Glossary

Field of view

The angle of the scene a camera can capture or a display can fill, measured in degrees.

Field of view is the angle of what an optical system covers, measured in degrees. A wider field of view takes in more of a scene.

It means two different things here

On a camera it describes how much of the world a photo or video captures. Glasses cameras are usually wide, which suits capturing a scene as you saw it and is why footage from them often looks slightly stretched at the edges.

On a display it describes how much of your vision the image can occupy, and the numbers are much smaller. A display field of view in the tens of degrees is a panel floating in the middle of your view, not a screen filling it. Comparing a camera figure with a display figure is comparing two unrelated things that share a name.

Products that use it