Leonardo da Vinci studied the camera obscura, an optical device that projects an image through a small opening.
In a camera obscura, light from a scene enters a dark chamber through an aperture and forms an inverted image on the opposite wall or a screen. Leonardo described the principle in his notebooks while investigating vision, light, perspective, and the structure of the eye.
The device was not Leonardo’s invention. Earlier scholars, including Ibn al-Haytham in the 11th century, had described the optical principle. Leonardo’s work helped connect the camera obscura with artistic observation and theories of vision, making it an important subject in Renaissance art and science.
A camera obscura differs from a telescope because it does not magnify distant objects through a system of lenses. It also differs from a camera with film or a digital sensor: its projected image is formed by light entering a dark enclosure.