Camera.

An optical device used to record light patterns and thus take photographs.

The term derives from the Latin “camera obscura” - literally, “dark room.” The camera obscura was just that - a dark room with a small hole in one wall. Light would enter the room through this hole and cast an inverted image on the opposite wall. It was essentially, therefore, a giant pinhole camera and did not use a lens. In the days before film the camera obscura was used as a drawing aid for artists.

cf. pinhole camera, lens.

Entry last updated 2002-04-04. Term 176 of 1487.

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