The bionic eye is a bionic replacement part developed by Will and Anthony Anthros for the Berkut Group. Both known bionic patients have bionic vision, although they have unequal abilities. Only Jaime Sommers' right eye has been replaced, while Sarah Corvus has two bionic eyes.
Capabilities[]
The use of the bionic eye, from Jaime's perspective.
Bionic eyes allow for advanced vision. The full range of properties have yet to be explored. However Jaime's eye gives her 2000/20 vision according to Jae in "Paradise Lost". They may give the user other advantages, such as targeting assistance and image brightening, but these suppositions have been implied by perspective camera angles, not specific dialogue.
Sarah Corvus uses her red-glowing eye
Sarah's contention that she received her initial eye from Will Anthros who "wasn't sure about the optical interface", suggests that her initial eye may have been a prototype less powerful than Jaime's eye. That her second eye was "self-installed", further implies that Sarah's own eyes may not have the same capabilities as each other, and that they may differ from Jaime's eye. ("Second Chances")
When in use, Sarah's eye glows red; Jaime's, green. This further suggests there is a difference between the two eyes, although it is unclear what the relative capabilities of the eyes are. By default, information from the bionic eye is relayed to the streaming optical interface at the base of the brain, and from there, back to the Berkut Group. It is possible, however, for the patient to turn off the flow of information from the eye to Berkut monitors. ("Sisterhood")
Jaime's eye allows her to calculate velocity of objects. In "Face Off", it clearly displays the rate of speed of a fan, allowing her to accurately time when to grab the blade. Later, it is shown to have micro-imaging capabilities, enabling her to detect the presence of thumbprints on a keypad.
Commonality with original Bionic series[]
Michelle Ryan's character has a significantly different eye than Lee Majors', which is itself quite different from that of the literary Steve Austin.
As deployed in the original source material, Cyborg, Steve Austin's "eye" was really a camera. It didn't, in fact, send images to Austin's brain, but instead recorded data for later use. In this sense, the bionic eye originally had more commonality with the current streaming optical interface.
In The Six Million Dollar Man, the bulk of hard, scientific data can be derived from the opening title sequence. There, the eye is rated as being a 43 mm lens, with an f-stop of 0.95, a zoom ratio of 20.2 to 1, and a 2135-line output. As of 2007, digital cameras have only recently surpassed these ratings, and most that do are not commonly available on the consumer market. Few real-life cameras — digital or otherwise — have all of these features combined.
Of these ratings, the closest basest of comparison with Ryan's character is the zoom ratio. This suggests, albeit quite imprecisely, that Ryan's character's eye may have up to 100 times the range of Austin's eye. Another feature of Austin's eye seen not only in the title but in active use throughout the series was its "extended chromatic response". In other words, Austin's eye could be used at infra-red and other spectral frequencies. This feature has so far not been explicitly discussed in an episode of Bionic Woman.
Later bionic patients in the original mythos, such as Kate Mason, were known to have improvements upon Austin's eye, but it is unclear how these patients compare with Ryan's character.