Mo-Tzu (Chinese philosopher, c.470?391 B.C.) Noted that light creates an inverted image when it passes through a pinhole in a screen.

For centuries, people with drawing skills had been using viewing devices like the camera obscura to copy nature precisely. The earliest cameras obscura were darkened rooms in houses, used for observing solar eclipses and scenery.

Some 16th-century artists used the room camera obscura as a drawing aid, tracing the image projected on the wall.

By the 1660s, portable box and tent cameras obscura were used widely by artists as drawing aids. A small box version could be carried under an artist's arm. It contained a lens in the front that focused the image onto a viewing screen of ground glass in the back. The artist traced the image projected onto the screen.

Last edited on 2005.03.13 05:30