FoV vs AoV

Distance is important, though we don't have to state what it is, just that it is the same (for the discussion in question).

I use FOV because that's the popular photographic term for the amount of the scene that is projected onto the sensor.

And this is why we still think of lenses in focal length. 50mm we understand. All the gobbledegook we don't.

46 degrees means nothing to anyone in a real world sense and neither does "100m wide view at 100m distance" because it's unwieldy and no-one can judge distances like that.

What we do is look through the viewfinder and zoom and/or move our position till we have the view we want. At that point the figures are not helpful anyway.

John, didn't they use FOV to calculate what will be in the frame in the early days?
Aren't we just spoiled

No, they looked to see what was in the frame. Nobody thought much of all this technical stuff till much, much later!

Mind you, I wonder what you mean by "the early days"? I'm referring to the days when a photographer might reach for "the twelve inch lens" before his head disappeared under the black hood.

I'm not that old, Stefan....

I was talking about around 1900, it must be so different to be a photographer those days.