Camera FOV

Camera Field Of View (FOV) calculation examples.

A common question is what type of resolution a camera will achieve when being flown and whether the resolution is sufficient.  Without more information about the camera resolution, lens, height of the camera and desired use for the information, the question can't be answered.  For instance, we have some customers that want enough resolution to detect small insects on a leaf while others are more concerned about estimating biomass in a field or identifying areas that need more fertilizer.  

With the small point and shoot cameras, the lens assembly is a zoom type where the user can choose wether the camera is shooting wide angle or wants to zoom in to a particular area.  Usually, the cameras are flown at wide angle so that the cameras can be flown close to the ground.

Listed below are some pixel spacing calculations for some common cameras.

 

 

Camera ELPH 300 ELPH 110 Canon SX260
Lens Equiv 24-120mm 24-120mm 25-500mm
effective Megapixels 12,100,000.00 16,100,000.00 12,100,000.00
Sensor   1/2.3 inch  
Horizontal Pixels 4,000.00 4,608.00  
Vertical Pixels 3,000.00 3,456.00  
Wide FOV Horiz Degrees 73.70 73.70 71.50
Wide FOV Vert Degrees 53.10 53.10 51.30
Wide FOV Diag Degrees 84.10 84.10 81.70
       
1000m FOV Horiz Meters 1,500.00 1,500.00 1,440.00
1000m FOV Vert Meters 1,000.00 1,000.00 960.00
Area Meters 1,500,000.00 1,500,000.00 1,382,400.00
Pixels per Meter^2 8.07 10.73 8.75
       
100m FOV Horiz Meters 150.00 150.00 144.00
100m FOV Vert Meters 100.00 100.00 96.00
Area Meters 15,000.00 15,000.00 13,824.00
Pixels per Meter^2 806.67 1,073.33 875.29
Pixels per Cent^2 0.08 0.11 0.09
       
10m FOV Horiz Meters 15.00 15.00 14.40
10m FOV Vert Meters 10.00 10.00 9.60
Area Meters 150.00 150.00 138.24
Pixels per Meter^2 80,666.67 107,333.33 87,528.94
Pixels per Cent^2 8.07 10.73 8.75
       
50m FOV Horiz Meters 75.00 75.00 72.00
50m FOV Vert Meters 50.00 50.00 48.00
Area Meters 3,750.00 3,750.00 3,456.00
Pixels per Meter^2 3,226.67 4,293.33 3,501.16
Pixels per Cent^2 0.32 0.43 0.35
       
25m FOV Horiz Meters 37.50 37.50 36.00
25m FOV Vert Meters 25.00 25.00 24.00
Area Meters 937.50 937.50 864.00
Pixels per Meter^2 12,906.67 17,173.33 14,004.63
Pixels per Cent^2 1.29 1.72 1.40
       
30m FOV Horiz Meters 45.00 45.00 43.20
30m FOV Vert Meters 30.00 30.00 28.80
Area Meters 1,350.00 1,350.00 1,244.16
Pixels per Meter^2 8,962.96 11,925.93 9,725.44
Pixels per Cent^2 0.90 1.19 0.97
       
28m FOV Horiz Meters 41.00 41.00 40.32
28m FOV Vert Meters 28.00 28.00 26.88
Area Meters 1,148.00 1,148.00 1,083.80
Pixels per Meter^2 10,540.07 14,024.39 11,164.40
Pixels per Cent^2 1.05 1.40 1.12
       
32m FOV Horiz Meters 46.50 47.00 46.80
32m FOV Vert Meters 31.00 32.00 30.72
Area Meters 1,441.50 1,504.00 1,437.70
Pixels per Meter^2 8,394.03 10,704.79 8,416.24
Pixels per Cent^2 0.84 1.07 0.84
       
       
32 meters = 105 feet