted may be a problem.

I do know that some old flashes were single-use and actually were using a chemical reaction to cause the flash.

Are modern flashes using LEDs or some alternative technology?

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    \$\begingroup\$ Phones manage to use LEDs quite successfully. \$\endgroup\$
    – Mark Ransom
    Commented Feb 25, 2019 at 20:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_(photography) \$\endgroup\$
    – xenoid
    Commented Feb 25, 2019 at 22:37
  • \$\begingroup\$ White LEDs (or anything that even comes close to providing good CRI - an RGB array rather won't!) aren't only limited by the actual LED semiconductor but by the phosphor technology, whereas monochromatic LEDs tend to have a different color temperature when driven as a high intensity pulse light source compared to continous operation.... \$\endgroup\$
    – rackandboneman
    Commented Feb 27, 2019 at 16:19

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Flashes and studio strobes use arc light: a glass tube with electrodes at both ends containing a gas that can be ionized at high voltage to produce light (e.g. Xenon). Arc lights can fire incredibly quickly (the Paul C Buff Einstein studio strobe can fire in 1/13500 of a second at low power).

The tube is also balanced to emit white light at daylight color temperature and also coated to block UV light emission.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Hotshoe flashes are often even faster than studio strobes — the Metz Mecablitz 64 AF-1 has a T.5 duration of ¹⁄₄₀₀₀₀ at the lowest power (T.1 ¹⁄₁₈₀₀₀) \$\endgroup\$
    – mattdm
    Commented Feb 25, 2019 at 23:29
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    \$\begingroup\$ Yep! For clarity, the 1/13500 figure is the T.1 duration for the Einstein. Not too shabby :-) \$\endgroup\$
    – the_limey
    Commented Feb 26, 2019 at 15:47

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