Kamerapunkt

Kamerapunkt is a German term that refers to the spatial position and orientation of a camera relative to a scene. It is used in both photography and cinematography as well as in technical fields such as computer vision and robotics to describe where and how a shot is captured.

In photography and filmmaking, der kamerapunkt describes where the camera is placed and at what angle it is aimed to capture a scene. This position influences perspective, framing, and depth cues, and it interacts with lens focal length and distance to control field of view and subject size. Changing the kamerapunkt can produce different aesthetic and narrative effects, such as a low-angle shot conveying power or a high-angle shot suggesting vulnerability. The kamerapunkt is planned together with blocking, lighting, and continuity to achieve the desired look across takes and scenes.

In technical contexts, particularly computer vision and camera calibration, the kamerapunkt denotes the camera pose in a world coordinate system. The extrinsic parameters (rotation R and translation t) describe how world coordinates map to the camera’s coordinate system, with the camera center C given by −Rᵀt. The intrinsic parameters define the camera’s internal geometry (focal length, principal point). Together, the extrinsic and intrinsic parameters determine how 3D scenes are projected into 2D images, which is essential for tasks such as 3D reconstruction, stereo vision, and SLAM.

Thus, kamerapunkt covers both the practical placement of a camera for image capture and the mathematical description of a camera’s position and orientation in space. In German-language sources it is commonly used, while English discussions typically use camera position or camera pose.