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Next: 1.20 Lens Effects Up: 1. Functionality Previous: 1.18 User-Defined Shaders

# 1.19 The Camera

The camera is fixed at the origin, looking down the negative Z axis, with up being the positive Y axis, in its own coordinate space called `` camera space''. The camera can be placed anywhere in world space using an instance transformation, in the same way that objects are placed anywhere in world space. (For backwards compatibility with mental ray 1.x, there is also a mode where camera space and world space are always identical.)

By default, the camera is a pin-hole perspective camera for which the focal length, aperture and aspect ratio may be specified in either the `camera` construct of the input file or on the command line of mental ray. Optionally, lens effects such as depth of field can be achieved by specifying one or more lens shaders.