- 2005.006.01.01
- Item
- 2006
Part of Heritage Camera Collection
Item is a small, wooden camera obscura with a single meniskus lens to demonstrate function of matt glass focusing screen and focal length. It is a replica built in the style of the small "mousetrap" cameras designed by William Henry Fox Talbot in the mid 1830's. They were simple wooden boxes with a single lens used to expose paper negatives, sensitized by silver nitrate (the calotype or Talbotype process). Exposures often took hours, and Talbot had several of the cameras made by a local joiner near his country home in Laycock, Wiltshire.
Nassau, Wilhelm E.