People say…
“The beauty lies in the eyes of the observer”
Well, philosophically one can disagree with this argument simply due to the fact that all human eye functions nearly identical to each other. Therefore, there should not be a significant difference between their observations. However, BEAUTY is a subjective appreciation, often driven by one’s feelings, judgments, opinions, and prejudices. Hence, the above statement habitually MISUSED to justify anything…
This is a sad practice… But, what can you do? This is human nature…
But what if, the observer’s eyes are different?
The observations can be drastically changed by using different light-sensors. For example human eye and artificial camera-photo-sensor. The same object/scene can produce a completely different image when a camera being used compared to the human eye. The working features of a camera and a human eye are completely different and result in these drastic differences.
While this website showcases some of the beautiful photographs captured by the camera lens in different light conditions, but this page is dedicated to staging the difference between “Camera-eye” and “Human-eye” working features and conditions.
CAMERA Vs. HUMAN-EYE
Tow marvelous light-capturing device, one evolved by natural evolution, another artificially developed by Humans.
LIGHT PROPAGATION
Light propagation through Camera and Human Eye.
THE EYE: HOW IT WORKS?
Low-intensity light is captured by Rod cells in the retina, producing a black&white image in the brain. High-intensity lights are captured by Cone cells. Different Cone cells absorb different colors; such as Red, Green, Blue; producing a color image in the brain.
ANGLE OF VIEW
The Camera’s “Angle of view” depends on the lens used in the camera, (allowed light-cone to enter the Camera). Individual Human Eye has an “Angle of view” around 120-200°. Both individual eyes overlap with approximately 130° “Angle of view” (nearly as wide as a fisheye lens), always resulted in a wide-angle view in the brain.
FOCUS & DETAILS
In a high f-stop Camera setting (F/16-F/22), the camera focal plane expands to infinity resulted in a focus depth both in the foreground and background. Human Eye focus depends on the image interest in the brain. For a quick single glance, the focus tends to around interesting features in the image.
RESOLUTION & FOCUS
The camera-focal-plane becomes narrow in a low f-stop setting (F/1.4-F/8) which can be positioned by the user. In a multi-glance scenario, the Human Eye works as region-of-interest determined by the brain. The resolution is determined by the object-to-eye distance, whereas focusing points hop between interesting region-of-interest determine by the brain.
DYNAMIC RANGE
Dynamic range is defined by the detectable light intensity variations. In other words how high/low light-intensity can be detectable by camera or eye. If we divide the whole intensity-range by small constant-intensity regions. Human Eye is much sophisticated for this measure. The human eye can detect a luminance range from 10−6 cd/m2 to 108 cd/m2, (≈46 f-stops). Different intensity images are processed separately and merged for producing a “High Dynamic Range (HDR)” image in the Human brain. The most advanced DSLR camera to date can only capture images with ≈12 f-stops at a time. However, several 12 f-stop images can be captured (HDR mode) in low and high intensity regions and merged-together using computer software mimicking the Human Brain. This style of photography is called HDR photography.