I just bought an '09 Prius, which I love so far. Only glitch seems to be that the backup camera was working fine for a day or two, then it seems to have shifted. I can see a car right behind me when I'm parking, but the camera's showing that I've got TONS of space. Why is this? Anybody know?
Get used to it, that's the way it is. I just glance at it to get a feeling of what is behind me then I use my mirrors and look over my shoulder to really see where I am and how close things are. It's the same effect as the passenger side mirror, "objects are closer than they appear".
I found that if you are backing up and you pick out a feature on the ground and back up till it is still in the camera's view but just barely. Then get out and see just how it is situated compared to your bumper and that will give you an idea of how to use the backup display and how close objects really are.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not relying on it solely, but what my main issue is is that sometimes it's right on (within a foot, I mean) and like yesterday, it looked like I had about 5 feet left but really, I was about to back up into this car. Why the discrepancy?
It uses a very wide angle lens in order to get the most into the picture. Ever seen a picture taken with a "fish-eye" lens? Similar effect. You will get fgairly well accustomed to it eventually.
Due to the fisheye lens, you should be able to see the edge of your rear bumper at the bottom of the screen. If not, then the camera is not mounted correctly. The field of view should not change.
No, not sometimes. The variation is in your interpretation, not the presentation of the camera. Trust me, neither the focal length of the lens nor the mapping from the camera sensor to the display is changing. Cheer up, interpreting super wide-angle does not exactly come naturally to us humans. As another poster suggested, I also suggest the exercise of observing some specific points in the field of view as portrayed by the camera, then stepping out and looking at them. It is really shocking to see how close you are to a curb by the time it disappears from the camera field of view.
There is such a thing as software that can "flatten" the image from a wide-angle camera, but Toyota has not gone that way. They have purchased a very high-quality lens - the image is much better than what you will see from some other backup cameras. Road Fan
