I have observed a curious difference in performance when rendering a scene
after just changing the lights.  It's quite drastic:

Single point light at <0,0,8>:  320x240 renders full scene in 40 seconds
Single point light at <1000,2000,10000>: 320x240 renders 3 rows in 11 hours

The scene contains one plane (the "ground") and a union of a little over 6
million spheres with a "Polished_Chrome" texture.  The spheres are mostly
very small... for example, there are about 50 of radius greater than 0.1.
All are centered on the "ground plane".

Can anyone explain this drastic change in render time?  Better yet, can you
suggest a way to simulate a distant point light without increasing the
render time significantly?

Thanks!

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