

Because your sensor is a rectangle, it captures the rectilinear portion of this cone. One thing to keep in mind is that inside your camera we’re actually working with circular images.
COLORCROSS FOV HOW TO
( How to choose the best focal length for portrait photography.) Put another way, the focal length is simply the distance from the camera sensor to the place where the light rays converge after going through the lens elements. (The optical center is where all the light rays converge after passing through the lens elements.) Rather, it’s the distance from the image plane to the optical center of the lens when the lens is focused at infinity. Let’s take a look at just what field of view is, how it relates to lens focal length, and how it ultimately can guide you in knowing which lenses are best for which situations.Ĭontrary to how it might seem, the lens focal length doesn’t refer to how long the lens is. Knowing the FOV will help you know exactly what focal length will work for you. Say, for example, you’re shooting portraits in a small garage and want to use a prime lens. It’s also useful to know the what field of view if you have a limited space to work in and you need to decide which lens to use. It’s ultimately what determines what kind of lens you’re going to buy. Well, what most of us are doing when buying a lens according to focal length is imagining what field of view it will create. It’s usually expressed in terms of degrees, referring to the literal angle of view your lens allows your sensor to see.

Simply defined, field of view (FOV) in photography is the observable world you can see through your camera at any given moment. In reality, field of view is actually what’s guiding their decision.

Unsurprisingly, many beginner photographers only think about focal length when they go to purchase a new camera lens. Knowing just how much of the world your camera will see is a key factor in choosing which lens to use. This allows us to have a fairly wide field of view: 180 degrees, give or take a few degrees of peripheral vision.Ĭamera lenses, with the exception of some fisheye lenses, see much less than that. Humans have binocular vision, meaning that we see with two eyes, not just one. You see, humans and cameras see quite differently. Ok, these two aren’t quite as tasty and the food combos, but they’re still pretty important! Many things in this world go hand-in hand: cookies and cream, peanut butter and jelly, bagels and salmon… In the photography world, we’ve got field of view and lens focal length.
