We present a system for the measurement of the three-dimensional (3D) angular distribution function (ADF) of scattered or emitted light using a digital camera. The 3D ADF can be determined from the digital image captured from a reflective flat screen. With the developed camera-based system we can quantify the transmitted light scattered by textured samples or the light emitted from light sources in a few second's time. In the paper, the setup of the camera-based system is presented, the main transformations of the acquired digital image to obtain the 3D ADF are explained, and sensitivity issues are discussed. The system is applied to and validated on randomly nanotextured transparent samples and a calibrated light emitting device. Good matching is obtained with the measurements carried out with a conventional goniometric angular resolved scattering system.