What’s the difference between a camera and a human eye?

Or: What’s the ISO of a human eye?

Haje Jan Kamps
Photography Secrets
9 min readNov 24, 2017

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I have worn glasses all my life, and as a result, I was introduced to the magic of optics way before I ever considered getting into photography.

Then, when I started learning more about the magic of photography, I started noticing things with my own eye-sight: For example, in bright daylight, I can see further than in twilight. Why? I’ll leave you to solve this one yourself (think about it!) — the solution is at the end of this article.

A quick anatomy refresher

As a photographer, I’m often intrigued by the physics of how photography is similar (and different) to how my eyes work — so I figured it was time to write a little article about how it all hangs together.

Camera vs Eyes: Similarities

To better understand the answer to this question, let’s first have a quick comparison of various similarities and differences found in the working of the human eye and a photo camera.

Image focusing: Human and camera lenses both focus an inverted image onto light-sensitive surface. In the case of a camera, it’s focused…

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Haje Jan Kamps
Photography Secrets

Writer, startup pitch coach, enthusiastic dabbler in photography.