Ah, then I get it

This is my setup (zoom 0.7)

 

People will probably say that seems "too close," but I like it Jackson. It looks more appropriate than a lot of the others around here. I understand you have to balance function with realism with zoom levels, but I won't go any lower than 70. Most of the time I'm up on 80-90.

 

I'm serious guys:

Take a picture frame the size of your monitor, hold it in front of you at the same distance as your monitor and see how much of your car's dash you see. It's not that much, yet somehow simmers get this idea that you should see some crazy amount of the panel.

 

Like I said earlier, in order to use it more effectively, you're going to have to compromise a little, but I'd argue that you shouldn't over-do it.

 

 

 

Think about it:

Bring a non-flying friend in to show them a plane and they'll probably say "wow, that's a lot of gauges/buttons/knobs," and then point out the circuit breakers. They'll ask how you manage all of that, and then you point out that you only really deal with a couple at any given time.

 

Same goes with your view. Yeah, the periph is there, but do you actively do much with it? Not really. You look at what you need, and then look to the next item. As for whether or not that's feasible with your hardware, that's up to you.

People will probably say that seems "too close,"

You'r right...but as you also pointed out, the point is that if you want to use a wide field of view to have as many gauges as you can in sight, the image will look too distorted to be real...and if you try to reduce the zoom level and move your viewpoint backward you'll be too unrealistically far from the panel anyway ..if you sit on a real world 737 or any other commercial aircraft you realise how close you are to the MCP and forward panel....

Again, it's a matter of personal preferences, but I think my setup is the right compromise....and with Ezdok (now Opus camera....much better shakes and vibration effects) the feeling of "being there" is pretty good...

Regards

Look at the seats and place your camera there to start. You're going to sit pretty high and close to the glareshield.

 

Or, line up the top of the control column with the bottom of the screens. This is Boeing's official method.

Personally I never use anything lower than 0.8 for zoom. I just can't stand the fisheye effect, it really spoils it for me. Plus the displays becomes very hard to read as well with low numbers

i believe there's a genral way to set the eyeview, but every pilot set's his own view. so what's comfortable for you is what comfort to you. cheers.

As the OP I thought I would show you what I ended up with. After messing around with the view using the camera feature in OpusFSX and the different effects it gives you I came to the conclusion I actually thought the effects were more annoying than cool and after that I thought why add another thing into FSX (since I always try to keep is as "clean" as possible only enabling/installing stuff I really use) so I disabled the camera feature in OpusFSX and went back to the default view and using my TIR 5 in normal mode and this is what I get then and to me this feels very good but that could of course be because that's what I'm used to. Even though I don't see all the instruments, the PFD etc etc it's not a big problem since I only have to move my head a little bit to see what I want to thanks to TIR 5.

 

One trick you can do is sit in the Captain's chair and take a photo with a 55mm lens. Take another with a 100mm lens and that picture will be close to what your brain sees. i.e. the important field of view. If you can adjust your screen to that then that will be as realistic as you can get in the sim. Otherwise build your own cockpit and have surround vision.

How about dropping the HGS and aligning to it?

Or, line up the top of the control column with the bottom of the screens. This is Boeing's official method.

 

Boeing has an official method?

 

In the virtual cockpit, I align the fixation point of the camera to the location of the head rest, and adjust it from there if I feel it is too high or low to be realistic. I like seeing a good portion of the outside when flying (that's part of the fun), but I do agree that it is difficult to see the flight director bars clearly if I do not expand the PFD, which is somewhat unrealistic. I also like seeing part of the yoke, because my Saitek yoke has become imprecise, and I need a visual reference to determine whether my minute corrections are actually being registered by the aircraft.

 

The one thing I hate about FSX virtual cockpit cameras is the fatal inertia bug. I picked it up somewhere and reinstalls wouldn't help. Now my cameras always lose alignment during turns, and I have to use the keyboard to realign them with the center of the yoke. This is annoying when I am trying to align myself visually with the runway. I've gotten used to this, but it is still one of the most annoying aspects of the VC.