28mm, 35mm, or 50mm: What Does Your Brain Actually See?

Some honest thoughts on a generational debate

There’s no shortage of experts online that’ll tell you which lens most closely resembles what your eye sees. But for whatever reason, I could never just accept one definitive answer. You’ll have a large camp asserting that 50mm is what the human eye sees. There’s another group that believes 35mm is more accurate. There’s some that’ll even vouch for 28mm. Oh, and there’s a science-back contingent that will fight for 43mm being the actual number. But which of them is right?

None of them.

Well, okay… there’s somebody that’s right from a scientific perspective. But photography is more art than science. While our eyes may see in a specific and measurable way, I believe our brains perceive the world differently from person to person. For me, what we see is the science and what we perceive is the art. So, the more interesting question would be, what focal length do we perceive the world in?

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Can You Tell The Difference?

Below you’ll find a series of photographs. I’d love for you to review them and leave a comment with which images feel like how you perceive the world around you, along with what focal length you think the image was captured with.

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Where Have I Landed?

The reason I could never accept one specific focal length for how I perceived the world was because it felt like my perception was always changing. At times, it felt like my vision was narrow and focused. Other times it felt wide and never-ending. So you could imagine, when I’m hearing all these experts and “experts” telling me that the human eye sees the world at a specific focal length, I just couldn't seem to accept it. I needed a better answer.