Johann Zahn

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Johann Zahn

Johann Zahn (1631—1707) was the seventeenth century German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
author of Oculus Artificialis Teledioptricus Sive Telescopium (Würzburg

Würzburg

W?rzburg is a city in the region of Franconia which lies in the northern tip of Bavaria, Germany. Located on the Main River, it is the capital of the Regierungsbezirk Unterfranken....
, 1685). This work contains many descriptions and diagrams, illustrations and sketches of both the camera obscura

Camera obscura

The camera obscura is an optical device used, for example, in drawing or for entertainment. It is one of the inventions leading to photography....
and magic lantern

Magic Lantern

Magic lantern may mean:*magic lantern, the ancestor of the modern slide projector*Magic Lantern , the FBI's keylogger.*The Magic Lantern is the name of a theater in Prague which served as the headquarters for the reform movement ...
, along with various other lanterns, slides, projection

Projection

Projection can be any of:* The display of an image by devices such as:**Movie projector**Video projector**Overhead projector**Slide projector...
types, and peepshow boxes. As a student of light

Light

Light, or visible light, is electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength that is Visible spectrum to the human eye , or up to 380?750 nm. In the broader field of physics, light is sometimes used to refer to electromagnetic radiation of all wavelengths, whether visible or not....
, Zahn is considered the most prolific writer and illustrator of the camera obscura.

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Encyclopedia

Johann Zahn (1631—1707) was the seventeenth century German

Germany

Würzburg

Camera obscura

The camera obscura is an optical device used, for example, in drawing or for entertainment. It is one of the inventions leading to photography....
and magic lantern

Magic Lantern

Projection

Projection can be any of:* The display of an image by devices such as:**Movie projector**Video projector**Overhead projector**Slide projector...
types, and peepshow boxes. As a student of light

Light

Canon (priest)

A canon is a priest who is a member of certain bodies of the Christianity clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule .Originally, a canon was a cleric living with others in a clergyhouse or, later, in one of the houses within the precinct or close of a cathedral and ordering his life according to the orders or rules of the church....
of the Premonstrate Order in Würzburg.

The first camera

Camera

A camera is a device that records images, either as a still photograph or as moving images known as videos or movies. The term comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism of projecting images where an entire room functioned as a real-time imaging system; the modern camera evolved from the camera obscura....
that was small and portable enough to be practical for photography

Photography

Photography is the process, activity and art of creating still or moving by recording radiation on a sensitive medium, such as a photographic film, or an ....
(that is, actually capturing the image on some sort of medium) was created by Zahn in 1685, though it would be almost 150 years before technology caught up to the point where this was possible to actually build (see History of the camera

History of the camera

File:Camera obscura2.jpgThe first photograph was made in 1814 by Joseph Nic?phore Ni?pce using a sliding wooden box camera made by Charles and Vincent Chevalier in Paris, the photograph was not permanent though and it faded....
).

In Oculus Artificialis, Zahn's comprehensive description of the magic lantern (along with twelve other different lanterns) includes some of these lanterns showing for the first time lens

Lens (optics)

A lens is an optics device with perfect or approximate axial symmetry which transmittance and refraction light, converging or diverging the beam....
covers. This was a very important evolution in the history of the camera, because it meant that the screen could be kept dark while the operator changed the slide.

Zahn used the magic lantern, whose invention he credited to Athanasius Kircher

Athanasius Kircher

Athanasius Kircher was a 17th century Germany Society of Jesus scholar who published around 40 works, most notably in the fields of Orientalism, geology, and medicine....
, for anatomical

Anatomy

Anatomy is a branch of biology that is the consideration of the body plan. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy and plant anatomy ....
lectures.

He also illustrated a large workshop camera obscura for solar observations using the telescope

Telescope

A telescope is an instrument designed for the observation of remote objects by the collection of electromagnetic radiation. The first known practically functioning telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 17th century....
and scioptric ball

Scioptric ball

The scioptic ball is a universal joint allowing a optical instrument mounted on a ball to be swiveled to point anywhere in a wide arc. It was inspired by studies of the human eye....
. Zahn made a camera obscura that was 23 inches long. Zahn demonstrated the use of mirrors and lenses to erect the image, enlarge and focus it. Zahn also designed several portable camera obscuras.

Zahn also includes an illustration of a camera obscura in the shape of a goblet, based on a design described (but not illustrated) by Pierre Hérigone

Pierre Hérigone

Pierre H?rigone was a France mathematics and astronomy.Of Basque people origin, H?rigone taught in Paris for most of his life....
.

Sources

Burns, Paul An Illustrated Chronology