Reducing hither to a smaller number can help, however, in letting you find these problems in the first place, before reaching render. By taking it down to a number close to zero (or zero itself, if you want), you can then see pretty much what's going to be in the camera for the render view - allowing you to recognise where props might be in the way and so on. Then you can move the camera in front of the problem prop, or make it invisible, or do whatever you decide is necessary for the render to work the way you want it to.

jonthecelt