A Camera Is a Room
A camera captures images. Its name is Latin for room, from the darkened chamber that made photography possible.
A camera is a device for recording images. The word is simply Latin for room: the *camera obscura*, dark chamber, was a darkened space with a small hole that projected the outside world onto the opposite wall. Artists used it for centuries before anyone found a way to fix the image, and the room shrank into a box.
- An image-recording device. *A digital camera.*
- A judge's private room. *Heard in camera.*
- Camera obscura — the original dark chamber. *A working camera obscura.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | camera | A film camera. |
| Plural | cameras | Security cameras. |
| Person | cameraman | A news cameraman. |
| Phrase | in camera | Held in camera. |
| Related | chamber | A council chamber. |
How it is used in a sentence
- The hearing was held in camera.In private, literally in chambers.
- The camera obscura projected the harbour.Optics.
- Photography means drawing with light.From Greek *photos* and *graphein*.
Camera vocabulary
- Aperture — the opening controlling how much light enters
- Shutter speed — how long the sensor is exposed
- Focal length — determines how wide or narrow the view is
- Exposure — the total light reaching the sensor
- Camera obscura — the ancestor of them all
From Latin *camera*, a vaulted room, from Greek *kamara*. The photographic sense is a shortening of *camera obscura*.
What does *in camera* mean?
In private, in a judge's chambers rather than open court. It uses the original Latin sense of room.
Are camera and chamber the same word?
Yes, by different routes. Chamber came through French, camera directly from Latin.