CAMERA OBSCURA • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Camera obscura

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noun

Camera obscura n. (Opt.)

An apparatus in which the images of external objects, formed by a convex lens or a concave mirror, are thrown on a paper or other white surface placed in the focus of the lens or mirror within a darkened chamber, or box, so that the outlines may be traced.

(Photog.) An apparatus in which the image of an external object or objects is, by means of lenses, thrown upon a sensitized plate or surface placed at the back of an extensible darkened box or chamber variously modified; commonly called simply the camera.

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Etymology of 'Camera obscura'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Camera obscura" Quotes from Famous Books

... the discussion of the results. Two volumes (1676-1685) of proceedings were published by Sturm. The former, Collegium Experimentale sive Curiosum, begins with an account of the diving-bell, "a new invention''; next follow chapters on the camera obscura, the Torricellian experiment, the air-pump, ...

— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... the habit of saying to those who sit with him when he smokes his pipe, "was created in six days to be photographed. Man—and particularly woman—was made for the same purpose. Clouds are not made to give moisture nor trees to cast shade. They have been created in order to give the camera obscura something ...

— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie

... and from that distance under the temple you look down through a sleeping arcade of trees, and see the sails on the river passing suddenly and vanishing, as through a perspective glass. When you shut the door of this grotto, it becomes, on the instant, from a luminous room, a camera obscura, on the walls of which all the objects of the river, hills, woods, and boats are forming a moving picture, in their visible radiations; and when you have a mind to light it less, it affords you a very different scene. ...

— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... opened wide. Here at last was a topic that really interested her, and one that gave another amazing glimpse into the camera obscura of New York society. "Do you mean to say Mabel would be worse off, then? Couldn't she even go round as much as she ...

— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... greatly interested, and when the end of the telephone was applied to a microphone the room fairly rang with exultant cheers, and those looking through a kintograph (visual telegraph) terminating in a camera obscura on the shores of Baffin Bay were able to see engineers and workmen waving and throwing up their caps and falling into one another's arms in ecstasies of delight. When the excitement subsided, the president continued: "Chairman Wetmore, of ...

— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... ladies usually spent alone he was never in the way, for he was occupied the greatest part of the day in catching such views in the park as would make good paintings, in a portable camera obscura, and drawing from them, in order to secure some desirable fruits from his travels for himself and others. For many years past he had been in the habit of doing this in all remarkable places which ...

— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke