One of the other issues to keep in mind is the actual amount of light output by the point source. Some SMD LEDs output a non trivial amount of light in a very s

One of the other issues to keep in mind is the actual amount of light output by the point source. Some SMD LEDs output a non trivial amount of light in a very small area - if you put black electrical tape, the high power density (over a very small area) can cause the tape to start smoking and burning. A friend had a Razer Phone 2 which melted its camera lens and would cause burns if you covered the LED while it was on. While I'm sure that particular case may have been a faulty device/faulty design, I'd think that to make a brighter LED flash, you'd need more than one LED source. While this would be fine for general illumination, perhaps if they were not tightly coupled together some odd shadows could result. And it'd look kind of funny to some. As for the actual amount of heat output by a relatively bright LED, it should only add about a watt or two to the budget at most, which I'd say is manageable given current LED flash implementations aren't really thermally managed or coupled with the device's internal heat sink.