stupid question about lenses.

[Waldemar Winkler]

Originally Posted by JT Coleman

so ... one eye?

JT
Austin, Tx

I believe the issue has to do with the sense of perspective one has when looking at a specific subject. One eye is probably correct, but I suspect two eyes would give the same sense of perspective without the ability to judge distance. One would need a stereo camera for that.
Interestingly, the choice of lens focal length has a lot to do with this sense of perspective. When shooting with 35mm film I personally prefer fixed focal length lenses in the range of 40mm to 28mm, as these lenses give the the photograph more of my sense of peripheral vision. However, distant mountains shrink in size. When I shoot my wife's ceramic work I always use a 90mm portrait lens, as it more closely matches the real sense of perspective of her pots, platters, and other clay creations.

[Richard Alvarez]

I like to explain that our 'eyes' are incapable of ZOOMING, but our 'vision' is. By this I mean that when our mind 'focuses' on a subject in our field of vision, our mental attention and 'vision' zoom in on that element. (Yes of course, our actual focus shifts too) But because our 'attention is zoomed in on it, the peripheral elements 'fall away' in our attention... your mind simply doesn't 'see' them.

[JT Coleman]

Originally Posted by Waldemar Winkler

I believe the issue has to do with the sense of perspective one has when looking at a specific subject. One eye is probably correct, but I suspect two eyes would give the same sense of perspective without the ability to judge distance. One would need a stereo camera for that.
Interestingly, the choice of lens focal length has a lot to do with this sense of perspective. When shooting with 35mm film I personally prefer fixed focal length lenses in the range of 40mm to 28mm, as these lenses give the the photograph more of my sense of peripheral vision. However, distant mountains shrink in size. When I shoot my wife's ceramic work I always use a 90mm portrait lens, as it more closely matches the real sense of perspective of her pots, platters, and other clay creations.

I was specifically asking about field of view, and in this, i'm pretty sure that there is a difference in the angle between one eye and two.

open just your right eye and look straight forward. notice how much you can see on the left ... now open the other eye. Look how much your overall FOV increases when you remove the "nose cropping" (look, mom! i've invented a new term! fun!)

So I always hear people say that "a 48 to 50mm lens on a 35mm camera is roughly the same FOV as the human eye" and I was assuming they mean one eye, not both...?

anyway, thats all I was asking.

JT
Austin, Tx