Originally posted by monochrome Thank you for the insight. I'm more interested in the science of lens design and how we have morphed to 'sharp across the plane' from a more representative design consistent with human vision earlier.
I keep a K105/2.8 in my bag in the event we should ever get a FF sensor.
Here's some additional food for thought, or confusing information.
1) the horizontal FOV of the human eye is a bit over 180 degrees, but it is less vertically, and, obviously, both resolution and awareness of objects declines toward the periphery, although attention is quickly drawn to something moving in the peripheral area;
2) the horizontal
binocular FOV of the human eye is about 135 degrees;
3) the FOV of the human fovea is about 15 degrees, and for the central region of the fovea where receptor density is highest the FOV is only about 5 degrees;
4) For common focal lengths on 35mm full-frame, a 150mm has a near 15 degree diagonal FOV, and a 135mm has a near 15 degree horizontal FOV.
This suggests that the French artists whose paintings of urban scenes were investigated for that magazine article were including somewhat more than the area covered by their fovea, the eye region with highest acuity.
Also of interest found during my search: The static dynamic range of the human eye is about 6.5 EV steps, but with adjustments to the iris and chemical changes within the eyeball the entire brightness range perceptible is about 46 EV steps.
I could not find an on-line archive of all articles for either Modern Photography or Popular Photography magazines.