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The camera itself is based on optical principles known at least
since the age of Aristotle; indeed, a filmless version was in use
in the mid-1500s as a sketching device for artists. Called the camera
obscura (Lat.,=dark chamber), it consisted of a small, lightproof
box with a pinhole or lens on one side and a translucent screen
on the opposite side. This screen registered, in a manner suitable
for tracing, the inverted image transmitted through the lens. The
human eye was the prototype for this device, which functioned as
a primitive extension of seeing. Most experiments in photographic
technology were directed toward perfecting the medium.
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