如果把人的眼睛比作一部相机的话,那它有可能是性能最为强劲的一部(虽然参数不一定最强)。近日网上出现一篇文章则给出了更为具体的说法:
如果硬性比较,人眼大约等效于一台50毫米焦距,光圈F4-F32可变,400万像素——是的,只有400万像素,感光度ISO50-ISO6400,快门1/24的不停连续拍摄的相机。 镜头约等于3片3组,全部由非球面镜组成,光圈(瞳孔)小于F32时,一般是某种化学药品中毒,大于F2.8时~~~那是死人。对焦速度极高,在0.5秒内就能完成从最远到最近的切换,永不跑焦。 非近视的情况下,景深极大。 影像处理器大约相当于4块Digital 3,并行工作,而后台的模糊识别处理器,则无法用地球上的计算机来衡量。 色彩不好说,一般是认为在32位和48位之间。
但若细看文章,就会发现其中一些十分有趣且蹊跷的地方。例如在上面引用文字的前一段,就写着“保守估计眼睛的水平可视角度是120度,垂直可视角度是60度,换算下来等于5.76亿像素的图像数据”;而在文章结尾,则写着“即使仅以120度计算,像素就可达到5亿7600万像素”。
那么,人眼的像素数到底是400万,还是5.76亿呢?要弄清这个问题,有必要对文章的数据来源做一番考证。经过简单的网络搜索发现,原来引文的数据来源共有3处:
引文前3段最早发表在2007年3月21日的《信息时报》上,新浪科技曾有过转载。其中给出的数据是5.76亿,依据在原文有说明。
2007年3月21日《信息时报》相关报道
本文引用段落,则来自一个个人博客(来源)。原作者给出400万像素的理由是:“人眼大约拥有500万个是神经细胞,其中大约有100万是无法识别色彩的神经细胞,所以人眼的成像能力大约相当于400万像素”。
看到这里,其实真相已经明了。因为在《信息时报》的报道中开篇已经说明:“可以把人的眼睛想像成等同于500万像素。但是,在眼睛里面还有一亿个棒状细胞……在你眼睛所示画面的锐利程度方面扮演着重要的角色”。
在本文引用段落之后至结尾的文字,则摘自百度百科的“人眼”词条。不难发现其内容与《信息时报》的报道是一致的,或者说是同一个理论的2种说法。而这个理论其实是德国人Konig在1897年在《Die Abhangigkeit der Sehscharfe von der Beleuchtungsintensitat》一书中提出的。
至此已经了然,也许是引文作者在“做”文章时的疏忽,总之人眼像素相当于400万的结论恐怕不够准确。人眼其实是一台像素高达5.76亿的“超级相机”。
Your Eye's "megapixel" Resolution
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.
Curiously - as a counterpoint to this - most people cannot distinguish the difference in quality between a 300dpi and a 150dpi photo when printed at 6x4", when viewed at normal viewing distances.
So: although the human eye and brain when combined can resolve massive amounts of data, for imaging purposes, 150dpi output is more than enough to provide adequate data for us to accept the result as photographic quality.
But don't forget that women have more cones and men have more rods - I kid you not.Therefore the ladies see colours brighter than gents but can't see as well when it gets dark.