The camera obscura in the Outlook Tower at the top of the Royal Mile, next to the castle was established in the 1850's by the optician Maria Theresa Short and was originally known
as Short's Observatory. The optics were replaced in 1947. The camera obscura is located six flights of stairs up in the tower.

The earliest mention of this type of device was by the Chinese philosopher Mo-Ti (5th century BC). He formally recorded the creation of an inverted image formed by light rays passing
through a pinhole into a darkened room. He called this darkened room a 'collecting place' or the 'locked treasure room'.

The development of the camera obscura took two tracks. One of these led to the portable box device that was a drawing tool. In the 17th and 18th century many artists were aided by
the use of the camera obscura. Jan Vermeer, Canaletto, Guardi, and Paul Sandby are representative of this group. By the beginning of the 19th century the camera obscura was ready
with little or no modification to accept a sheet of light sensitive material to become the photographic camera.