There is an enormous difference between seeing through one’s eyes and through a camera. In some respects the eye is superior although in some respects the camera observes the scene better.
Let’s see what are the differences are:
The eye sees everything it focuses on. A camera does not see everything in focus. A photographer has to ensure the right aperture to make the object and the surroundings sharp and in focus.
The eye adjusts almost instantly to changes in brightness because the contrast range of our vision is much wider. We can see details both in bright and dark areas simultaneously. The camera, on the other hand, can scan a scene only through one exposure which can be ideal to capture the subject in dark but not in bright light or vice versa.
Our vision is binocular (stereoscopic) while that of the camera it is monocular. This explains why a photograph lacks ‘depth’ which is not so when the photographers sees with his stereoscopic vision. Pictures in print appear flat while on viewing through the lens they appear eye-catching and three-dimensional.
The eye is selective as it is guided by the brain to see that only which one wishes to see. The camera records each and every aspect of what it is focused on. At sunset, we get enraptured by the beauty of the scene but tend to overlook the electric pole in the distance. A camera on the other hand, faithfully records all that lies before it.
The eye does not normally notice minor changes in the tone of light, while a colour film is very sensitive to small changes in the intensity of light. It is this failure on the part of the eye which often results in transparencies recording unnatural light.
The eye cannot store its impressions of the light – the dimmer the light, the lesser we see. Photo films can compensate for low light with longer exposures, to produce finally an image full of details. The light may have been very poor for the naked eye to not the details while a camera, with a bit longer exposure, can produce an image of the subject replete with minute details.
The eye can see only up to a certain limit whereas the use of special lenses with long focal lengths facilitates recording of details in distant subjects, not visible to the naked eye.
The angle of the view visible to the eye is fixed but lenses have a wide range, with the angle of view varying from very narrow to 180°. Unlike the human vision, the photographic angle of view can be chosen to obtain the desired effect in a photograph.
As a photographer, how do you bridge the gap between your natural eye and the camera?
Djs says
Perceptive article!
I would say that the eye is not guided by the brain, but rather by the mind. The difference is not so subtle as it would first appear.
I have always felt that the reason people are strongly attracted to shallow depth of field and feel it is “professional” is that it mimics the mind’s ability to isolate a subject through “perception”. Shallow depth of field recreates part of this mind capability in a photo by making the non-subject portions unable to be studied in detail and therefore much less interesting to the viewer.
I feel a large part of photographic composition is designed to mimic or influence the perception mechanisms that the mind adds to the eye.
An issue of Mind magazine (3 years back?) alerted me to the fact the eye has sub-scene white balance. In the same photo it accurately recalculates white balance for subsections of the photo. This can’t be mimicked by the camera or post-production. However, since the eye does it for photos as well, it generally does not need to be managed and goes unnoticed in photos. It is, however, instructive that when we take photos we wrestle with picking ONE white balance for the scene while our eye is MUCH more adaptive.