elevator camera obscura
The elevator in my apartment building opens to the outside, and on clear, sunny days, a brief picture of the world snaps into focus on its brushed metal interior. The narrowing elevator doors focus the image, counteracting the blurring of the vertically brushed metal; in one dimension, a mirror, and in the other, a camera.
I'd like to thank the tender ministrations of the Northern California Kidney Stone Center and the resulting painkillers for allowing me spend a happy afternoon attempting to capture the effect. I tried using a fancy DSLR, but none of the photos really came out; the short video embedded below works quite well, though.
Comments
This is strange...a camera obscura would invert the image, and show the world upside down. I think we are looking at a reflection. Nice effect though with the doors and the focus.
- Greg Niemeyer
It's a reflection along the vertical dimension, but focusing like a camera along the horizontal dimension. If you compare the focused image on the elevator doors with the view outside, you'll see that it's actually flipped horizontally from what you would expect to see if the doors were behaving as a mirror.
- Maciej Ceglowski
Okay, now that's awesome. How many people have observed this and just didn't pay attention to it.
- chris sivori