[irR4tiOn4L]

All I can say is you're missing the point and need to re-read my posts and the OP.

I think you're getting sidetracked by the OP's attempt to find an ingame FOV equivalent to a 50mm photography lens. Ignore that, he was just making the point that 39 fov, for him, on his monitor, made for an almost 1:1 visual representation.

The important thing to note is that the upper picture is taken at 39 FOV ingame and the lower (despite being smaller, again, its cropping, ie, you are not seeing the full screenshots, but part of them! Just ignore that) at 70 FOV.

The thing to look for is the relative SIZE of the aircraft at the same ingame distances (50m out to 4km) - you will note that the aircraft appear SMALLER at higher FOV's despite being the same distance from the ingame camera. You can see the same thing in the photos you have posted - notice how distant planes appear SMALLER at higher FOV's? This makes them much harder to spot at long distance, because their size on your screen decreases more rapidly and they become dots sooner.

Now look at the 3km and 4km distant aircraft in both the photos I provided. Remember, ingame, these are at the same distance. Notice how at 70 FOV both those aircraft have turned into 'dots', and are very difficult to spot, yet at 39 FOV they are both still models/tiny horizontal lines that are much more apparent?

THAT is what I am talking about when I say that the LOD rendering is different between 70 and 30 fov and that aircraft are MUCH easier to spot at 30 FOV than 70 FOV (provided you are looking in the right place).