Yeah, it's a fascinating subject!

While our area of sharpest (and colorful) vision is only about 2 degrees, we can see nearly 180 degrees horizontally (think super wide-angle). Do you see any distorted lines, though?

We even have cells pre-computing color similar to YUV before delivering it to the brain. Evolution created our retina from brain tissue, by the way, you may consider it a pre-processor.

Our brain is generating a perfect illusion from what our eyes are sampling by fast movements (saccades).

And when you have your eyes dilated, it's like walking around outside with an f/1.4 lens and no ND :)

@zzap64: such religious propaganda does not belong in this forum.

Back2Topic: If i look around with my eyes, im fairly certain theres almost no DOF (its wide angle^^)
But what we do see is the 2 separate images in the "dof" area, where the eyes do not converge, which is something that even 3d videos dont have.

@zzap64
Argument from ignorance *rolleyes*

@fatpig

Yes, there is obvious DOF. Try to look a something close and immediately to something far away (or vice versa). You are going to feel that your eyes adjust. Complex irreducibility !

@Vitaliy_Kiselev

Maybe start a god thread ;-) Let us settle this endless debate once AND for all.

@bwhitz
Shallow DOF isn't completely natural. How often do you hold a fist one foot away from your one open eye and call that natural? When i look an my computer screen I see my tripod at the other side of the room. When I look down a straight road with trees on the sides of it I see all the trees in my field of view, I don't have anything outside of a relative focus point. 1 mm of the 3D plane isn't honed in on with everything else blurred out.

However, I believe people dislike shallow DOF because it is a cheap trick that is often used to very poor effect, not because it is or isn't natural. Robots destroying chicago is unnatural but people like it. People actually seem to like unnatural things more than natural things, like mcdonalds for example, or buying stuff from big retailers they 'trust,' (they really trust a policy, and guarantee, not a person) rather than from people they trust.

BTW, i personally love shallow DOF and trickling focus, but I avoid it because i get carried away. My 50mm 1.4 is awesome but it's surely not the least bit representative of what I see with my eyes, outside of the obvious -eg the imaging it takes.

back to topic
@b3guy
George Berkeley, interestingly enough, wrote some great, albeit outdated, hypothesis on human vision. It is part of his philosophical canon outside of his theology so that should be okay for forums.

An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Essay_Towards_a_New_Theory_of_Vision

@B3Guy

I always advice to find scientific papers on the subject.
Otherwise it quickly turn into useless chit-chat.

@tmcat "However, I believe people dislike shallow DOF because it is a cheap trick that is often used to very poor effect, not because it is or isn't natural."

This is not what people were saying 4 years ago in the interwebz... All people would do is complain about how deep DOF wasn't cinematic and spend thousands on giant rigs and 35mm adapters. Fast forward to 2011 where 35mm cameras are plentiful, and what do people do? Complain that shallow DOF is now a cheap trick. Why? Cognitive dissonance and basic psychology. Actually, it seems more like reverse cognitive dissonance... where people see something being used frequently my a large number of people, and in an industry about elitism, being different, and standing apart... attempt to discredit said technique by labeling it as a cheap trick or cliche. It's really just embedded jealousy spun by those who can't, and those who do. The war between the creative... and the technical/technique oriented.

Creative people don't give a crap, they want shallow DOF because they know people will perceive it as generally higher budget and like it for the general aesthetics. It really doesn't matter how many people use it, because in the end, their work stands on it's originality and creativity than just the technical merits. Technical people hate shallow DOF, because technical superiority and a more advanced tool set is all they have. It's really the only thing that separates their work from the rest of the competition. DOF use to be technically hard to achieve. Only made possible with 35mm film or expensive and complicated adapters. Now it can be had in $800 bodies that cost less than those old adapters of the past. Everyone has it. Again, the creative types don't care. But the technical/technique oriented see it as a threat, because now the only merits their work stood on, the technical and tool oriented, are diminished. The only hope they have left is to try to convince others (but mostly themselves) that it's now a cheap trick and worthless. This is cognitive dissonance and the ego trying to protect itself. It's also just... really dumb.

I've been reading internet forums about directing, cinematography, and film making long before DOF adapters and DSLRs. And NEVER has ANYONE said anything negative about shallow DOF until it became affordable to the masses via the DSLRs.

Shallow DOF is no more of a trick and cliche than motion photography itself.