During his experimental stage Fox Talbot had made a number of simple cameras his Mother dubbed little "mousetraps". They were fairly crude affairs, but obviously served the purpose admirably. This replica was made in May 2000 for the museum, the only claim to faithfulness to the original lies in its primitive nature. For simplicity sake, using it is achieved by cutting printing paper to size, and sealing this in the back. It is, to all intents and purposes, a pin hole camera. Except that it does has a lens of dubious quality in it as well. The cork bung was alledgedly there so that the experimenter could peer in and see how the image was coming along, as the exposure times were somewhat less than instantaneous.

Click on "this camera's gallery" button, below, to see sample images.

Body No.licm01
Shutter, simply a lens cap