Editing Camera obscura (section)

==Role in the modern age==
[[File:Camerae-obscurae.jpg|thumb|Cameras obscura for [[daguerreotype]] called "''grand photographe''" produced by [[Charles Chevalier]] ([[Musée des Arts et Métiers]]).]]
While the technical principles of the ''camera obscura'' have been known since antiquity, the broad use of the technical concept in producing images with a [[linear perspective]] in paintings, maps, theatre setups, and architectural, and, later, photographic images and movies started in the Western Renaissance and the scientific revolution. Although [[Alhazen]] (Ibn al-Haytham) had already observed an optical effect and developed a pioneering theory of the refraction of light, he was less interested in producing images with it (compare [[Hans Belting]] 2005); the society he lived in was even hostile (compare [[Aniconism in Islam]]) toward personal images.<ref name="belt">Hans Belting Das echte Bild. Bildfragen als Glaubensfragen. München 2005, {{ISBN|3-406-53460-0}}</ref>

Western artists and philosophers used the Middle Eastern findings in new frameworks of epistemic relevance.<ref name=jim>An Anthropological Trompe L'Oeil for a Common World: An Essay on the Economy of Knowledge, Alberto Corsin Jimenez, Berghahn Books, 15 June 2013</ref> For example, [[Leonardo da Vinci]] used the ''camera obscura'' as a model of the eye, [[René Descartes]] for eye and mind, and [[John Locke]] started to use the ''camera obscura'' as a metaphor of human understanding per se.<ref name=pt>Philosophy of Technology: Practical, Historical and Other Dimensions P.T. Durbin Springer Science & Business Media</ref> The modern use of the ''camera obscura'' as an epistemic machine had important side effects for science.<ref name=beh>Contesting Visibility: Photographic Practices on the East African Coast Heike Behrend transcript, 2014</ref><ref name=id>[[Don Ihde]] Art Precedes Science: or Did the Camera Obscura Invent Modern Science? In Instruments in Art and Science: On the Architectonics of Cultural Boundaries in the 17th Century Helmar Schramm, Ludger Schwarte, Jan Lazardzig, Walter de Gruyter, 2008</ref>

While the use of the ''camera obscura'' has waxed and waned, one can still be built using a few simple items: a box, tracing paper, tape, foil, a box cutter, a pencil, and a blanket to keep out the light.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.camera-obscura.co.uk/|title=Camera Obscura and World of Illusions Edinburgh - fun for all the family|website=Camera Obscura and World of Illusions Edinburgh|access-date=9 December 2021|archive-date=9 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211209142911/https://www.camera-obscura.co.uk/|url-status=live}}</ref> Homemade ''camera obscura'' are popular primary- and secondary-school science or art projects.

In 1827, critic Vergnaud complained about the frequent use of ''camera obscura'' in producing many of the paintings at that year's Salon exhibition in Paris: "Is the public to blame, the artists, or the jury, when history paintings, already rare, are sacrificed to genre painting, and what genre at that!... that of the ''camera obscura''."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Pinson|first=Stephen|date=2003-07-01|title=Daguerre, expérimentateur du visuel|url=http://journals.openedition.org/etudesphotographiques/345|journal=Études photographiques|language=fr|issue=13|pages=110–135|issn=1270-9050|access-date=10 April 2020|archive-date=22 May 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200522223015/https://journals.openedition.org/etudesphotographiques/345|url-status=live}}</ref> (translated from French)

British photographer [[Richard Learoyd]] has specialized in making pictures of his models and motifs with a ''camera obscura'' instead of a modern camera, combining it with the [[ilfochrome]] process which creates large grainless prints.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/about/news-blog/2021/april/richard-learoyd-interview/| title = Exuberant and tragic poppies: An interview with Richard Learoyd| access-date = 19 December 2021| archive-date = 19 December 2021| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20211219101404/https://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/about/news-blog/2021/april/richard-learoyd-interview/| url-status = live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url = https://hyperallergic.com/160003/photography-without-negatives/| title = Photography Without Negatives| date = 3 November 2014| access-date = 20 December 2021| archive-date = 20 December 2021| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20211220164101/https://hyperallergic.com/160003/photography-without-negatives/| url-status = live}}</ref>

Other contemporary visual artists who have explicitly used ''camera obscura'' in their artworks include [[James Turrell]], [[Abelardo Morell]], [[Minnie Weisz]], [[Robert Calafiore]], [[Vera Lutter]], [[Marja Pirilä]], and [[Shi Guorui]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Contemporary Photographers and the Camera Obscura |url=https://www.irequireart.com/blog/2019/02/14/contemporary-photographers-and-the-camera-obscura-by-laura-gardner-heyrman/ |website=I Require Art |access-date=2022-01-17 |date=14 February 2019 |archive-date=18 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220118182754/https://www.irequireart.com/blog/2019/02/14/contemporary-photographers-and-the-camera-obscura-by-laura-gardner-heyrman/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Digital cameras ===
[[File: Pikaraitiotie 15.jpg|thumb|[[Tram|A tram]] photographed with a pinhole objective attached to the [[lens mount]] of a [[digital camera]] ]]
Camera obscura principle pinhole objectives [[Machining|machined]] out of [[aluminium]] are commercially available.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://thingyfy.com/collections/pinhole-lens |title= Pinhole Lens |publisher= Thingyfy |access-date= 2023-10-24 |archive-date= 4 June 2023 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20230604173554/https://thingyfy.com/collections/pinhole-lens |url-status= live }}</ref> As the luminosity of the image is very weak in the phenomenon, long exposure times or high sensitivity must be used in digital photography. The resulting image appears hazy and the image is not that sharp, even if the objective is attached to a [[state of the art]] camera body.