The camera obscura (Latin; camera for "vaulted chamber/room", obscura for "dark", together "darkened chamber/room"; plural: camera obscuras or camerae obscurae) is an optical device that projects an image of its surroundings on a screen. It is used in drawing and for entertainment, and was one of the inventions that led to photography and the camera. The device consists of a box or room with a hole in one side. Light from an external scene passes through the hole and strikes a surface inside where it is reproduced, upside-down, but with color and perspective preserved. The image can be projected onto paper, and can then be traced to produce a highly accurate representation.
Using mirrors, as in the 18th century overhead version (illustrated in the History section below), it is possible to project a right-side-up image. Another more portable type is a box with an angled mirror projecting onto tracing paper placed on the glass top, the image being upright as viewed from the back.
As a pinhole is made smaller, the image gets sharper, but the projected image becomes dimmer. With too small a pinhole, however, the sharpness worsens, due to diffraction. Some practical camera obscuras use a lens rather than a pinhole because it allows a larger aperture, giving a usable brightness while maintaining focus. (See pinhole camera for construction information.)
Other articles related to "camera obscura, camera":
... Camera Obscura were formed in 1996 by Tracyanne Campbell, John Henderson, and Gavin Dunbar ... Camera Obscura's first album, Biggest Bluest Hi Fi, was released in 2001 ... band's second album, Underachievers Please Try Harder, was released in 2003 and was followed by Camera Obscura's first full tour of Britain and Ireland and the band's ...
... A freestanding room-sized camera obscura at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ... seen in the panel to the left of the door A freestanding room-sized camera obscura in the shape of a camera located in San Francisco at the Cliff House in Ocean Beach Image of the South Downs of Sussex as seen ...
... The Grand Union Camera Obscura is an unusual building which, via methods of light and mirrors, reflects images of the surrounding area onto large white screens within the dark confines of the building ... The apparatus used is called a camera obscura ...
... Leonardo's also describes a camera obscura in his Codex Atlanticus of 1478–1519 ... The camera obscura projects images and was already well known for centuries and documented by Ibn al-Haitham in his Book of Optics of 1011–1021 ... England Roger Bacon described the use of a camera obscura for the safe observation of solar eclipses, exactly because the viewer looks at the projected ...
... Camera Obscura Learn how eyes see light, the origins of photography and more in a guided tour of Camera Obscura ... Museum Theatre of Maine hosts one of fewer than 20 Camera Obscura in the United States ...
Famous quotes containing the word camera:
“If I were just curious, it would be very hard to say to someone, “I want to come to your house and have you talk to me and tell me the story of your life.” I mean people are going to say, “You’re crazy.” Plus they’re going to keep mighty guarded. But the camera is a kind of license. A lot of people, they want to be paid that much attention and that’s a reasonable kind of attention to be paid.”
—Diane Arbus (1923–1971)