The ability to move the "eyepoint" away from the aircraft in spot view would be very welcome, even though it was a feature of past flight simulators.

1 hour ago, cobalt said:

MSFS is an entirely new sim, so talking about stuff that existed in earlier simulators is irrelevant. Sounds to me like you should stick with FS5-- you will be happier there. 

No?

During the alpha you could literally change the cameras.cfg file to work the way we want, but they broke it sometime during final development. They could simply un-break it again and let us define our own camera position. No this would not break the new system.

You can optical zoom in by pressing the + and - keys on your numeric keypad. This will remove the wide angle effect. Of course you need to position the camera further away from te plane then.
I personally like the camera system very much.

4 hours ago, bvdboomen said:

You can optical zoom in by pressing the + and - keys on your numeric keypad. This will remove the wide angle effect. Of course you need to position the camera further away from te plane then.
I personally like the camera system very much.

And those who have actually taken the trouble to investigate the camera and learn how to use it would know this.

4 hours ago, bvdboomen said:

You can optical zoom in by pressing the + and - keys on your numeric keypad. This will remove the wide angle effect. Of course you need to position the camera further away from te plane then.
I personally like the camera system very much.

I do not mind the camera system, but do wish there was a way to zoom it out further in optical zoom.  Anybody know of any tweaks to zoom out the camera further?

Edited January 10, 20224 yr by Pugilist2

1 hour ago, cobalt said:

And those who have actually taken the trouble to investigate the camera and learn how to use it would know this.

And those who have actually taken the time to read the complaints would realize this doesn't address the problem at hand. There is no way to change your distance from the aircraft in external view, only zoom. Zoom != Distance.

I've spent many hours tweaking configs, reading SDK documents, looking at simconnect vars, reading forums, asking devs, and nobody has a solution for this.

Edited January 10, 20224 yr by kiwikat

2 hours ago, kiwikat said:

And those who have actually taken the time to read the complaints would realize this doesn't address the problem at hand. There is no way to change your distance from the aircraft in external view, only zoom. Zoom != Distance.

I've spent many hours tweaking configs, reading SDK documents, looking at simconnect vars, reading forums, asking devs, and nobody has a solution for this.

Sorry, but you are wrong. In drone mode W moves the external view forward and S moves it backward  (A and D move it left and right). You can move the view as far away as you want in any direction, even to where the plane is a tiny dot in the distance. Num 5 conveniently resets the view to just above and behind the plane. As has already been said in this discussion (and many times in the past), the drone is a great feature and far more versatile than cameras in earlier sims.

Edited January 10, 20224 yr by cobalt

23 minutes ago, cobalt said:

In drone mode

We are not asking about drone mode. If we were asking about that we would have said so. If you don’t have solutions for the problem we’re trying to solve (external view) you should move on to another thread or maybe use a certain forum feature that hides this apparently confusing discussion.

9 minutes ago, kiwikat said:

We are not asking about drone mode. If we were asking about that we would have said so. If you don’t have solutions for the problem we’re trying to solve (external view) you should move on to another thread or maybe use a certain forum feature that hides this apparently confusing discussion.

You said external view. I described external view. If you want to exclude use of the drone, that's your problem. Good luck.

Drone mode and external view are indeed two different views. I only use external view for quick panning around with my POV head on the stick to scan the area for nice views. If I find something I like, I then use the drone mode to creatively position the camera to take a screenshot.
 

edit

Edited January 10, 20224 yr by Rockliffe

On 1/8/2022 at 8:23 PM, cobalt said:

not difficult to use once you make the effort to learn it.

Could you maybe do a TedTalk on it?  JK, but I will see if Youtube has anything.  I'm sure I'm using it in very limited fashion.

3 hours ago, Noel said:

Could you maybe do a TedTalk on it?  JK, but I will see if Youtube has anything.  I'm sure I'm using it in very limited fashion.

There are already several videos and other sources of information: google "msfs drone". It really boils down to hitting Insert to toggle the drone on and off, and then using the handful of commands I listed in an earlier post in this thread, to move the camera around. There are other options and commands that I haven't really explored. Like you, I'm using it in limited fashion, but it's all I need or want for now. The aversion of some to using it, is a mystery to me. I think it's a fantastic tool. 

Edited January 11, 20224 yr by cobalt

On 1/10/2022 at 6:56 PM, kiwikat said:

And those who have actually taken the time to read the complaints would realize this doesn't address the problem at hand. There is no way to change your distance from the aircraft in external view, only zoom. Zoom != Distance.

I've spent many hours tweaking configs, reading SDK documents, looking at simconnect vars, reading forums, asking devs, and nobody has a solution for this.

The release notes for SU9 Beta say this:

GENERAL

21. Added an optional settings to camera.cfg files allowing to change the distance between the external camera and the plane

Maybe a solution at last?

19 minutes ago, RodosMike said:

The release notes for SU9 Beta say this:

GENERAL

21. Added an optional settings to camera.cfg files allowing to change the distance between the external camera and the plane

Maybe a solution at last?

I hope so! It would be nice if the distance could be changed on the fly like in FSX.

I personally prefer to be able to toggle between cockpit, external, and cabin view with 1 single button and then in external, pan around the aircraft as the focal point and change distance (not zoom) to it with ease.

Cant wait to have the distance part back.