How a Camera is simillar to

your eyes
By Lena Butler
Comparing the Eye to a Camera (Intro)
Eye Camera
Comparing the Eye to a Camera (Receiving light)
Lens of the Eye Lens of the Camera
Continue this theme on until all parts of eye and
camera have been compared.
 The Human Eye
The human eye belongs to a general group called camera-type eyes. The cornea focuses light onto a light
sensitive membrane called the retina. The cornea is a transparent structure found in the very front of the
eye that helps focus all the incoming light. Behind your pupil is a colorless transparent structure called the
crystalline lens. Which a clear fluid called the aqueous humor fills the space between the cornea and iris.
The cornea focus the light which then passes through the lens that continues to focus the light. Behind the
cornea the ring shaped membrane is know as the iris. The iris has an adjustable circular opening known as
the pupil, which will expand or contract to control the amount of light entering the eye. Ciliary muscles
surrounded the lens so they hold the lens into place, but they also play an important role in your vision.
When the muscles relax they pull and flatten the lens allowing your eye to see objects that are far away. To
see objects closer to you the muscles contract to thicken the lens. The interior chamber of the eye is filled
with a jelly like tissue called the vitreous humor. After passing through the lens light must travel this humor
before striking the retina. The retina is the innermost of tissues in the eye. They outermost layer is called the
Sclera and the middle layer is the Choroid. The choroid contains blood vessels that supply the retina with
nutrients and oxygen it also removes the waste products. Now embedded in the retina are millions of light
sensitive cells which come in two main varieties: rods and cones. Your rods are used for monochrome vision
in poor light, while cones are used for color and the detection of fine detail. The cones are packed into a
small part retina called the fovea, which is responsible for sharp vision. When light strikes either the rods or
cones it is converted into an electrical signal that is relayed to the brain through the optic nerve. The brain
will then translate the signals into the image you see.
 The Camera
A camera is an optical instrument for recording or capturing images. The lens of the camera
captures the light from a subject and brings it into focus on the sensor. In a camera the lens
moves farther and closer to make the image appear closer or farther away. The aperture in a
camera allows the right amount of light to hit the film or sensor. Photographic paper is similar to
the rods and cones in the retina. The paper has 3 layers in every piece of photography paper
(red,green, and blue). Each is sensitive to the three wavelengths of color. When a picture is
developed on photosensitive paper, the different layer combine to create seamless full color just
like the cones do for your brain.
 The Mechanics of the camera
View Sinder- is a slot in the camera which allows you to preview the scene.

The Shutter- The shutter covers the sensor (or film in case of a film SLR). The shutter opens up when the
shutter-release button is pressed to allow the light to fall on the sensor/film and create a capture. The speed
of the shutter can be controlled which determines how long the shutter is open and what amount of the light
passes through. The shutter-speed is measured in seconds and varied typically from 30 sec. to 1/4000 sec.
The shutter has to be extremely light and thin to move at high speeds (about a few thousandths of a
second). A high shutter-speed allows the camera to freeze movements in the scene. A slow- shutter-speed
may induce motion-blur in the scene.

The Lens- The lens allows focusing, zooming and the use of an aperture to control the amount of light. The
optical qualities of the lens determine the quality of the photographs and the cost of the lens.

The aperture- The aperture is the opening inside the lens which allows light to pass through. The aperture
can be varied and its value is measured in f-stops or f-number. A smaller f-number represents a wider
aperture and a larger f-number represents a smaller aperture. The aperture not only controls the amount of
light, it also determined the depth-of-field in a scene.
 The camera acts like an eye
Your Cornea behaves much like the front lens element of a lens. Together with the
lens, which is behind the iris, they are the eye's focusing elements. The cornea takes
widely diverging rays of light and bends them through the pupil, the round opening in
the central portion of the coloured iris.

Your Iris and pupil act like the aperture of a camera. The iris is a muscle which,
when contracted, covers all but a small central portion of the lens, allows adjustable
control of the quantity of light entering the eye so that the eye can work well in a wide
range of viewing conditions, from dim to very bright light.

Finally, your Retina is the sensory layer that lines the very back of our eyes. It acts
very much like the imaging sensor chip in a digital camera. The retina has numerous
photoreceptor nerve cells that help change the light rays into electrical impulses and
send them through the optic nerve to the brain where an image (of what we see) is
finally received and perceived. Because of this reception and perception function,
retina is, perhaps, the most important component of our eyes. As with the camera, if
the "film" is bad in the eye (i.e. the retina), no matter how good rest of the eye is, we
will not get a good quality image or picture.
Parts of the eye like the camera
The outer covering of the eye is called the cornea and is simialr to a lens cover on
a camera. Except the cornea actually converges light by bending the rays into the
eye. Now the puipil is like the apature of a camera. It is a hole that allows light to
pass through. Now the retina sits in the back of the eye much like a film does in a
camera. According to the American Optometric Association, the retina is a thin
layer of tissue at the back of the eye that contains millions of tiny light-sensing
nerve cells called rods and cones. The retina changes the light into electrical
impulses and sends them to the brain through the optic nerve. The image is
perceived in the brain so a person actually sees with his brain, not his eye.
Comparably, a camera "sees" with film, or a memory card.