Q 01/05

The word 'camera' comes from the Latin phrase camera obscura, meaning what?

A) Light box

B) Dark chamber

C) Glass eye

D) Small window

Answer · why

B) Dark chamber

Light through a small hole projects an upside-down, reversed image of the outside world.

Q 02/05

Which 11th-century physicist, known in the West as Alhazen, extensively studied the camera obscura?

A) Avicenna

B) Al-Khwarizmi

C) Omar Khayyam

D) Ibn al-Haytham

Answer · why

D) Ibn al-Haytham

His work is thought to have inspired Roger Bacon, Leonardo da Vinci and Kepler.

Q 03/05

Which astronomer's 1604 book contains the earliest known use of the term 'camera obscura'?

A) Galileo Galilei

B) Johannes Kepler

C) Tycho Brahe

D) Isaac Newton

Answer · why

B) Johannes Kepler

One of the earliest written records of a pinhole image is in the Chinese text Mozi, from the 4th century BC.

Q 04/05

Who made the first permanent photograph from a camera image, in 1826?

A) Louis Daguerre

B) Nicéphore Niépce

C) Henry Fox Talbot

D) George Eastman

Answer · why

B) Nicéphore Niépce

He used a sliding wooden box camera made by Charles and Vincent Chevalier in Paris.

Q 05/05

A daguerreotype image was made on a polished sheet of what?

A) Ground glass

B) Silver-plated copper

C) Tin coated in lacquer

D) Waxed writing paper

Answer · why

B) Silver-plated copper

The latent image was brought out by fuming the plate with mercury vapour.