Answer to Question #295216 in Optics for Chemistry

Question

If a piece of photographic film is placed at the location of a real image, the film will record

the image. Can this be done with a virtual image? How might one record a virtual image?

Answer 1

Yes. Any camera that's capable of photographing actual objects is also capable of photographing real and virtual images. If you stand in front of a mirror and take a photo, you'll get a photo of the virtual image.

What the camera does is to take the image and make a secondary image of it (an image of the image). This secondary image is a real image, because it has to be projected onto the film or chip inside the camera. The same thing happens in your eye. When you look at yourself in a mirror, your retina gets a real image of the virtual image.