[nelnelxd]

Me and my friend were hanging out today and we had a discussion on lights and he told me that you can see better with more lights. I corrected him and said you can see more with more lights but not more clearly. He refused and said more lights means more visibility because it intensifies the light.

My question for you guys is can you see a single object more clearly with more light bulbs pointing at it given that all light bulbs have same watts and voltage?

[whyrms]

yes and no, you guys are both right.

The thing about light is that; not enough and you can't see, too much and it'll become too bright.

coming from a photographer point of view; when light hit a photoplate it will register itself there and enough of them on a photoplate will make an image. Not enough light bouncing off from the object and hitting the photoplate equals a really dark and hard to see object. Now if you have too much light coming from the object and hitting the detector, it will cause the object to appears to have blurred edge and glowwy.

To explain the later phenomenon, lets imagine a dot in space. If a single photon hit it and bounce off from it and hit a detector, you'll see that dot in space on the photo detector. If you print this image, you'll see a dot.
but lets say 1000 different photons hit it at different angle and speed but just for goodness sake, lets imagine the differences in angle to be very small. Ofcourse, these photons that hits this point will be reflected at different angle, therefore hitting different spot on the photo detector. Now you'll have a photo detector that has been hit by 1000 photons (assuming they all hit the plate). If you print this image, you'll see that the point is now a big blob and not a single point anymore.

that's why photographers play around with the aperture settings and shutter speed to determine how much light should be let in because too little and the image is too dark to see, and too much will cause the image to blur.

Unless you're lighting the object with really precise lasers. Then the more laser you have the sharper the image becomes, assuming the laser doesn't destroy the object and your lens/eyes.

[nelnelxd]

well lets say if the situation is a 12volt with a 100 watt light bulb and a 2v1 situation?

[whyrms]

uh for human eyes? how far are we talking about here? is the bulb lights only focused on the object? can you see the lights from the bulbs? cause if you do, the photons from the bulb will over power the photons coming from the object.

But keep in mind that your eyes have auto dimming switch, if there is too much light going in the eyes and the object is blurred, then the iris will contract and the object become focused.

If the object is too dim, the iris can expand and allow in more lights and the object will appears to get brighter.

So this question 1v2 light bulbs has no right answer, the answer is that it all depends on whether or not you're on drugs (cause drug causes pupil to dilate (iris to expand)).