Best Way to Confirm Movement is Within the Circle of Coverage for my Lens?

[RobC]

What actually counts in this respect is not the angle of coverage, but the circle of coverage.
And this varies with image magnification. (Keep in ind that with LF one easily gets into the macro-range.)

Angle of coverage creates the circle of coverage. I already mentioned the close focus effect.

 

[analog65]

Thanks Maris, I knew there must be another method. Thanks!!

Yes! Walk around to the front of the camera and look through the lens when it is set to the working aperture. If you can see all the corners of the format frame (= ground glass) then the ground glass can "see" you and everything else in the outside world. Trying to spot the exit pupil of the lens somewhere in the darkness of the camera by peering obliquely past the clipped corners of a ground glass can involve the most exquisite physical contortions....especially with wide angle lenses.

 

[analog65]

More great advice... Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!

Clipped glass corners are the easiest method for me. Otherwise, a bit of practice with your lenses will do the trick. And if you can use rear tilts or swings instead of front, do that. Ultrawide lenses are a pain in the butt, esp if the bellows gets pinched into the image area - a risk beginners are often unaware of. As Maris suggests, you could look through the lens itself, backwards, but that might not be such a good idea if you have you camera peering over the edge of a cliff (like I have often done), or on the side of the road with a big semi coming, pulling a mobile home. Anyway, with a bit of practice, one simply gets accustomed to what one's chosen lenses will or won't do. Fussing with published image circle data might be helpful when one is shopping for a lens in the first place, but it won't help much in the real world when various camera movements potentially come into play in the same shot.