Field of View ( FOV )

**Yousuf** · 16-03-2011, 16:09

One of the specs listed on rifle scopes, besides eye relief, objective, tube size (30mm etc), windage, elevation etc is field of view (FOV).

My knowledge with regard to FOV is insanely limited. If a particular scope manufacturer lists the FOV as follows:

Field of view at 100 m (m) : 14.0 (at 2.5x)/3.5 (at 10x)

What does this indicate?

Can anybody please explain this in layman terms?

**cerop** · 16-03-2011, 16:28

IIRC, this is the size of the area that you can see when looking through the scope, i.e. from the far-most left side to the far-most right side.
The more you are zoomed in, the smaller the FOV becomes, because everything gets bigger.

**Yousuf** · 16-03-2011, 16:39

Dankie tog. That is the best explanation I have got. Now I get it. Thank you

**cerop** · 16-03-2011, 16:42

Consider the following images. They are identical, the one is just zoomed 3x in size. The red squares are the same size (more or less) and represent your FOV. Thegreater the zoom, the smaller the FOV.

---------- Post added at 16:42 ---------- Previous post was at 16:41 ----------

Cool man, glad I could help!

**THOMAST** · 16-03-2011, 16:45

Originally Posted by Yousuf

Field of view at 100 m (m) : 14.0 (at 2.5x)/3.5 (at 10x)

What does this indicate?

It means that at 2.5x magnification you will be able to see the entire length of an object that is 14m long at 100m and only 3,5m of that same object at 10x magnification

---------- Post added at 16:45 ---------- Previous post was at 16:44 ----------

cerop, you are on the ball!

**cerop** · 16-03-2011, 16:48

Originally Posted by THOMAST

cerop, you are on the ball!

Hehe! It's a slow day...can't bug the CFR...

**JS4** · 16-03-2011, 16:51

As a practical example, my field of view of a thread is the same dimension as my computer screen... until Thomas posts anything whereupon my attention is immediately zoomed and my field of view is reduced to include only his avatar.

**THOMAST** · 16-03-2011, 17:11

It's supposed to be distracting. That way you won't pick any mistakkes I made...

**Yousuf** · 16-03-2011, 19:11

Thanks Thomast an Cerop and like JS4 says his attention is zoomed on those avatars, for me it is the only FOV zoomed or not.

**Dick** · 31-07-2011, 21:44

Field of view is the side to side width of territory you can see. It is directly related to magnification. You need a reasonable field of view, and the lack thereof is one of the problems of high magnification. There are others.