Inside Your Eye: a Photograph.

Posted by Alex in Medicine on April 10, 2007 at 9:30 pm


From the website:

The inside of your eye is one thing you’re guaranteed never to get a good look at. Even if you could, the pupil is far too small an aperture to allow you to see the entire interior. University of Michigan ophthalmologic photographer Richard Hackel compares the problem to taking a picture of a room through a keyhole. To overcome this hurdle, Hackel uses a computer program to stitch together images taken from 20 different angles by a special digital camera. The result is an unusual, fully detailed map of the inside of a healthy 26-year-old’s eye.

Larger pic (very interesting): Link - via reddit



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COMMENT

6 comments to "Inside Your Eye: a Photograph."

  1. Cory OBrien
    April 11th, 2007 at 3:35 am

    I actually had this done today as part of an eye exam for a new contact prescription. You stare at a small blinking green light, and then there is a bright flash and you can’t see anything for a few seconds, but it’s much better than having your eyes dilated for up to six hours (the alternative). The resulting picture is amazingly detailed, and can tell the doctor quite a bit about your eye (mine even showed that I have lighter skin).

  2. Agnitio
    April 11th, 2007 at 6:43 am

    This is just a standard retinal photograph that pretty much all optometrists have the equipment to take.

    It is amazing technology but doesn’t need a computer program to piece together multiple photos to get the displayed photo.

    A $40K digital fundus camera is all you need.

    I’m an optical assistant and take upwards of 40 of these a day.

    The reason for the clarity in the shot of the 26 year old example is due to the large pupil size of a younger person.

    The above photos are posible with an older person but usually only after the above mentioned drops which dilate the pupils allowing the optometrist/opthalmologist to view the retina in extreme detail.

    If anyone requests i will post some retinal photos of some truly amazing eyes

  3. Jay
    April 11th, 2007 at 7:32 am

    I’m not sure I’d call the photography equipment “special” necessarily. The instrument my boss has is pretty fancy, but the camera is actually a Nikon D50. I know because when he got it I tried and tried to figure out a way to take it off so I could play with it when he wasn’t using it.

    Now, the other part of the apparatus might be pretty specialized, but not the camera. Other than the fact that a d50 is a pretty sweet camera…

  4. Robert Keith
    April 11th, 2007 at 8:04 am

    My optometrist takes these for me every year or so for ten dollars. He runs a time-lapse series over the past seven years to show that everything is OK.

    My violin teacher only became aware that he had diabetes when he could no longer read music or drive due to retinal deterioration. It is a pretty good tool.

  5. Mary
    April 11th, 2007 at 9:00 am

    Wowie zowie! I go to school at Rochester Institute of Technology and am majoring in Biomedical Photographic Communications and retinal maps are something my classmates do everyday as part of their training for ophthalmic photography. They can do this stuff with their eyes closed! Its a pretty routine procedure at your doctor’s office. Something like that does not belong in the likes of Discover magazine.

  6. anthony
    April 11th, 2007 at 10:36 am

    I am an optician in Madiosn,Wi.Our practice has had a retinal imaging device called an Optomap or Optos.It was thought of by a Scotsman 10+years ago when his son went blind in one eye due to an retinal detachment unseen by a n O.D.(Thats why you need to get an fundus exam every year boys and girls).
    It has a red and green laser that scans the retina in .25 secs and gives us 200 degree view of the retina.Awesome device plus we have caught numerous patients that wouldve lost their eyesight if it were not for the Optomap.Pt’s also love the fact that we can email these images to them .Sreensaver anyone?


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