Is there a lens that is as good as the human eye?

[Wathepleela]

I was trying to get a portrait shot of my first ever phal in my long and tenuous career as an amateur orchidarist to show it off - which btw I found out is an ox spot phal (?) - here on this board... However after many mornings sitting at my laptop at arm's reach from both the plant and my camera I have this nagging feeling that no matter how expensive a lens (except maybe for one made for millionaires and royalties) perhaps there's none such that can compete with the naked human eye.

Here are the two shots from two different sittings (read mornings): The fact that they look close enough to be identical in terms of colors, contrast and lighting is consistent to what my glass-wearing eyes actually saw...(also they are sharper than their resized version posted here.)

JunePhal4web.jpg

JunePhal5web.jpg

But both came in at the price of some amount of post processing, which I allow to indulge myself in as little as possible. My take is that unless one can afford the most expensive lens, post processing is something one has to live with (just like brushing one's teeth in the morning - well clumsy metaphor, I know).

So I want to ask photography-inclined folks here whether anyone has at one time or another come across the same doubt? Otherwise I better save up and get the most expensive lens my budget can buy...On the other hand if the best money can buy is still not good enough, then why bother with newer gear?

Just for emphasis, my goal is to capture as nearest as possible what the eye can see, as oppose to make
the image "pop" out. FWIW my camera is an oldie Panasonic lumix G1 with a 12-45mm Vario lens, so please would someone tell me that I badly need to upgrade (see pic.)

PentaxOMD.jpg

[murph7]

I am not sure what is the problem you are facing. Can you elaborate more? Every picture needs a bit of processing. At least you might need to fix white balance and give a bit of sharpening.

These days you can get a good quality shot with any camera and lens combination, even with a phone. No need to spend any extra money. Light, how you place your subject with respect to the background, how close you are from the subject, can really alter the picture.

Of course, it really depends on what you are looking for. A telephoto and a wide angle lens give you differences in how you are able to isolate the subject from your background (as well as the aperture), among other things. There is no single solution, it really depends on your taste.

Can you link to a post in OB to see what kind of pictures you would like to achieve?

[naoki]

If you analyze how your eyes work, you'll notice that it is not just the optical lens. Perceived field of view changes depends on how you are looking at the object, even though the depth of field is not unlimited, our eys focus to different distance quickly. Also, your mood/feeling influence how you look at an object. So the answer is no. On the other hand, lens exceeds the capacity of human eyes (e.g. super telephoto, wide-angle, fish-eyes, macro). Photography is an art to render 3-d object into 2-d space. During that process, we are playing with our "vision" of how to render.

A major part of photography is how to manipulate light. So investing on lighting equipment (and how to use it) is the first path (after a decent camera like yours). The lighting does influence the mood of the image.

[AnonYMouse]

Have you looked into z-stacking? How adverse are you to post processing?

I haven't tried myself, would like to but I need to get my gear cleaned first (although out of focus, I can see artifacts).

[estación seca]

Vision is more than a lens and a retina. Our brains process the input and create what we are seeing in order to give us a sense of continuity. If we read the same page of a book in full sun, and again by candle light, our brain tells us it looks the same. But the black print in full sun actually reflects far more light than white paper by candle light.

A camera can't duplicate this. Photographers use knowledge of photographic equipment, as well as image processing, to emphasize a few aspects of each image.

[Wathepleela]

Abbracadabra how come I wasn't taught this in my freshman course "Photography 101:"

Originally Posted by naoki

Photography is an art to render 3-d object into 2-d space. During that process, we are playing with our "vision" of how to render.

Originally Posted by estación seca

Vision is more than a lens and a retina. Our brains process the input and create what we are seeing in order to give us a sense of continuity.

A camera can't duplicate this.

Not long ago, maybe having watched too many water-logged James Cameron movies, I decided that it was worth attempting to breathe underwater. So for a couple of weeks, every time I jumped into the pool, I valiantly believed that I could somehow "breathe" through my nasal membranes. The pool at the gym was not guarded, but for anyone happened to walk out to it, they must have witnessed the crazy spectacle of someone trying to drown himself. Again, another clumsy metaphor on my part, but maybe someday a gadget enabling me to breathe underwater like a fish will be invented, so one can equally hope for a lens that could render 3-D real life in all its glory, along with a vessel. hopefully something other than 2-D, that could contain it. For now, to understand our predicamment put forth by this medium called photography, then to know the limits/capabilities of the tools available that can help us deal with that predicamment, what we can do with/learn to use them, is enough to put my mind at rest.

Thank you thank you thank you!!!

Now onto practical matters,

Originally Posted by murph7

Can you link to a post in OB to see what kind of pictures you would like to achieve?

I subscribe to the pre-digital school so it's hard to dig up one example here and now. That's not to say that there haven't been a few: one I remember most was a series of pics from one (young) lady of her orchids - actually not hers to begin with but those she inherited from an older family member (a grandparent? thus the notion of "young") She puts them againts the wall by the side of her house, among an haphazard scattering (of props) of watering cans and empty pots, then snaps away Simple as those shots were (taken with her point and shoot), they stopped me in my track, again we're talking about the interplay of light, colors and space, plus in this case, composition : Her signature was unmistakable and I wonder if she was even aware of it. I don't think she bothered with post-processing, or even knew about it, stuff weren't "cleaned" up as they were "supposed" to.

Talking of which, actually it has become a second nature to me. My challenge now is to take pics for which the least improvement post-processing can do as possible (if that makes sense.) But if post processing can get me closest to what my eye saw, then I'm all for it.

Again thank you all for chipping in, true pearls of wisdom dispensed here!

[estación seca]

Originally Posted by Wathepleela

...a series of pics from one (young) lady of her orchids.... She puts them against the wall by the side of her house, among an haphazard scattering (of props) of watering cans and empty pots, then snaps away. Simple as those shots were (taken with her point and shoot), they stopped me in my track, again we're talking about the interplay of light, colors and space, plus in this case, composition:
Her signature was unmistakable and I wonder if she was even aware of it. I don't think she bothered with post-processing, or even knew about it, stuff weren't "cleaned" up as they were "supposed" to.

Another thing not mentioned before is that film and digital devices don't capture color the way the human eye/brain does. Cheap digital phone cameras have trouble capturing blue shades correctly. If you want examples, look at the photos I've posted here. Different digital camera settings alter the way the camera captures colors. Settings for faces enhance red shades. Almost all digital images of flowers with substantial blue shades will require digital processing to make them look like something the eye/brain would see/create.

You can make photos as does the lady in the video if you shoot from some distance. Beyond a certain distance from the subject, which distance varies with the lens, the camera can be set to focus on infinity, and everything past that certain distance will be in focus. With this kind of photo, most of the artistic work will be done by creating the arrangement. Most people further process these images with careful cropping and color balance on the computer. But it only works for shots from some distance.

The reason is that, with lenses in general, the closer the film or charge capture device is to the subject, the narrower is the volume of space in front of the camera that is in focus.

This volume of space is called the focal plane. It's not really a plane; it's a volume that is narrow front to back (in spatial relation to the camera) but extends up and sideways. Think of it as an invisible, flat piece of glass perpendicular to the lens axis. Anything contained inside the boundaries of that piece of glass will be in focus. Anything outside will be fuzzy. The closer the camera approaches the subject, the thinner will be the "glass." For distance shots, everything is in focus.

Very close focus lenses ("macro") have a very narrow depth of field. When photographing a tiny flower, it is common that not even the entire flower will be in focus. Imagine only part of the flower inside the thin focal volume. The parts sticking out in front and in back of the focal volume will be blurry, and the blurriness will increase as the distance to the flower part increases, in front and in back. The part of the flower in focus will appear to be contained in a ring centered where the camera is pointed. The more of the flower in the focal volume and thus in focus, the wider this ring will be. At the extreme front of the flower the ring of focus will be a small circle of focus. (It would be so at the back of the flower, as well, if we could see the back - but the flower prevents this.) More on this ring later.

The only way to increase the depth of field when photographing a small object is to increase the distance to the camera. This often necessitates using a different lens. A high-magnification macro lens can only be used very closely to the subject. Increasing the distance to the subject necessitates increasing the lighting or increasing the opening of the lens (aperture.) Increasing the aperture causes the depth of field to narrow, which is what we were trying to avoid. This is why most macro photography involves extra light; either electric, or solar reflectors - we want to use the narrowest aperture we can to increase the depth of field.

The subject in such a photo taken at a somewhat increased distance will occupy a smaller area of the photograph than it would with a close macro lens. Cropping and magnifying will be necessary for an image filling the photograph. The image becomes slightly more blurry when enlarged.

To get around this when photographing small objects, a digital technique called "stacking" has been developed. People make a series of macro photos focusing on the subject from front to back (or back to front.) Then they use software to select out the in-focus rings from each photo, and assemble these rings into one image. What results is a macro image in which the entire subject is in focus. The more images with slightly differing focus used, the sharper the resulting image appears.

There are a number of threads here on Orchid Board in which members discuss their use of this technique. If you search on "stacking" you will find them.

[SG in CR]

It's been already been said, but the perceived superiority of human vision is very much a product of our own post-processing of the fairly poor images that our eyes actually capture. Our brains are amazing in their ability to completely ignore the out of focus areas and blind spot each of our eyes has and keep the small area of focus on what we are paying attention to at the moment.

[Wathepleela]

Thank you estacion seca, for taking the time and a very informative lecture (I mean this in a good sense) Which brings to mind a series of lectures from a Stanford professor that I caught on you tube (Marc Leroy) a while ago. I didn't go past the first couple of lectures because the prof started to teach how to look at an object "through a lens." He lost me there because I was thinking how can someone teach another person how to look at something. But now I realize that what he was going to teach was to see (3-D) things through a 2-D filter ie the lens. So I definitely am going back to his series and re-start from lecture one.

[Re macros and stacking, they are frankly not my thing. I don't want to see every hair on a flower pistils still strewn with morning dew droplets or at the other extreme every floor of the skycrapers on the city skyline at (a thunderingly colorful) sunset. However, the concept of a flat piece of glass (the focal plane) is something that I will have to learn to accomodate... On the other hand, the lady with the orchid series was able to convey the mood, namely her excitement and the beauty (as in the eye of the beholder) she first glimpsed in something that she had never paid attention to before (the orchids she inherited) and that's what captivated me. Her abilities to do that obviously lay far beyond the capabilities of her P/S camera. At this point I'm trespassing into the realm of art so let me step back.]

On the other hand, the color, contrast and lighting all concern me greatly.To be honest I'm still "coming to terms" with the realization that photography is basically a modern trompe l'oeil, in the sense that it translates 3-D vision to 2-D. We fool ourselves when looking at a physically flat presentation of life (most of the time) around us to think that we are seing something real. So let me break this down in the order from easy to difficult:
- lighting: get some lighting set up as several members here have suggested and learn how to use them. Okay, doable.
- contrast: get a better lens if you want/can afford it, with the caveat that better doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna be good enough - so "shop at your own perils." In a pinch (which is the majority of time) get it right in post processing.
- color: this is the trickiest item and till now I could never get the right color just right off the bat (or the shutter in this case). My camera can get the "core" color, but it needs help big time with post processing. Moreover, I shudder when you say that different lens each gives a different shade of blue on the same blue (or whatever color) object (btw, a link to the pics in question if you could.) However there remains another item that my camera could hardly capture: the color palette.

The two pics in my original post don't have the palette they "deserve." I could "borrow" one from photoshop's repertoire or wherever, but that would compromise the pink on the flowers, the primary color of the whole image. Let me describe the palette in question: it was mid morning, sunlight (not sunshine) suffused the landscape (my balcony,) the green of the leaves was greatly "enriched" by it but not altered, same goes for the white of the flowers. My camera/lens doesn't see it like that, meaning it misses the mid morning sun (or rather the feeling/mood of a sunny morning) altogether. I tweaked iso, white balance, and lately aperture/shutter, but probably my skills were not good enough to catch the "landscape suffused in sunlight." In short, this is what I want most in my photos and the hardest to get, but for now I can blame it as something lost in translation going from 3-D to 2-D (until I can better exploit my camera capabilities to their fullest?)

[estación seca]

People actually will spend many hours on one image, altering the color one small section at a time.

My Lou Sneary has flowers that are very close to blue. My phone takes them as pink:
Neostylis Lou Sneary 'Blue Horizon'