The photographic eye - 09/07/2022 - Written by Did

Photo by Did
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Photo of the horse edited with Velvia preset

Characteristics of human eyes have been mapped to the triangle of exposure

Remember that photographic lenses are emulating human vision. Funnily, some estimates have given numbers to the above photography characteristics for the average human eyes, with following ranges.

Aperture : between f2.1 – f3.8

Exposure time : around 1/50s speed

ISO : iso 1 in daylight and ISO 800 in fully dark

Focal length :  approximately 22mm but a 50mm frame of focused depth of field. If you try to be aware of it, you can actually perceive that around your sharp field of vision, what you see is actually blurry.

<link to article about choosing a focal lens caracteristics>

Fun fact, some people can preview bookeh with their eyes:

If you have a myopia eye condition, try this : remove your glasses, wrap your index around your thumb and make a tiny hole, place it in front of your eye and notice how sharper you can see.

This pin hole experiment can also be generated with pinhole glasses, which are improving human vision without lens at the cost of a lessen amount of light entering your eye. This is comparable to how closing aperture blades on a lens makes the image sharper.

Then, notice how comparable halos of light can be between what you see on a photo with bookeh (shallow depth of field) and what you can see in real life.