how many megapixels is life?

every year new cameras come out that take pictures in increasingly higher megapixels.

so when will they have a camera that will have the same number of megapixels as reality?

reply to post by lonewolf10

there was a episode of futurama, where they watched television with a new tv-set, that had double as much pixels as the human eye.

Wow excellent thought!

In my humble opinion one must take into consideration that our reality is seen through two eyes. The brain processes the visuals into a single picture, only the single picture has depth and dimension. I do not believe it is possible to have a picture that can replicate what we see with our eyes unless it is a 'motion' picture. Nothing in life is static, and thus a single picture frame would never be comparable to what you and I can see.

We can see farther, closer, in different color... but to see as realistically as the human eyes and brain? Hmmm...

Such a good question, and one that I ponder frequently. I think we have gone backwards in those terms. Physical film based cameras always seemed to capture the clearest images to me. I suppose we would have to figure out exactly how many points of light per cubed inch that a human can decode at one time, since that is the only visual reality we know. How would you measure the pixel count in a hologram?

I found this which might be interesting.. in short it says 576 megapixels

Edit: I found multiple sources that give the same final figure so I tend to trust the number as being fairly accurate.. so we're a long way off from having a hand held camera that can match the eye.

Source

The average human retina has five million cone receptors on it. Since the cones are responsible for colour vision, you might suppose that this equates to a five megapixel equivilant for the human eye.

But there are also a hundred million rods that detect monochrome contrast, which plays an important role in the sharpness of the image you see. And even this 105MP is an underestimate because the eye is not a still camera.

You have two eyes (no kidding!) and they continually flick around to cover a much larger area than your field of view and the composite image is assembled in the brain - not unlike stitching together a panoramic photo. In good light, you can distinguish two fine lines if they are seperate by at least 0.6 arc-minutes (0.01.Degrees).

This gives an equivilant pixel size of 0.3 arc-minutes. If you take a conservative 120 degrees as your horizontal field of view and 60 degrees in the vertical plane, this translates to ...

576 megapixels of available image data.

Here's a second explanation which really is a different way of saying the same thing..

Different source than above

The following calculation shows the equivalent megapixel number of the human eye viewing a scene.

“Consider a view in front of you that is 90 degrees by 90 degrees, like looking through an open window at a scene. The number of pixels would be 90 degrees * 60 arc-minutes/degree * 1/0.3 * 90 * 60 * 1/0.3 = 324,000,000 pixels (324 megapixels). At any one moment, you actually do not perceive that many pixels, but your eye moves around the scene to see all the detail you want. But the human eye really sees a larger field of view, close to 180 degrees. Let’s be conservative and use 120 degrees for the field of view. Then we would see 120 * 120 * 60 * 60 / (0.3 * 0.3) = 576 megapixels.

reply to post by miniatus


good find!

so i wonder if there are cameras that have that many pegamixels?

And related:

Nikon Unveils D800, the World’s Highest Resolution Full-Frame DSLR Camera

This camera is 36.3 megapixels

Originally posted by lonewolf10
reply to post by miniatus

 

good find!

so i wonder if there are cameras that have that many pegamixels?

lol I just sort of answered that .. the highest MP for a DSLR is 36.3 ... but there are a few universities that have gigapixel cameras ( 1000 megapixels = 1 GP) .. the problem is they are HUGE cameras ... largest I know of is 4GP ... so yeah those would surpass the human eye.. but you can't go around carrying it on family trips.. they have to be mounted somewhere, usually up high.

Check this out ..

smashingtips.com...

In my last post the image links to a site where it talks about how they are actually using standard DSLR cameras to make 2-4gp images .. but they are using specialized software and the process involves taking thousands of shots and then using overlapping/stitching of those images to form an ultra high resolution image.. so it's still a special rig to control movement and snapping of the photos for the actual camera, and then special software for combining all of those images into a single image... not just stitching the edges but overlapping them for higher resolution... neat idea.. but it takes hours to produce a single shot.. and I can't imagine a single amateur photographer being able to pull that off..

There is also the fact that a computer needs to exist which is capable of processing the photo being taken. I don't know about others who have worked with raw images but an 18mp raw of a complex scene loaded into Ps is enough to make my machine hunker down for some real work. If I get into serious layered modification and editing...throw in some smart objects created along the way to condense things...and maybe some effects to pop details and such? Well, my computer crashed awhile ago in the discussion. lol... It was cutting edge recently enough to feel real bad on that issue too....

So I'm wondering if the processor and comp power limit the range of cameras as much and perhaps even more than the technological ability to generate a higher quality sensor?

reply to post by lonewolf10


You may want to read THIS regarding the development of the ONE PIXEL camera by Rice University using compressed sensing.

Note; that's ONE pixel, not one mega-pixel. Just one pixel.
Compressed sensing imaging is some fun stuff.

Here's another article on it:
Rice University Compressive Imaging: A New Single-Pixel Camera

There's many other articles online should anyone wish to search it.

As to the OP, Life very well could be a single pixel.

www.clarkvision.com...…

If you read the section "how many megapixel equivalent does the eye have?", You'll read that if we see things from out eye in a 90 degree by 90 degree area, then that's approx 324 megapixels.

ph.answers.yahoo.com...

For some reason, I can't comprehend how 'life' can be measured in megapixels is a feasible notion.

meh... I tried. lol

Originally posted by MESSAGEFROMTHESTARS

www.clarkvision.com...…

If you read the section "how many megapixel equivalent does the eye have?", You'll read that if we see things from out eye in a 90 degree by 90 degree area, then that's approx 324 megapixels.

ph.answers.yahoo.com...

For some reason, I can't comprehend how 'life' can be measured in megapixels is a feasible notion.

meh... I tried. lol

Hehe you cant. If anything what is being discussed here is the eyes ability to gather enough information to create a composite in the brain. The eye can't even obtain all of the information that reality exposes us to. All of our senses fall short of sensing everything.

We do a pretty good job of functioning in reality though, when you think about it. We don't often bump into walls. We manage to soak our brains in an assortment of chemicals that alter what things do, and for some reason evolution decided emotions were a great idea and created emos.

Yet we're not yet thrusting our arm up out of the mire and gasping for our last breath...

If you were to even try to capture an image in true life pixel representation, which I have to think is impossible, you'd need something that would take images at an atomic level... even smaller.. whatever there is that we've not discovered that vibrates beyond string theory..

Like cad software that allows you to zoom into the most minute detail without losing data.

So you'd need to go beyond a camera and into an atomic scanner.. and a 2d representation then made of the 3d object. I'll have 2, I want stereoscope!!!

makes the photos from the 1.3 megapixel camera on my cheap phone look like stick figure kid drawings...

I think this question also need rely on a matter of perspective.

At a 50mm fixed lens focal length, with the shutter speed set to 1/60, you're taking a photograph essentially at the same settings your biological eyes use.

Take a picture with those settings using a regular 10MP camera, and, the single image you capture will have processed more detail than you would process given several seconds if not more to take in a scene.

Certainly, all relative to perspective, cameras will be able to process finite detail faster than the human eye.
It's a flat, static photo, but it's typically more detail rich than you consciously recognize with the flawed, terribly sloppy sensing equipment evolution has given us.

IRL, you can walk up to something and get a closer view, even to the point of whipping out a microscope.
Static 10MP photos then can only go so far.