Camera Lucidas

Camera Lucida

The Camera Lucida is an optical devices designed to aid in producing accurate drawings. It works by taking a prism with a single reflective surface and mounting it at eye-level above the drawing surface. The prism must be mounted in a very precise way in order to work correctly. The reflective side of the prism has to be able to reflect the image of the drawing subject at a ninety degree angle directly into the artist’s eye. In addition, the image of the paper must also be refracted so that it hits the eye at the same time, in the same place. In other words, the image of the subject and the image of the paper hit the artist’s eye at the exact same time, and are superimposed on each other. The artist can then “trace” the image of the subject that he “sees” on the paper. The Camera Lucida was supposedly invented in 1806 by chemist and physicist William Hyde Wollaston; however there is evidence that the device was actually invented nearly 200 years earlier in 1611 by mathematician Johannes Kepler, who called it a Dioptrice. The name, which means “light room,” is meant to recall the much older “camera obscura” or “dark room,” a similar drawing tool that projects an image of the subject on a drawing surface.

Camera Lucida Sales

Although not well-known or in common use today, Camera Lucidas are still available at artist supply stores and over the internet. The Camera Lucida company is a company that makes Camera Lucidias that they describe as “re-designed for the 21st century.” Although based in the UK, they ship around the world, but their products are fairly expensive, especially for such a simple drawing toy. An order placed in the US would cost 107 British Pounds, including shipping, which works out to over 200 American Dollars for a mirror on a stick.

Build A Camera Lucida

Really, it’s better not to try. Kepler, the person who invented the device, had an estimated IQ of 175, and wrote the laws that explain how planets move. Wollaston, his successor, discovered two chemical elements. Unless you’re some kind of professor of optics or geometry with access to a semi-silvered prism of the right dimensions, a very accurate protractor and a lot of time on your hands, you’re far, far *far* better off just going out and buying one.