You wont get much of a flash from your circuit, the current through the LEDs is going to be quite low, probably in the region of 15mA. If you want a bright flash, use white LEDs as suggested and a driver transistor, preferably a power MOSFET to discharge the capacitor into them.
If you have 3 x 24 LEDs at the moment, are you saying you have a 470 Ohm resistor in series with each LED (72 resistors)? If so, you can dramaticaly reduce component count by using fewer (maybe only one) LED and the transistor driver I suggested.
Brian.