Panorama Field of View Calculator

Panorama Field of View Calculator

Planning a multi-frame panorama shoot? This calculator estimates the total field of view your stitched image will cover.

Effective New FOV Per Frame = Single Frame FOV x (1 - Overlap %)
Total FOV = Single Frame FOV + (Effective FOV x (Frames - 1))

Example

60° single-frame FOV, 5 frames total, 30% overlap between frames:

Effective New FOV = 42° → ~228 degrees total

Why Overlap Reduces Each Frame's Net Contribution

Only the non-overlapping portion of each additional frame adds new field of view to the total panorama - the overlapping section instead serves purely to give stitching software shared reference points to align the images accurately.

The 20-30% Overlap Guideline

Maintaining roughly 20-30% overlap between consecutive frames is a widely used guideline that balances enough shared detail for accurate automatic stitching against wasted, redundant coverage - too little overlap is a common cause of visible seams or outright stitching failures.