Item is a small, wooden camera obscura with a single meniskus lens to demonstrate function of matt glass focusing screen and focal length. It is a replica built in the style of the small "mousetrap" cameras designed by William Henry Fox Talbot in the mid 1830's. They were simple wooden boxes with a single lens used to expose paper negatives, sensitized by silver nitrate (the calotype or Talbotype process). Exposures often took hours, and Talbot had several of the cameras made by a local joiner near his country home in Laycock, Wiltshire.

Cameras of this kind were used during the 18th and 19th century by artists and travelling tourists to sketch landscapes and buildings. A piece of transparent paper was placed on the matte screen. One could now trace the outlines of the subject as a guide for later elaborate sketching or painting. It was the predecessor of photographic cameras which, after 1839, could record the image by the reaction of chemical substances to light. Later the simple meniscus lenses were replaced by more corrected lens elements.

Item is a folding camera with an enameled art-deco sides. The camera uses 620 film for 2.25" 3.25" exposures. The camera also has a fold down metal strut to support self-erecting front. The lens on the camera is a Kodak Anastigmat f6.3.