The invention discloses a method for calibrating a camera shooting or photographing device, and belongs to the technical field of measurements. The method comprises the following steps of: presetting a position relationship between a calibration target and the camera shooting or photographing device; performing iterative computations according to coordinates of a preselected calibration point on the calibration target and a matching point of the calibration point on an actual image plane of the camera shooting or photographing device by utilizing an ideal lens imaging model, a lens distortion model and a collimation model; and calibrating the parameters of the camera shooting or photographing device. By the method, the position relationship between the calibration target and the camera shooting or photographing device is preset, the displacement calculation process of the optical center of the lens of the camera shooting or photographing device relative to the origin of coordinates of the plane of the calibration target is simplified, so that the whole calibration process is high-efficiency; and moreover, by the method, the problem that the parameters of the device are calibrated when the focusing is inaccurate can be effectively solved, the target pattern is only required to be photographed at one time, and the calibration efficiency is improved. In addition, the three-dimensional distance under the out-of-focus condition can be effectively measured.