CompuServe Messages

#Lenzfx

    27-Dec-94 10:58:27
Sb: #143742-#Lenzfx
Fm: David Rhoten 71450,2654
To: Scott Roberts 75604,1712
Scott: PMJI, but Aaron is correct. When you see an object, you don't really see it, but rather light rays bouncing off of it and entering your eyes. For all intents and purposes, the original source of those light rays doesn't matter (the sun, a lamp, car headlight) — the object COULD be thought of as emitting the light if you wish. Now, the light that the object reflects is based on its surface properties. Say the table surface in question was a matte red surface. You would see a red plane because all other light frequencies are absorbed by the table, and only the red are reflected. Now, if the table surface were a perfect mirror, then the light rays reflected to your eyes would actually be those leaving all other objects in the "field of view" of the table surface, hence a mirror image, or literally, a _reflection_. Now, because FOCUS is a concept for eyes and lenses, and not for light rays or surfaces (okay, you COULD make a case for surfaces, as the qualities of a surface could scatter the light rays in an out-of-focus-like manner), a reflection of an OUT-OF-FOCUS item off of an IN-FOCUS item will always be IN-FOCUS. Now, I think your original problem with the STILL.JPG was that you maintained that the table is partly out-of-focus, but that ALL of the reflection in it seems to be IN-focus. While I think this APPEARS to be the case, it is not. If you ZOOM in on the image in an image editing program, you will see that the reflection of the edge of the bulliten board BELOW where the stick-pin is laying is sharp, while where it continues above the pin it is fuzzier (esp. above the shadow to the table edge. The problem is the area of the table that is out of focus is so small and dim, and is at the back of the image, there is just not enough reflection on it to clearly see the reflection un-focused. Does any of this make sense, or am I just muddying the waters? Dave