Please wait for the animation to completely load.
This animation can be used to demonstrate the basic operation of a camera (position is given in arbitrary units and angle is given in degrees). Various lenses and light sources can be added by clicking on the appropriate links. Restart.
Initialize a normal lens and a near source. The camera is "focused" by dragging the lens to change the lens-to-film distance until the rays from the source all converge on the film. An object at the point of the source will be in focus on the film with this film-to-lens separation. Now add an object source. Notice that when it is focused, the image falls directly on the film.
This Illustration models a camera with one lens. A camera is actually comprised of several lenses that work together as a unit. Multiple lenses are necessary to correct for aberrations. For example, the bending of light by a lens is actually somewhat dependent on the color of the light. This property of nature leads to chromatic aberration (misalignment of the colors in an image), which is corrected by using several carefully chosen lenses.
Illustration authored by Melissa Dancy and Wolfgang Christian.
© 2004 by Prentice-Hall, Inc. A Pearson Company