Of coarse not. The very first sentence explains why I am right and you are wrong - "In optics, particularly film and photography . . ." I have a rudimentary knowledge of how focus and depth of field works in camera systems, and the eye works differently. For example a 50 mm lens in a camera is considered a normal lens, in that photographers generally accept that the 50mm lens sees what the eye sees. But the closest a 50 mm lens can focus is about 2' - and of course the eye can focus much closer than that. Conversely a 500 mm lens has a very narrow depth of field - if you take a picture of a fox head on, it's eye might be in sharp focus, but everything behind it's shoulder is out of focus. This is because the camera lens compresses distance, but the eye does not. Interestingly enough camera lenses increase their depth of field by adjusting their F stops - which is in effect an aperture inside the lens body.
jaycee, I am only talking in circles because you are refusing to accept what I tell you, so the discussion is likely to go round and round adnauseum. But fear not, I will continue to try to get my point across.
Range finding is very much the point of the discussion. I think we agree that we can focus on two objects side by side at the same range. I can assure you that when the normal benchmarks we use to estimate range are removed from our vision, all distant objects visible appear to be in a single focal plane. Only if we can be certain that the two objects are of similar size, can we then deduce that the one which appears smaller is actually farther away. This is why the post and front sight analogy works. The only way your argument can stand up is if you can be sure that the two objects are in fact at different ranges. Because the eye has such a long depth of field, we are pretty poor at estimating range - particularly when the common indexes we depend on are not there.
Once an object is in your far field focus it remains in focus, until you are distracted by an object in your close field focus, or in your peripheral vision, which I would define as what you see on the outside edge of your normal vision. This would most often be to your left or right, but it could also be above or below you, but it would not be off in the distance. You cannot focus on objects in your peripheral vision, you can only be aware of them, that is until you focus your attention onto them. Once you focus on these new objects which are now centered in your normal vision, the objects which you had focused on are now on the periphery of your vision, so you can only be aware of them but would be unable to focus on them.
When we look through our ghost ring rear sight, we are adjusting the width and breadth of our normal vision to a very narrow path. It would be very difficult to observe objects in our peripheral vision when looking at the front sight through an aperture. For this reason when the shot is being made on a live target it is preferable to keep both eyes open - but this is not possible for everyone. As long as we look through that aperture, the front sight will provide us with a sharp and precise index of where our bullet will strike our in focus target.
I should add at this juncture that I am not saying that I can see a distant object in as much detail as I can a closer one, I cannot. What I am saying however, is that when I see an object in the distance, that object does not become less distinct due to the presence of, or to my attention to, a front sight when viewed through an aperture rear sight.
