When will cameras achieve high dynamic range as human eyes?

[ACF3Passion]

I've always wondered this and now that I've finally found the right forum, I'm asking it now.

As you know, if we look outside the window, you'll realize that both outdoor and indoor are exposed properly simultaneously. Your eyes are articulating that painting on the wall in the dim room in full colors as well as the bill board outside on a bright sunny day at the same time.

We know that cameras can't do this. Focusing on one side will extremely overexpose/underexpose the other. Cameras have to resort to runarounds like meshing multiple shots into a single HDR.

Why do cameras suffer from this while human optics don't? If our eyes can do it, then why can't the camera mimic it? Is it something that's remains a mystery or we know it but cannot overcome it or on the way to overcoming it? Naturally I'm assuming it's on the camera's end with the image processor inside than the lenses.

I hope you can explain and it would interesting to see some in-depth technical reason behind this as well.

[Tee Why]

Retina is better than CMOS. Graymatter is better than a computer chip.
I hear FDA still uses people to smell fish to ensure it's safe.
Technology has it's limits.

[ACF3Passion]

Originally Posted by Tee Why

Retina is better than CMOS. Graymatter is better than a computer chip.
I hear FDA still uses people to smell fish to ensure it's safe.
Technology has it's limits.

So are we on the way to achieving higher range? Have we made progress already or has it always been 3-5 stops like today?

[20droger]

Actually, the dynamic range of the eye is not that great.

For example, if we are ouside in the sunlight looking at a light color building, we cannot see the inside of the build through an open door. This is how those bad guys are able to hide so well in the shadows.

[ACF3Passion]

Originally Posted by 20droger

Actually, the dynamic range of the eye is not that great.

For example, if we are ouside in the sunlight looking at a light color building, we cannot see the inside of the build through an open door. This is how those bad guys are able to hide so well in the shadows.

That may be, then camera is just utterly horrible then. I'm disappointed again and again as a relatively new photographer how even the slightest range perceived with the naked eyes are still super troublesome for cameras. I found myself thinking, "what the hell camera, you can't even handle THIS and have to wash out/black out areas? "

[Anke]

Why not real-time HDR-ing? Surely decent dynamic range is one of the last major obstacles of photography?

[ACF3Passion]

Originally Posted by Anke

Why not real-time HDR-ing? Surely decent dynamic range is one of the last major obstacles of photography?

And why is this so difficult vs other things? I'd like to hear some technical aspect on this.

[sjones]

I don't know when, but if it should happen, I am sure the JPEG purists (as oxymoronic as that sounds) will just consider it one big crutch.

[Anke]

Actually, I'm not remotely an expert in this field, but if a camera can see the brightest whites and the darkest blacks, why can't it see them at the same time?
I'd love to know the scientific reason too.

[photoguy6405]

If I understand it correctly, your eyes cannot see as well as we think they do, either. The camera takes a single snapshot in time. The eye does the same thing, but continuously, and the brain merges them altogether to give us a better dynamic range. A human HDR, if you will, that never stops.

I don't know if that's accurate, but that's how it was explained to me once.

[ACF3Passion]

Originally Posted by photoguy6405

If I understand it correctly, your eyes cannot see as well as we think they do, either. The camera takes a single snapshot in time. The eye does the same thing, but continuously, and the brain merges them altogether to give us a better dynamic range. A human HDR, if you will, that never stops.

I don't know if that's accurate, but that's how it was explained to me once.

I thought that too but I think that's a wrong reason. Why? Because video cameras still suffer from the exact same lack of dynamic range.

If video cams work just like our eyes with live feed, why does the problem persist?

[cdifoto]

Originally Posted by ACF3Passion

As you know, if we look outside the window, you'll realize that both outdoor and indoor are exposed properly simultaneously. Your eyes are articulating that painting on the wall in the dim room in full colors as well as the bill board outside on a bright sunny day at the same time.

No they aren't.

The eyes and brain do not see everything at the same light level at the same time. The human body is so sophisticated that the eyes and brain "gain up" the dark and "gain down" the bright back and forth so fast that you don't realize it's happening.

If your eyes and brain had perfect DR for all brightness levels, you'd never have to squint.

[20droger]

Or grope when you walk out of a darkened theater into bright sunlight. Or stumble when you walk out of bright sunlight into a darkened theater.

[ACF3Passion]

Originally Posted by cdifoto

No they aren't.

The eyes and brain do not see everything at the same light level at the same time. The human body is so sophisticated that the eyes and brain "gain up" the dark and "gain down" the bright back and forth so fast that you don't realize it's happening.

If your eyes and brain had perfect DR for all brightness levels, you'd never have to squint.

Sounds reasonable but any links on this? Whatever it is the human eye is doing, why can't the camera simply mimic it?

[TeeTee]

Originally Posted by ACF3Passion

I've always wondered this and now that I've finally found the right forum, I'm asking it now.

As you know, if we look outside the window, you'll realize that both outdoor and indoor are exposed properly simultaneously. Your eyes are articulating that painting on the wall in the dim room in full colors as well as the bill board outside on a bright sunny day at the same time.

We know that cameras can't do this. Focusing on one side will extremely overexpose/underexpose the other. Cameras have to resort to runarounds like meshing multiple shots into a single HDR.

Why do cameras suffer from this while human optics don't? If our eyes can do it, then why can't the camera mimic it? Is it something that's remains a mystery or we know it but cannot overcome it or on the way to overcoming it? Naturally I'm assuming it's on the camera's end with the image processor inside than the lenses.

I hope you can explain and it would interesting to see some in-depth technical reason behind this as well.

Actually you're incorrect on the highlighted note.

Our eyes, much like cameras, have shortfalls and compensate depending on light. For example take a picture with your camera of a night scene with lots of colour in it and it won't be as you remembered it. In low light one's eyes lack a LOT of contrast, and also detail recognition. Cameras have much better contrast (amongst other things) than our eyes in low light due in large part to our fixed shutter speed so to speak.

As for why cameras don't have the DR that our eyes do, you're forgetting our sensors are our brains which seem to do a better job. What I'm wondering is given my beautiful FOV, colour rendition, resolution, and clarity why can't Canon match my lenses (eyes) in terms of size and quality?!?

Heck even film does better for dynamic range than digital, you have to remember that there are only so many ONEs and ZEROs that we can capture before it becomes exponentially complicated.