Being an Edinburgh resident it is all too easy to think the attractions on your doorstep are only for tourists. Luckily, having the excuse of a young child to entertain during the holidays gives me the chance to try out some of the available entertainment. I’d been to the Edinburgh Camera Obscura before many, many years ago and enjoyed it but I was very, very impressed by what is on offer now, it really was a lot of fun. We stayed far longer than I had expected and ended up having a very late lunch as a result.
The highlight was definitely the vortex tunnel. If you want to clearly understand the ability of your eyes to trick your brain then have a walk through this. You won’t see a picture of it here. I’ll say it is because it was too dark, but maybe I was just holding on!
Was delighted to see one of Alfred Buckham’s aerial photos of Edinburgh on display. We all know who wrote Buckham’s short but perfectly formed Wikipedia page. 🙂
Aside from the spectacular views from the roof, it’s not an easy place to take photos. Clearly, anything involving lights and visual entertainments is, by nature, dark. I slapped on the 50mm, f1.8, ISO 1600 and went for it (although 50mm was no good for the Ames room, needed wider). It turned out to be an unexpectedly great place to grab some fun photos. Here is a small selection.
There are few better viewpoints of Edinburgh than the panoramas offered from the Camera Obscura. It was a grey day today but there was still a lot see. Great that they made binoculars available for kids that can’t reach the telescopes.
It wasn’t easy catching this little guy in the spinning Praxinoscope. Could have waited until it stopped but I wanted the blur of the figures in front. A few more goes and this would have been better.
You can shake hands with yourself in this weird illusion. Here demonstrated by my little helper.
I always did like those plasma ball things. There are plenty of types to play with.
Like this.
And this.
The collection of holograms is very impressive, especially the animated ones. Some of them are quite scary. My little helper didn’t like the spider.
If it’s Bokeh you like, there is a huge wall of small colour changing lights that gives an infinite amount of Bokeh fun!
And obviously, where there’s Bokeh, there are light trails!
Our second favourite thing was the mirror maze. Here you see multiple copies of my little helper. She quickly worked out to look for the fingerprints so we didn’t walk into the walls.
And there’s much, much more. All in all, a great place to visit, can’t recommend it enough.
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