How many megapixels does a picture need to be to be exactly as clear as a human eye would see it?

Question

okay so i read that the human eye isn't like a picture because it has a wider view and that it sees in about 500 megapixels, but I'm talking about a single picture.

How many megapixels does a picture have to be so that if a human eye saw only the frame set by the picture, the picture is no clearer than the human eye would be if it were looking JUST AT THE FRAME SET BY THE PICTURE, not a whole wide view that normal eye would be looking at?

basically, how clear does a picture have to be (in terms of megapixels) that a human seeing the same frame would be seeing it exactly as clear?

Answer 1

D L gave you an awesome link.  If someone gives you a simple, numerical answer they're lying or stupid.  A human eye is a lot more complex than a simple camera.  In the center of our eye the cones (pixels) are close together for high resolution for farther apart away from the center.  

Answer 2

really it comes down to the size you print at.  Basically the human eye can not distinguish anything printed past 300dpi.  Any higher than that is just a waste of memory.  So if you can print your photo at your desired size at 300dpi without having to shrink the file you are just fine.  So if your printing 8x10 and your file is 2400x3000 dpi at least to start with your just fine.  If my math is right that means a camera that captures 7.2 megapixels.

Answer 3

the info you want is here.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/how-we-s...