What is missing in all digital cameras

[Michael J. Hußmann]

But DOF also depends on the enlargement size.

It does when you take the resolving power of the viewer's eye as the limit. But I was getting at something else: the camera's resolution already provides a limit for the CoC that can ultimately be resolved, regardless of enlargement size and viewing distance. Furthermore, the limits imposed by the viewer aren't really that variable, as the typical viewing distance increases in proportion to the print size.

• Michael

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http://www.michael-hussmann.de

 

[becksi]

Secondly, if I - with my eyes - focus on a subject in proximity,
subjects farther away are out of focus and blurred. E.g. Let's say
I sit in my car and focus on my dashboard, I don't have in focus
what's beyond the windshield(and vice versa), do you?

No, but you're not looking at what's beyond the windscreen, you're
looking at the dashboard. When you look beyond your eyes instantly
(or close enough) refocus without you even realising it (unless
you're specifically watching for it), so the EFFECT is for
everything to be in focus. I say effect because that's what it is -
generally, when you concentrate on something, your eyes/brain pull
it into focus. Since you can only look at one thing at a time, your
eyes are constantly refocussing so everything APPEARS to be in
focus.

I know what you are trying to say, but I still can't completely agree with you - or better said - the way you post it. Because I think what you are describing can also be applied to a camera. The camera (and let's neglect the fact the eyes are faster) has the same capablity to refocus when you move from a close subject to one farther away (and vice versa). But that's not what I consider DOF. DOF is a certain range in focus at once vs. sequentially bringing objects in focus ("video streaming")

In my example I was trying to compare apples with apples (which I obviously failed to do). So if you try to take a "still picture" with you eyes, e.g by staring (focussing) at one subject and without moving your eyes, and you try to see anything in the periphery, those objects appear out-of-focus.

It may just be a matter of different definition.

The problem with your example is it's not a normal situation -
you're actively looking out for things like focus and DOF in your
eyes, not something people do in their everyday lives. I agree that
based on a static image, not everything will be in focus, but our
visual system doesn't work on static images, it's a constant stream
of video data which the brain combines to form a mental view of the
world that is not 100% realistic.

Reading this paragraph again, I see that this pretty much contains what I just wrote.
Well, ... thanks ... I enjoyed the nice discussion.

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Andy - http://www.caerphoto.com/