How To Use Camera Lucida

The photographic camera lucida is more often than not considered to have been invented past the English chemist Westward. H. Wollaston in 1806-07, although there is some speculation that it is a reinvention of a device described past Kepler some 200 years before. The term photographic camera lucida ways 'lite room' and information technology indicates that the device didn't require the darkened space that had been necessary for the earlier photographic camera obscura. There is no projected prototype and it is based on very different optical principles. A camera lucida consists of a elementary prism and lens that allow an artist to see the scene that they depicting superimposed over the paper that they are drawing on, so that they can simply trace effectually the prototype. The rest of the device comprises of a clamp and extendable arm, with which it can be securely stock-still in position to 1 side of the artist's cartoon lath or sketch pad with the prism set at a convenient peak.

A French photographic camera lucida or 'Chambre Claire Universelle', made by Breveté South.G.D.G., with a set of 12 numbered lenses.

Detail of the prism (set up within the black holder) and lens.

Looking downward through the very edge of the prism, the subject area is seen the correct mode up on the drawing surface, as shown in the above photos.

As the superimposed images tend to be quite faint, white paper tin be likewise brilliant for the image to appear clearly. Drawing in chalk on black paper can be used to achieve amend results.

These instructions for the 'Chambre Claire Universelle' explain which of the different numbered lenses is to be used in diverse circumstances, dependant on the height of the prism above the newspaper and the distance of the subject being drawn. Increasing the pinnacle of the prism above the drawing surface creates a larger image.

A 19th century engraving by C. Varley made using a camera lucida, depicting G. Dollond who is besides cartoon with the device. George Dollond (1774-1852), who was a noted maker of telescopes and other optical instruments, helped popularise the photographic camera lucida in England.

Information technology was afterwards using a photographic camera lucida in 1833 that the the pioneer of photography William Pull a fast one on Talbot began his attempts to fix images chemically.

David Hockney has speculated on how dandy artists have used the camera lucida in his book 'Secret Noesis: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Sometime Masters'. (for a very brief summary of some of these ideas, see his article in RA Magazine from Summer 1999).

A two-office BBC documentary based on Hockney'southward book is available on YouTube (Pt1, Pt2).

Farther information on how to use a camera lucida can be institute at Gilai Collectibles.

For an updated take of the aforementioned principle, an iPhone and iPad app called Camera Lucida is available which allows photographs taken with the photographic camera to be traced onto newspaper, as demonstrated hither.

Source: http://perspectiveresources.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-to-use-camera-lucida.html

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