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| Glasgow |
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| University of Glasgow, Glasgow |
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| University Gardens, Glasgow |
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| Glasgow Because there is no zoom on the camera obscura objects in the distance appear very small. |
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| Glasgow |
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| Glasgow |
These Images turned out surprisingly well, there was a halo effect but not to the extent that the image is completely obscured. The camera obscura's focal range seemed much smaller than that of most digital cameras and with large objects such as buildings it was often difficult to keep the entire object in focus, this coupled with the halo effect made the periphery hard to make out but left the centre visible. Because the interior box wasn't completely rectangular the plastic screen was crinkled when it was fitted into the outer box. The crinkles become more apparent when looking at the screen from an angle. Fortunately however while the viewed head on it seemed to have very little impact on the quality of the image.
I didn't resolve all the problems this time but I'm sure if I where to make another camera obscura I could have done a better job. I don't know exactly what caused the halo effect but it seemed to be a more of an issue in brighter spaces, therefore I theorize that if a small piece with a hole was fitted on the front end over the lens it would have produced a more balanced image. The crinkling is a simpler problem to fix, if the interior and exterior chambers had been exactly the same shape only on a different scale the screen wouldn't have been distorted when they where fitted together.
Understanding the camera obscura helped me understand the history of photography and the pursuit of capturing images. The camera obscura was first invented by Ibn al-Haytham in the 10th century and it was used to further our knowledge how light works. In the 16th the pinhole was replaced by a lens which allows the camera obscura to produce both a clear and bright image. It's widely speculated that painters in the 17th century that it's used the camera obscura to create very realist paintings (Jelley 2013). I believe the camera obscura was fusion of elements from scientist and of art. Both scientist and artists seek to understand the on some deeper level scientist want to understand the way light works and artist want to understand the way prospective works, which are really only two sides of the same coin. I believe both were drawn to the camera obscura because it offered it's self as a tool to understand the world. Artiest such as Johannes Vermeer where able to use the camera obscura as a soled foundation for there masterpieces and scientists such as Giambattista della Porta where able to uses the concepts behind the camera obscura to understand the human eye.
The camera obscura was vital to the development on modern day cameras, although the obscura is a functioning device in its self it's also possible to think is it as an incomplete camera. All the concepts of using a lens to project an inverted copy of an image are the same, what separates an camera obscura from a camera is a photographic plate or some kind of recording medium. In the 17th century that recording medium was a human painter but today we can do it with an electronic device but the goals haven't changed, that is to preserve reality in a image.
Jelley, Jane. From Perception to Paint: the Practical Use of the Camera Obscura in the Time of Vermeer. Oxford: Brill, 2013. PDF.
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