If I had eyes the same size as the recently dissected colossal squid’s, how would my vision be different to what it is now?
Would having massive eyes improve resolution and if so, by how much, or would it simply increase the effectiveness of night vision?
Wouldn’t it also depend on how many sensors there were in the retina? If your eyes were 30 cm across, but you only had the same number of rods and cones in your retina, you’d still have only the same visual acuity.
You might have a different perception of size and parallax, though, because the centrelines of your eyes were farther apart.
You’d probably have serious Night Vision, because those things live in some pretty deep waters and I would expect the size of those eyes is due to light-gathering.
Plus you’d look pretty damned funny and would probably be killed as a monster by some random freaked out local.
Since this is fantasy: you’d be able to see the much longer λ spectra. Infrared, maybe even microwaves. 
Not if you also have the “swiveling barbed clubs at the end of its tentacles”!
Yeow!
You would see most people only from the back, as they ran screaming from the freakish human with huge, colorless eyes. :eek:
Awesome! Fear me!
Hehe…
The relevant information is here
If the eye has a focal length of 27mm (the size of the eyeball as quoted in the article), then the f/# is 3.375. By comparison, the human eye, depending upon the size of the pupil at the time, has f/2 to f/8 ( f-number - Wikipedia ) The size of the diffraction spot is proportional to the f/number, so the Giant Squid, for all its size, has about the same resolution as the human eye. Even if the retina is packed with cones the same size as the human eye, the optics won’t let it resolve more finely.
So I should be saving up for that eyeball reduction surgery then?
Bummer.
Thanks!
But could those eyes shoot heat vision and fry rabbits at 40 yards?
As someone else said, you would have fantastic night vision, and would be the envy of every cash-strapped amateur astronomer. Telescopes are useful not so much for their magnification, but for their light-gathering power.
Yes, but with that size of a collection area, you would probably catch more photons. You, Corey Hart and Bono would have the market cornered on eye protection. But you would probably have to wear a welders mask during the day, and don’t even think about looking at the sun during an eclipse.
Timbuk 3 never really needed those shades in the first place.
This reminds me of the birds of prey with their extra Fovea, and a much higher light receptor concentration. They can see clearly from 2 miles up.
I think a squid would have similar vision to us as others have said assuming a similar receptor number, as the size of their eye is merely for light gathering. But, based on my knowledge of the eye, they probably have much abberation (what you see from oncoming car headlights) and probably can’t focus very well. Of course, millions of years of evolution may have corrected that in some way, or maybe the extremely low light environment they live in has minimal distortion.
On clearer days, you could probably see the Taj Majal or the Eiffel Tower.
