Random middle of the night musing

[Huy Vu]

So this thought just kinda pop into my head. If our eyes are the best cameras there is, how many frames are they capturing a second? And at what shutter speed?

Real life is basically just a series of still images right? And for us to see it in motion we must be absorbing the images at a certain speed. So if we're seeing it at 24p (I'm assuming our eyes capture images progressively), then what does it mean when we're watching 60i footages?

Of course there's nothing scientific about my assertion so far. I've just always thought that 24p is an overhyped feature for the "film look." And with all the fuss surrounding it and all the people dumping on 60i, I just thought I would throw this out here. Any thoughts?

[surf]

if you see 18 picures a second, you will see it in motion (if it is motion picture).
you can make difference between 16 colours, but you can see thounds of tones or hue (so you can make difference between millions of colours)
you see in 180 degrees, but most os it is out of focus. and you have a very cool autofocus, DOF, auto exposure and other cool things too.

[imgentertainment@mac]

Your eye sees 24fps and then one frame of black. There is a really good acrtical about this let me try and find it

[David Jimerson]

I've read that the "refresh rate" of the eye is equivalent to about 70 fps, which is why 60 fps footage looks more real than 24 fps.

But I think talking about "stills" and "frame rate" for the human eye is meaningless.

[Terry_Lasater]

Yeah, it's like cotton candy for the brain.

[Daniel Skubal]

LOL wouldn't it suck if we saw things in interlaced? Progressive eyes. Thank you God.

[dotconnproductions]

Well the only time interlace would really get us would be when we were trying to walk up stairs or if we had to pause the motion.

Stupid jiggies.

[Mike McNeese]

What if we all see colors differently...I mean like WAY differently. What if what I see the sky as blue, you see as orange, but you've always known it as blue so you don't know the difference no matter what registers in your brain.

I need to lie down.

[Daniel Skubal]

What if we all see colors differently...I mean like WAY differently. What if what I see the sky as blue, you see as orange, but you've always known it as blue so you don't know the difference no matter what registers in your brain.

I need to lie down.

yeah, I've thought about that. Since the color charts are symetrical, different shades of colors would also be the same. The failure of that hypothesis though is if you see a red cup, there's no doubt that it's red and if the person who saw red as green called it a green cup, they'd be wrong. The light properties of that cup are undeniably red. Kind of weird to think about stuff like that though lol

[Mike McNeese]

The failure of that hypothesis though is if you see a red cup, there's no doubt that it's red and if the person who saw red as green called it a green cup, they'd be wrong.

But, I'm saying what if they saw it as green, but they call it red...they really think it's red. Maybe you see things like a film negative, but I see things that look like a film positive. No one would even know the difference.

I just went crosseyed.

[Cryogenic Filmworks]

What if we all see colors differently...I mean like WAY differently. What if what I see the sky as blue, you see as orange, but you've always known it as blue so you don't know the difference no matter what registers in your brain.

I need to lie down.

Yea, it's called color blindness and it sux. Nothing like putting some FX in a video then having someone say, "why is everything so.....green?" It's not quite to the extent you mention, but for example. Light pink is white, red can sometimes be green, green can sometimes be brown, navy blue is absolutely black, purple is dark blue, pepto-bismol is blue.... etc, etc, etc. Just have to have everyone check out my videos before I finalize and if the cars crossing my red-light are stopped I must have green. :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG) (Ok, the redlight thing is not that bad most times. It does help they tend to put them in the same sequence on the poles).

Color blindness is extreamly rare in females, the carry the defect but the male children are the ones affected. The eyes have cones and rods, basically it is a defect where the eyes are missing some of the various cones.

[Slimothy]

I wonder if a little CC would fix color blindness.

[Cryogenic Filmworks]

I wonder if a little CC would fix color blindness.

I had heard there were expensive contacts, but upon google search seems to be a fishtale.

There is no cure for color deficiency that has been present since birth. Wearing colored contact lenses is only minimally effective in correcting defective color vision and may cause other eye problems like reducing the sharpness of vision and distorting depth perception.
http://www.metrohealth.org/HI/indexes/EYES4504.htm

[Shaw]

yeah, I've thought about that. Since the color charts are symetrical, different shades of colors would also be the same. The failure of that hypothesis though is if you see a red cup, there's no doubt that it's red and if the person who saw red as green called it a green cup, they'd be wrong. The light properties of that cup are undeniably red. Kind of weird to think about stuff like that though lol

Yes and no. The light waves themselves will still have the same properties no matter what. HOWEVER, since color is a psychological reaction to light the psycho-emotional response we call 'color' could be entirely different for different people. The light is technically the same but the response created by our brains isn't necessarily so - even if we both call the same objects green (since we would have learned from birth that the response associated with said object is 'green'). There's no way to verify that the color experience I percieve as green is the same experience you percieve.

And now if any of that rambling made sense....

[David Jimerson]

I've thought about it, too.

The answer is, everyone probably sees them the same if everything is working properly.

But there's no way to know.

[-zach-]

But, I'm saying what if they saw it as green, but they call it red...they really think it's red. Maybe you see things like a film negative, but I see things that look like a film positive. No one would even know the difference.

I get exactly what you're saying. If we all see "red" as a different hue, then no one could tell if we all saw different colors. To someone else, skin could be blue, but they'd still refer to it as skin colored.


So this thought just kinda pop into my head. If our eyes are the best cameras there is, how many frames are they capturing a second? And at what shutter speed?

Check out this link:

I've seen competitive gamers tweak their systems to get 200+ frames per second. Can't the human eye only see 30-60 fps? Why do people do this? (http://www.answerbag.com/q_view.php/574)


"A higher FPS than the refresh rate might be noticeable, even though the monitor wont be displaying every frame, especially with objects in the distance - they will move smoother between the frames that you do see. "

Here's another link that disagrees with the posts above:

How Many Frames Per Second Can The Human Eye See? (http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_see.htm)


"How many frames per second can the human eye see?

This is a tricky question. And much confusion about it is related to the fact, that this question is NOT the same as:

How many frames per second do I have to have to make motions look fluid"

.SWF Link (http://img170.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fps6gr.swf)

Well, I don't agree with the few replies you've had above. Here's a .swf file that plays at 120 frames per second. the 120th frame has a black screen with a red squiggle, like this picture below.
http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/9525/fps2wy.jpg

You're telling me we shouldn't be able to see this frame?

-Z

EDIT:


But I think talking about "stills" and "frame rate" for the human eye is meaningless.

I agree with this too, even though everything I posted above is contradictory to that belief. We can't use the term "FPS" for our eyes, because our brain uses the amount of light and color coming through our eyes all the time, and not in increments of frames per second.

[David Jimerson]

.SWF Link (http://img170.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fps6gr.swf)

Well, I don't agree with the few replies you've had above. Here's a .swf file that plays at 120 frames per second. the 120th frame has a black screen with a red squiggle, like this picture below.
http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/9525/fps2wy.jpg

You're telling me we shouldn't be able to see this frame?



Seems to me it acts exactly like it ought to on my laptop scren with a refresh rate of 60 Hz.

[-zach-]

Seems to me it acts exactly like it ought to on my laptop scren with a refresh rate of 60 Hz.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here... that you can see it because it's not going 120 FPS on your screen?

[David Jimerson]

The screen can't display 120 fps, so it only gets the squiggle screen in regularly-spaced chunks.

[-zach-]

Ah, okay. Sorry then, I thought it would do the same thing... So it's going about 30 Fps then?

[surf]

What if we all see colors differently...I mean like WAY differently. What if what I see the sky as blue, you see as orange, but you've always known it as blue so you don't know the difference no matter what registers in your brain.

I need to lie down.
i think it is easy to find out. there are cool, and warm colours. is the sky warm???
and another answer. on the highway, the orange-men are in orange, because, it is a way different colour, than the others on the road. so if you see orange as blue, you are in a big trouble.

[Mike McNeese]

i think it is easy to find out. there are cool, and warm colours. is the sky warm???
and another answer. on the highway, the orange-men are in orange, because, it is a way different colour, than the others on the road. so if you see orange as blue, you are in a big trouble.

Take a still 35mm shot of some road workers. Look at the negative and tell me they won't stand out.

I've actually got some neg's of hunters wearing hunter orange. The bluish-color of the orange in the negative stands out just like the developed shot...just in negative colors.

Now, here's a thought. If someone sees 'negatives,' then the sun would appear black as night, but you still couldn't stare at it.

[surf]

but they are in orange, because it stands out! if they do not stand out you won't recognise them so quickly. but that is noticable

[Shaw]

I think it is easy to find out. there are cool, and warm colours. is the sky warm??? and another answer. on the highway, the orange-men are in orange, because, it is a way different colour, than the others on the road. so if you see orange as blue, you are in a big trouble.

The problem with this arguement is that color isn't really definable. 'Orange' and 'blue' are psycho-emotional responses to specific aspects of light. Specific wavelengths of light will almost always (well not really.. but this is a different issue) produce the same visual response. The problem is that there is no way to determine how our brains are interpreting the response provided by our visual system. Color is an entirely psychological phenomenon. Light isn't really colored - we just interpret it that way due to the specifics of our visual system.

[David Jimerson]

I think a lot of people are missing the point.

What Matt is saying is not that different people may see colors incorrectly, but that what's "correct" for one person might be different for someone else.

What he means is that you and I both see blue. We have no disagreement about that. We have no disagreement about any other color, either. We look at a color charts and we see and identify everything correctly.

But, if I could somehow get into your brain and see things the way you see them, it could be that when we're both looking at blue, you're seeing it as what I would call red. Same for every other color -- you see it differently in your mind.

This probably doesn't happen. But it can't be proven either way.

[Shaw]

Great simple explanation of the issue David =)

[HunterG]

I remember back in the late '80s some one said that a harmonic frequency from cell phones (3 watt analog phones) could interfere with the optic nerve. So, 800mHz/2=400mHz/2+200mHz and so on. But as you dived your frequency you reduce your power. What this says about the human eyes fps, I don't know. Just more of my useless knowledge :-/

Hunter

[KingVidiot]

I've read that the "refresh rate" of the eye is equivalent to about 70 fps, which is why 60 fps footage looks more real than 24 fps.

This accounts for the flicker of the 60Hz ballast of a fluorescent light that you perceive in your peripheral vision. The periphery of the retina is where your light and motion sensitive (also b/w) rod cells are concentrated.

That's why HDTV (along with resolution) looks so damn cool and realistic since it is near the ultimate "frame rate" or our visual cortex.