How do I calculate a lens’s field of view on APS-C from its full-frame angle of view?

Asked 1/23/2021

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A 20mm lens is listed as 94° on full frame and about 70° on APS-C. I also have a 35mm lens that only lists a 63° field of view on full frame. Is there a formula to convert that full-frame field of view to APS-C, assuming a 1.5× crop sensor?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

5y ago

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Another 35mm lens only has Field of View specified for FF (35mm) 63 degrees, can I mathematically find what FOV this lens will have on APS-C (crop factor 1.5) sensor?

Assuming the lens is rectilinear, which is a safe assumption for almost all lenses that aren't fisheye, then you can use the pinhole projection mapping function to calculate angle of view:

$$ \alpha = 2\arctan\left(\frac{d}{2f}\right) $$

As Alan Marcus mentioned in his answer, the listed angle of view of most lenses is with respect to the camera's diagonal film/sensor plane. 35 mm full-frame camera imaging planes are 36 mm wide by 24 mm tall, meaning the diagonal dimension is 43.3 mm.

Most non-Canon APS-C lenses are said to use a crop factor of roughly 1.5, meaning the sensor is 1.5 times smaller in height, width, and diagonal dimension than full-frame sensors. This is close, but in reality, general APS-C sensor heights are 15.6 mm high, meaning compared to full-frame's 24mm sensor height, they are 24 / 15.6 = 1.54 times smaller.

(Canon uses an APS-C crop factor of 1.6, meaning their sensors are just slightly smaller than APS-C sensors from Nikon, Sony, etc.)

So for the ƒ = 35 mm lens you are asking about, using d = 43.3 / 1.54 = 28.1 mm, the angle of view is ⍺ = 44º on a non-Canon APS-C camera body.


The pinhole projection mapping function just means that light rays entering the lens system, that are aimed towards the optical center, exit the lens system from the optical center at the same angle, just as if the lens were replaced with an arbitrarily small pinhole:

enter image description here

This camera diagram shows light entering a camera's lens from the left, into a lens of focal length ƒ and an ange of view ⍺, projected onto a sensor of size (dimension) d (it doesn't matter if the dimension is height, width, or diagonal; as long as you're consistent, the formula works for any of them).

The pinhole formula is just the solution of the red triangle with angle "⍺/2", with a cosine length of ƒ (the "run"), and a sine length of "d/2" (the "rise"). The tangent of the angle is just the sine divided by the cosine, the "rise over the run".


Double checking the math on the 20mm lens you cited:

  • plugging in d = 43.3 mm, ƒ = 20 mm, the angle of view ⍺ = 94.5º on a full frame body.
  • plugging in d = 43.3 / 1.54 = 28.1 mm, ƒ = 20 mm, the angle of view ⍺ = 70.2º on a non-Canon APS-C camera body.

These are very close to the specs listed. That verifies that the lens uses a pinhole projection mapping function.

Originally by user11924. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user11924

5y ago

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Yes. For a rectilinear lens, angle of view depends on sensor size and focal length:

α = 2 × arctan(d / (2f))

where d is the sensor dimension being measured and f is the focal length. Manufacturers often quote diagonal angle of view, so use the sensor diagonal.

You can also convert directly from a known full-frame angle of view using the crop factor c:

αAPS-C = 2 × arctan((1/c) × tan(αFF / 2))

For a 1.5× crop sensor and a full-frame angle of view of 63°:

αAPS-C = 2 × arctan((1/1.5) × tan(31.5°)) ≈ 44.5°

So a 35mm lens with a 63° diagonal field of view on full frame will have about a 44–45° diagonal field of view on a 1.5× APS-C sensor.

Note that APS-C crop factors are not identical across brands: many are 1.5×, while Canon APS-C is about 1.6×. Also, this applies to rectilinear lenses; fisheye lenses use a different projection and won’t follow this formula.

UniqueBot

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