Camera Obscura, Optical projection device at Cliff House, San Francisco, United States.

The Camera Obscura is an optical device that uses a rotating lens system to project live images of the Pacific coast and surrounding landscape onto a circular viewing table in a darkened room. The equipment creates a large-scale projection that visitors can watch while standing or sitting around the illuminated table.

The installation was built in the 1940s as part of an amusement park at this location and was later recognized by the National Register of Historic Places. The building has undergone many changes and renovations over the decades.

The building's 1957 exterior was remodelled to look like a giant box camera, an example of 'duck architecture' where the structure resembles the service it offers. Inside, a metal hood in the cupola turns once every six minutes, giving a full 360° sweep of the cliffs and ocean. The lens, probably from a telescope made by the Clark Lens Company of Cambridge, Massachusetts, throws the image onto a white parabolic table at 7x magnification.

The Camera Obscura sits on the cliffs beside the Cliff House at Lands End, in the Outer Richmond, just north of Ocean Beach; both buildings belong to the National Park Service within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The room is mostly dark, so allow a moment for your eyes to adjust. The metal hood above turns a full circle in about six minutes, giving a 360° view.

It is the only camera obscura still standing on its original site in the United States, and the last surviving attraction of Playland at the Beach, the amusement park that once occupied this stretch of Ocean Beach. The 1957 exterior was shaped to look like a giant camera, an example of what architects call duck architecture.