Do you want to view from ground level without using First Person?

Start a new scene and reset the camera. Actually, it does not matter where the terrain is on the screen. Then press Page Down (Restore camera).
With a new scene there is no stored camera, but Page Down puts you in the centre of the landscape.
Press the down arrow a few times and you are at ground level with all the camera controls available

In settings if you take all the camera sliders to the left, you get this nice steadycam feel to it, great for recording a video. ALso if you havnt found it yet, Right Ctrl Activates Slow motion, neat for watching the birds and insects