The camera has long been known. Leonardo conducted experiments with the camera. The word camera means room and before the invention of the lens, cameras were darkened rooms with a pinhole in one wall. This projected an image on the opposite wall and this could be traced. The Camera Lucida was a portable instrument where a drawing could be traced on a small piece of ground glass, and did not require a whole room. Vermeer probably used one to make his pictures. It was the invention of a means of photographically recording these images, firstly with Daguerreotypes and eventually with film, that changed everything. Now film and digital cameras have become indispensable tools for the artist.
