Camera obscura

Desktop camera obscura. Screw-on lens with metal chassis (5 cm diameter x 5 cm deep). This portable camera obscura was used during the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century. It consisted of an empty box closed off to light except for a hole, with a lens that increased the luminosity of the image to be captured. The light rays were projected inside the camera on the wall opposite the objective where there was a mirror set at 45 degrees that sent the image to the upper part onto a piece of glass polished with emery so that the artist could copy it. This camera obscura also had a drawer in another that made it possible to shorten or lengthen the objective to focus the image. The first photographic tests were carried out with instruments similar to this one.