Camera Obscura Photography Device

Camera Obscura is a device or technique used for photography. Basically it is a thread to the development of the modern type of camera. The basic principle of the Camera Obscura can be easily understood by going through the fundamentals of photography. Take a box of about a size of a room make a hole in one side of that box. If you make arrangement for light passing from that hole the light will illuminate specific part of the wall of one side.

The theory of Camera Obscura was first traced in Chinese literature about 470 BCE to 390 BCE by Mozi a philosopher of that period. Even the principle bears some obligation from Newtons third law of Motion. Aristotle too was acquainted with the principle of Camera Obscura. He observed the crescent shape of a partially eclipsed sun projected on the ground through the holes in a sieve, and the gaps between leaves of a plane tree.

The theory of Camera Obscura was not unknown in Arabian world. A scientist of Persian origin named Abu Ali Al-Hasan Ibn al-Haitham, had experimented many times and used the term Darkroom. Throughout his experiment he stressed on the point that light travels in time and with speed. In his experiment he proved that, if the hole was covered with a curtain and the curtain was taken off, the light traveling from the hole to the opposite wall will consume time.

Leonardo da Vinci the great painter has first deciphered the fact behind the image that our eyes form through the theory of Camera Obscura. The credit of inventing the Pinhole Camera and Camera Obscura is designated to Ibn al-Haitham. Several decades after the death of Ibn al-Haitham's a Chinese scientist Shen Kuo (1031-1095 AD) experimented with camera obscura, and was the first to apply geometrical and quantitative attributes to it in his book of 1088 AD, the Dream Pool Essays.

In the beginning the models of Camera Obscura were very bulky comprising a darkened room or a tent when Johannes Kepler used it for the first time. 18th century saw the development in this technique. Robert Boyle and Robert Hook are the two names who are credited to the development of easy-to-use portable models. These models were instant hit in between the amateur artists. Such cameras were later used by Louis Daguerre and William Fox Talbot for creating photographs.

Camera Obscura now has a greater attraction for tourists. Many times it is shown in life-size chamber in the premises of a large building that can be darkened giving the charm of a live panorama of the whole earth. It is projected into a horizontal surface through a rotating lens. This wonderful view is still holds an attraction in many parts of the world. Camera obscura