• qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website
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      8 months ago

      I’m curious what this actually is. Yes, we can see under moonlight and also at noon in the tropics, but not at the same time. It’s somewhat akin to the dynamic range of a camera — an 8bit B&W camera has a gigantic dynamic range if you allow for shutter, aperture, and gain settings to be adjusted.

      In other words, while the dynamic range of my eye over the course of an hour is maybe 60dB*, there is no way I can use that dynamic range in a single scene/“image”.

      *Just a guess from sunlight at ~1kW/m^2 to moonlight at roughly one millionth of that (super hand wavy I know).

      • mindbleach
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        8 months ago

        A screen is not a camera. Dynamic range in a display matters so that your eyes can adjust to it, the way they adjust to the environment. Real life can obviously have comically dark and comically bright parts simultaneously.