AstroMedia Camera obscura

The basis of a camera obscura, the precursor of the camera, is just that: a "dark chamber," the translation of its name from Latin. The principle of the construction, which has been documented since antiquity, is amazingly simple: a darkened room with a small hole in one wall through which the light from the outside world falls on the opposite wall of the chamber. The result of such a pinhole camera: an upside-down, side-inverted projection image of the outside world. The farther the projection wall is from the light aperture, the larger but also fainter the image - and the larger the light aperture, the brighter but also fuzzier the image in the chamber.

Because of this "light weakness," the first designs of a camera obscura were mainly suitable for observing very bright objects such as the sun. But with the invention of the ground glass lens, the problem of light intensity was solved: Placed in or in front of the light aperture, it was henceforth possible to focus the light and thus focus the image. This construction was still not optimal, since the projection was still upside down - until Johann Zahn, philosopher, optician, mathematician and much more, came up with the idea in 1686 of additionally installing a mirror at a 45° angle to the optical axis, which reflected the incident light onto a ground glass screen. Now the motif projections could even be drawn in perspective - an excellent drawing aid, as the Venetian painter Canaletto (actually Bernardo Bellotto, 1722-1780) also used for his famous vedute, including the city views of Dresden, Warsaw and Vienna.

The fully functional camera obscura, which you can construct yourself with this kit and thus immediately understand and use, also works according to this principle. All you need is a few hours of patience, all-purpose glue (instead of spit), a craft knife and some finely grained sandpaper. The illustrated assembly instructions guide you clearly through the individual steps of the construction and also give you tips on how to use the camera obscura.