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The Radcliffe Camera

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Description

The Radcliffe Camera Oxford: viewed from University Church of St Mary the Virgin

I went back to Oxford with my camera. It was really enjoyable looking at the city as if it was new to me, like a tourist.

Designed by James Gibbs, completed in 1749, the Camera was built to house a library devoted to the sciences but is now a reading room for the Bodleian Library. For a lot of people this rivals The Sheldonian Theatre [link] as their favourite building in Oxford and it's name and early use is very relevant to this site.
It was where the great scientific theories and experiments would have been demonstrated, including "The Camera Obscura". As for the name, like a lot of things here, it's derived from the Latin 'camera' is a vaulted chamber or room and 'obscura' means dark.

In the 1700's many cities around the world had places where the principal of light entering a darked room from a small hole on one wall projected a clear but inverted image on the opposite wall. Whilst this principal no doubt was a source of wonder to the many learned visitors it was by no means new. Records show that in the 6th century Greek mathematicians were using the camera obscura in their experiments. When the room was reduced in size to a box that could be transported the pinhole camera came to be. So this in it's way is the forerunner of that beautiful device that we all cherish our cameras :)
Image size
3969x3969px 9.47 MB
Make
FUJIFILM
Model
FinePix S5700 S700
Shutter Speed
1/208 second
Aperture
F/5.0
Focal Length
6 mm
ISO Speed
64
Date Taken
May 2, 2011, 4:46:41 PM
Sensor Size
7mm
© 2011 - 2024 s-kmp
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