Moving Camera to View

So, I’ve read a ton of places that to move the camera to the view, all I have to do is press Ctrl + Alt + Numpad0

This is absolutely not working for me. While it does point the camera in the right direction, it is zooming in so far as to be useless. In order to get my object inside of the viewing area of the camera, I have to move my view out so far that the object is barely visible before using the shortcut.

How can I force the camera to move exactly where the view is, instead of nose to tailpipe with the object I’m working on?

You will never get an exact match, as the camera object has unique characteristics (as the sensor size, e. g.) that have influence on the framing but don’t have a counterpart in the viewport settings. Make sure you at least use the same focal length on both the virtual “viewport camera” and the camera object:


If your scene camera is a super-zoom 250 mm lens and your viewport a 25 mm wide-angle, there’s no way that’s ever going to match…:wink:

There may be other issues at play as well (didn’t check), as e. g. viewport = ortho vs. camera = perspective or the scene scale.

Enable “camera to view” in the options panel (press n to show). Then the camera will always be where your view is.

To expand on abcxyz’s post, there is an option in the properties tool shelf (press N) in the View section called “Lock camera to view”. Once you have your camera view active (press numpad-0), select the “Lock camera to view” checkbox, and you can move the camera view around using all the normal navigation keys and mouse moves. Whatever shows up in the camera frame will be what gets rendered.