Could I set up my TV and video camera to use as a mirror?

All is vanity, but there are cheaper ways to go about checking yourself out.


Asked by: Nicola Denney, by email

The simple answer is possibly, but it's probably not worth the hassle. Mirrors have the optical property of flipping left and right. Because the mirror is facing you, it looks natural that the sides are reversed, so that when you put an earring in your left ear, the reflection that stares back at you also has that ear on the left. When you're facing a TV camera, however, the lens 'sees' your left ear in the right half of the frame. Correspondingly, it appears on the right-hand side of your television screen. With everything back to front, it can be somewhat tricky to put your earrings in. Some of the more expensive video cameras can flip the image from left to right, but it's much cheaper just to buy a mirror. And the reflection you see will be a much more faithful reproduction than even the most high-definition video camera.

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