A video camera with the quality of an eye

[Northern]

Hey there.
Hope I am in the right section.
I had a question which I tried to google but so far no results.
Me and a friend had a debate:
Given a reasonably large budget, is it possible to assemble a video camera of a reasonable size that would be able to capture video at least as good as a human eye while still retaining all the typical benefits a camera has over an eye, such as FPS, zoom and so on?
One area where I believe such a project would run into a problem is low light (no flash obviously) and starry night sky. Is it possible to really create a camera that could shoot a video of a night sky (not time lapse, but real video) as if I was there looking at the sky myself?

[videopoo]

??

Your asking to build a camera that mimics the workings of the human eye/ brain connection? Plus you would need a monitor which does the same. For what purpose? Today's cameras aren't good enough for you? I've shot footage of a night sky and it looks pretty darn good

In 5 years time, you'll see consumer cameras shooting 4k images Im sure.

[Northern]

No purpose. Just out of curiosity.
I know that the actual vision is done by the brain, but the gathering of the light is done by the eye. That part is what the camera does (apart from storing the info).
So, I was wondering if today's technology can mimic the quality of a human eye.
I'm not talking about home cameras, or even professional cameras which may still lack certain abilities because they're too useless and expensive to add. I am talking about a hypothetical camera, built with today's technology with the intention of mimicking a human eye.
Do you think such problems as encountered in low light, and such could in theory be solved with today's tech and a big budget? (in normal recording, not time lapses)

[CobraPilot]

I suspect the general answer is "yes."

Try searching on "low-light camera" (in quotes) and see what insights that provides.

[guns1inger]

I would hope for a camera much better than the human eye. The eye is a horribly flawed piece of equipment. It has a major blind spot and is built with the lens backwards, producing an upside down image. The brain does most of the seeing, processing the relatively poor signals produced by the eye into what we perceive as sight. Most cameras 'see' better than a human eye. What they lack is the superior processing that the brain does to finish the image.

[Northern]

Yes, there are many obvious advantages of most cameras.
For one, they don't have this blind spot, and many of them are able to shoot at a huge FPS and even the most basic simplest zoom is much more than an eye can do.
On the other hand, for things like low light, contrast... the human eye seems to be better at these things than most camera... The question is "most cameras" or "currently all of them"?

CobraPilot - thanks, I'll try.

[guns1inger]

Again, it is not the eye that is better, it is the processing. The eye is a very poor low light instrument without the brain cleaning up the image and interpolating what is missing or distorted. But even then you notice that the you see desaturated colours and far less detail than under bright light. The eye also doesn't require a zoom function as much because the brain can actually focus on only certain sections of the image that is being captured. This is something a camera cannot do.

If you have the budget you can certainly get cameras that are exceptionally good - the RED digital cameras are a good example. However even high end professional HD video cameras have limitations. Look at the night scenes in something like Michael Mann's Collateral and you will see noise in the image.

What you are waiting for is processing power that is fast enough to do what the brain does for the eye at a speed that doesn't compromise the image capture. And in fact even the brain cannot do this. What you see is not in real-time. The brain does a first pass of the image to gather enough data to avoid death (mostly), then processes the image for final use. So when you catch a ball, your reactions aren't based on the final clean image that you perceive, but on a rough animatic that has no image processing, but is processed for other details. You get the final image shortly after, and don't even realise that this has occurred. The other trick the brain has that no camera has is the ability to interpolate missing data. Cameras still function on discrete images, while the brain works with a constant flow of data from the optic nerve. And if that flow is broken for a brief instant - say a blink - the brain just fills the gap.

At this point in time it is possible to get digital video cameras that, within the context of your narrow requirements, could be considered almost on par with the images seen in your brain - assuming you are happy to pay substantially for them. Some profession HD cameras are very good - the RED, for example - and the type of lenses and processing available to some of NASA's new probes go even further. Cameras that capture at thousands of frames per second can certainly capture things beyond the power of the eye/brain combination, but this is a specialist task, and is not a general replacement, and there are other specialist areas that niche devices fill that exceed the power of the human eye/brain.

But there is not a general replacement that can do all the eye/brain combo can, and I suspect will not be for at least another decade.

[Northern]

Thanks for the detailed response. I think I got my answer here.
I wasn't looking for a replacement. As I said it was just a theoretical debate with a friend.
Obviously, it isn't as simple as that since, as you said, a huge part of the vision and correction occurs in the brain - a tool which no doubt is much much more powerful than any computer today and in the near future.

Thanks again.

[videopoo]

guns1inger

My favorite poster on videohelp

[Northern]

guns1inger

My favorite poster on videohelp

I can see why

[hech54]

Yea but nothing focuses faster than the human eye...

[95teetee]

Yea but nothing focuses faster than the human eye...

it also isn't limited to a maximum resolution

[El Heggunte]

Yea but nothing focuses faster than the human eye...

Is the human eye better than the eye of an eagle

[julitomg]

...said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
Antoine de Sait Exupéry ( "The little prince" )