[Leica] Seeing vs photography (was: BOKEH of 35mm lenses)

[Mikiro <arbos@silva.net>]

Hi, Dan-san.

This is an intriguing point!  Seeing and photography certainly are similar
but at the same time very different in some aspects.

Vision is a cascade of processes that is so complicated that very little of
it has been understood.  CCD or film mimics only part of them.  I once read
a book by a mathematician who simulated a computational process involved in
visual transduction in the retina but did not understand a single formula.
;-)  Further, we have just started to have some vague ideas about what our
brains do in seeing!  Vision is a wonder.  This is what an
ophthalmologist/retinal researcher can say.

PS: As far as I know, animal lenses are aspherical.  Undoubtedly, there have
been some experiments of taking pictures with real human or animal lenses,
but I am not sure if anyone has ever evaluated the quality of bokeh with
them!

Regards,

Mikiro
Strasbourg, Europe

At 6:07 pm +0200 27/8/99, Dan Post wrote:
>Mikirosan-
>Interesting post, that. I was wondering- and this goes back to my days when
>I studied the psychology of perception, that those lenses that have the same
>type of abberations as might be found in the human eye, might have the best
>'perceived' bokeh?
>Do we have any optometrist out there that have studied the human eye lens as
>an image forming system? Does the brain 'correct' certain abberations, and
>lenes that render images similar to those 'corrected' by the occipital lobe
>appear more natural and pleasing? There might be a thesis in this!
>We use biology to design ergonomic machines all the time, and I was
>wondering if anyone has thought about designing a lenses that 'sees' similar
>to the way we 'see'- not just with the eyes, but with the brain's input as
>well.
>In a way, Fuji has done that with their Reala film- it does a good job of
>'seeing' color the way the eye does. I was really surprised to find how well
>it 'adjusted' for flourescent light, just as your brain does, by 'filtering'
>out the green, and adding magenta so it looks natural.
>I wonder. Would a lens that mimics the way we 'see', with both the eye and
>the brain, be considered superior, even if the resolution or sharpness were
>not optimal?
>Points to ponder....
>Dan