Camera Template

The forerunner to the camera was the camera obscura.[1] It was a dark chamber (in Latin, a camera obscura, demonstrating the etymology), consist[ing] of a darkened chamber or box, into which light is admitted through a pinhole (later a convex lens), forming an image of external objects on a surface of paper or glass, etc., placed at the focus of the lens". In the 6th century, Greek mathematician and architect Anthemius of Tralles used a type of camera obscura in his experiments. The camera obscura was described by the Arabic scientist Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) in his Book of Optics (1015–1021).

Scientist-monk Roger Bacon also studied the matter. The actual name of camera obscura was applied by mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler in his Ad Vitellionem paralipomena of 1604. He later added a lens and made the apparatus transportable, in the form of a tent. Irish scientist Robert Boyle and his assistant Robert Hooke developed a portable camera obscura in the 1660s.