Way off-topic question.

[BaseballPhotographer]

ok, I don't know why im asking this, but ive always wondered it? But here it is....

You know how megapixels make up the image, the more megapixels the better the picture. Ok, I know our eyes arn't cameras, but roughly, how many "megapixels" do you think our eyes have? If we had to relate our eyes to a camera? What would the camera be like? Sorry is this is the stupidest question ever.

Stephen

[BillsBayou]

ok, I don't know why im asking this, but ive always wondered it? But here it is....

You know how megapixels make up the image, the more megapixels the better the picture.

BZZZZZT! Nope.

Tightly packed pixels can actually cause poor image quality on sensors of the same size.

Ah, what the hell. I know what you mean.

Ok, I know our eyes arn't cameras, but roughly, how many "megapixels" do you think our eyes have?

Not as many as you think.

If we had to relate our eyes to a camera? What would the camera be like?

It'd be pretty bad.

The camera would take photos where the center of the photo (less than 5%, I think) would be in decent focus and everything else would be in decreasing levels of blur.

Take a look at a busy scene (like a messy desktop). What you "see" that is in focus is in the middle of your field of view. Not just off the middle, but smack dab in the middle. You know that there are other things on your desktop, but if you're not familiar with something in your field of view, you have to look directly at it to figure it out.

Now, concentrate on a line of text in a paragraph on a page of several paragraphs. Don't move your eyes. Just look at the middle of the paragraph. You can see that there is another paragraph coming up, but can you read the text without moving your eyes? Not really. Now try the same thing with the beginning of the line of text or the end. Same failure.

A wide field of view is good for knowing what is all around you, but knowing exactly what it is takes either familiarity with the general parameters of what is in your field of view, or looking directly at it.

Who needs that sort of camera?

Sorry is this is the stupidest question ever.

Stephen

There are no stupid questions, but there seems to be an endless supply of inquisitve idiots.

Oh, not you. :p

[BaseballPhotographer]

haha, thanks, that really got me thinking

[Eagle]

how many "megapixels" do you think our eyes have?
It was in a recent issue of Maxim, I think the April issue, I don't remember the answer though.

[BillsBayou]

It was in a recent issue of Maxim, I think the April issue, I don't remember the answer though.

Here's a not-so-definitive analysis:
http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/eye-resolution.html

He does make the point that the human eye is not a single snapshot camera but a continuous video stream. That we move our eyes about to "paint" a scene.

He concludes that with a dismal 120-degree field-of-view, the human eye would have 576-megapixels.

I counter by saying "Apples and Oranges".

The question is moot. If we go with the continuous video stream "painting" a scene, then we could paint the same scene with a 1-megapixel camera. Just point the 1-mp camera at everything and stitch the scene together.

Other notes from that page:

ISO for a human eye adapted to the dark: 800

Object focal length of the eye = 16.7 mm
Image focal length of the eye = 22.3 mm
(more on what that means is on the page linked above)

[AngryCorgi]

Here's a not-so-definitive analysis:
http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/eye-resolution.html

He does make the point that the human eye is not a single snapshot camera but a continuous video stream. That we move our eyes about to "paint" a scene.

He concludes that with a dismal 120-degree field-of-view, the human eye would have 576-megapixels.

I counter by saying "Apples and Oranges".

The question is moot. If we go with the continuous video stream "painting" a scene, then we could paint the same scene with a 1-megapixel camera. Just point the 1-mp camera at everything and stitch the scene together.

Other notes from that page:

ISO for a human eye adapted to the dark: 800

Object focal length of the eye = 16.7 mm
Image focal length of the eye = 22.3 mm
(more on what that means is on the page linked above)

Ok, so if a 1Ds3 is 8k for 21mp....the extrapolated value for my left eye is $218,000!! Hrmmm....