the human eye vs. camera

[memorygap]

i was just wondering, what is the equivelent megapixel rating of the human eye? i would expect the back of the eye to be around the size of a 35mm negative commonly rated at around 10mp, it cant be any bigger than a 120 film negative which is rated somewhere around 50mp.
is there any research underway for a biological camera which uses the same processes as the human eye? and if so, how is it underway?

[spacemanspiff]

One thing I can tell you is that the human eye is not the same resolution across your visual field. Acuity is much better at the fovea than at the outer areas. It depends on how densly the neurons in the eye are packed. There is only so much room in there for various rods and cones. I'm not sure how the human eye compares to cameras in terms of resolution. I know that human vision an machine vison in general are very different things.

[Phobos]

interesting info about the capabilities of the human eye...(doesn't answer the full question though)
http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/ask/a11388.html

[Monique]

You might be interested in the following figure:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vision/imgvis/rcdist.gif

about rod and cone density on retina (rods are for aren't color sensitive, but are more sensitive than cones, who ARE color sensitive) on the following website: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vision/rodcone.html

[Monique]

Maybe this site? http://www.wdv.com/Eye/EyeBandwidth/

A Better Approximation: The Eye has 126 Million "Pixels"
According to Dr. John Penn, of the UAMS eye center, the adult retina has 126 million receptors. He points out that not all of these are activated under all lighting conditions, to wit, "as light environment increases in luminance, rod response becomes saturated long before cones are maximally functional."

Washington neuroscience agrees with Dr. Penn. According to this source there are 120 million rods and 6 million cones.
Using the figure of 126 million "pixels" or receptors a display device that met or exceeded the performance of a fixed, staring eye would have 11,225 pixels on an edge.