The results of magnetic field measurements of the large bending magnet of the MAGNEX spectrometer are presented. The experimental values are used to build an Enge function by the least-squares method. The resulting field is compared to the measured one, showing too large deviation for application to ray reconstruction techniques. Similarly, the experimental values are compared with results from a three-dimensional finite elements calculation. Again the deviations between measured and calculated field are too large for a direct application of the latter to ray reconstruction, while its reliability is sufficient for analysis purposes. In particular, it has been applied to study the effect of the inaccuracies in the probe location and orientation on the precision of field reconstruction, and to establish the requirements for the field interpolation. These inaccuracies are found to be rather important, especially for the transversal components of the field, with the consequence that their effect on the reconstructed field should be minimized by special interpolation algorithms.