The point of an aerial photograph that lies at the optical axis of the camera, defined by the intersection of the lines drawn from the fiducial marks. The point to which the camera was pointing at the time of exposure.

One of the two points that each lens has along the optical axis. The principal point closer to the imaging device (CCD chip in our case) is used as a reference point when measuring the focal length of a lens.

The focal length of a thin, double-convex, single-element lens is the distance along the optical axis from the center of the lens to its focal point. This center point of the lens is called the principal point. However, since actual photographic lenses consist of combinations of several convex and concave lens elements, it is not visually apparent where the center of the lens might be. The principal point of a multi-element lens is therefore defined as the point on the optical axis at a distance equal to the focal length measured back toward the lens from the focal point. The principal point measured from the front focal point is called the front principal point, and the principal point measured from the rear focal point is called the rear principal point. The distance between these two principal points is called the principal point interval.