on camera

adjective, adverb

1. within the range of a motion-picture or television camera; while being filmed or televised: on-camera blunders; The assassination happened on-camera.

noun,

1. a device for capturing a photographic image or recording a video, using film or digital memory.
2. (in a television transmitting apparatus) the device in which the picture to be televised is formed before it is changed into electric impulses.

adjective

3. Printing. camera-ready.

Idioms

4. off camera,
   1. out of the range of a video camera, as a television or motion picture camera: The stunt woman was waiting just off camera for her cue to enter the scene.
   2. (of an actor) in one’s private rather than professional life: The two co-stars are best friends off camera.
5. on camera, being filmed or televised by a live camera: Be sure to look alert when you are on camera.

noun

1. an optical device consisting of a lens system set in a light-proof construction inside which a light-sensitive film or plate can be positionedSee also cine camera, digital camera
2. television the equipment used to convert the optical image of a scene into the corresponding electrical signals
3. See camera obscura
4. plural -erae (-əˌriː) a judge’s private room
5. in camera
   1. lawrelating to a hearing from which members of the public are excluded
   2. in private
6. off camera not within an area being filmed
7. on camera (esp of an actor) being filmed

n.1708, “vaulted building,” from Latin camera “vaulted room” (source of Italian camera, Spanish camara, French chambre), from Greek kamara “vaulted chamber.” The word also was used early 18c. as a short form of Modern Latin camera obscura “dark chamber” (a black box with a lens that could project images of external objects), contrasted with camera lucida (Latin for “light chamber”), which uses prisms to produce on paper beneath the instrument an image, which can be traced. It became the word for “picture-taking device” when modern photography began, c.1840 (extended to television filming devices 1928). Camera-shy is attested from 1890. Old Church Slavonic komora, Lithuanian kamara, Old Irish camra all are borrowings from Latin. n. pl. cam•er•ae (-ə-rē)

1. A chamber or cavity, such as one of the chambers of the heart or eye.

Being filmed, as in When the talk-show host began, I wasn’t sure if we were on camera. This usage dates from the first half of the 1900s, soon after the birth of motion-picture and television filming. The same is true of the antonym off camera, meaning “outside the view of a movie or TV camera,” as in Go ahead and scratch—we’re off camera now.