By Heinz Richter
PLEASE NOTE: A revised, historically corrected and
expanded version of this article can be found here:
The origins of Leica Camera
AG go back to the early days of photography in general. The history of photography cannot be told
without mentioning Ernst Leitz, Oskar Barnack and his invention of the
Leica. No other camera has influenced
photography as profoundly as the Leica.
Here is how it all came to be:
I: E. Leitz and the Early History of Photography
Niepce, Daguerre, Fox Talbot;
these names are inseparable from the history of photography. These men are figures of history, important,
but remote; their discoveries were seminal, but primitive; their processes were
anachronisms a century ago. Their
technology was cumbersome and ill understood by present standards, and their
picture taking apparatus bears only conceptual likeness to the modern camera.
And yet, one of the most
respected photographic companies in the world today had its start in the days
of the daguerreotype and the 20 x 24 inch wet-plate collodion camera. E. Leitz Wetzlar, or Leica, as they are now
called, had its origins a scant ten years after the world saw its first
daguerreotype.
In 1849 Ernst Leitz was
living in Sulzburg in the Black Forest, a six year old schoolboy. Karl Kellner, a 23 year old physicist,
founded in that year the “Optical Institute” in Wetzlar. At that time Wetzlar was a small town tucked
away in a valley north of Frankfurt, out of the mainstream of commercial
activity. It may be its serenity that
lured poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to Wetzlar to study and write. Even today the town retains its old world
charm, a survivor of two world wars.
Carl Kellner shortly after he founded the Optical Institute
Kellner's home in Wetzlar
Kellner had excellent
mechanical skills and a great interest in optics. His optical studies reached back as far as
his school years and he continued them all through his apprenticeship
years. He also obtained exclusive
knowledge in mathematics.
The Optical Institute
manufactured optics for microscopes and telescopes and from the beginning held
a reputation as a leader in the field.
It was, in fact, Kellner’s own invention of an orthoscopic eyepiece, a
new achromatic lens combination, that allowed him to start his new
business. Many scientists, especially
astronomers, had for years looked for such an eyepiece and the success was
obvious. The welcome his invention received
is shown by the fact that the great astronomer, physicist and mathematician C.
F. Gauss wrote a personal letter to Kellner to congratulate him on his new
invention.
Kellner started out with 12
employees. Business was good; Kellner
optics and the instruments quickly gained international reputation and
in May, 1851, the first instrument was delivered abroad to Geneva.
The company flourished. Soon it added names like Bishoff, Liebig,
Virchov, Leuckart and Koelloker to the customer list. In 1853 they started to produce more
microscopes than telescopes, which so far had been the mainstay of the
business. But its founder was not to see
his company’s full glory. Kellner’s
health failed and in 1855 he dies of one of the great perils of the time,
tuberculosis. His partner, Charles F.
Behltle, took over the company and shortly thereafter married Kellner’s
widow. This assured the existence of the
Wetzlar optical industry.
In 1865 Behltle took on a new
partner. It was an inauspicious
occasion. No one could have known at the
time that it would be his new partner that would lead the Wetzlar company to
the pinnacle of international fame and recognition. His name was Ernst Leitz.
Ernst Leitz I
Ernst Leitz I, photograph by Oskar Barnack
Born in 1843, in Sulzburg in
the Black Forest, he grew up as the son of a school teacher. After completing his apprenticeship and
journeyman’s service in precision engineering and optical workshops in Southern
Germany, Switzerland and France, he came to Wetzlar in 1864.
The workshop’s success
continued. The 1000th microscope left
the shop in 1867. When Behltle died
suddenly in 1869, Ernst Leitz became the sole proprietor of the company, and
for a while kept the name Wetzlar Optical Institute; but in 1870 the comp[any
introduced an achromatic microscope in a catalog that bore for the first time
the name Ernst Leitz Company.
Work became more complex as a
variety of new instruments was added to the line, such as a large horizontal
photographic apparatus (a novel item in the still young field of photography)
which appeared in the price list in 1865.
Skill and experience alone were no longer sufficient, so in 1887 Leitz
hired mathematician Carl Metz to develop new designs. This departure from the trial and error
methods prevalent in optical design at the time soon assured Leitz’ leadership
in the field.
1887 also saw the completion
and sale of the 10,000th microscope.
Much credit must be given to Ernst Leitz for turning a once small
company in the space of a few years into an internationally renowned microscope
manufacturing plant, employing some 4000 people, almost 35 times the original
payroll.
These events were taking
place during an extremely active period in the history of photography. Daguerre had died in 1851; his success lived
on, though not without the genius of Englishman Henry Fox Talbot. Talbot’s
negative process, Kalotype, laid the foundation for modern photography. The chemistry of the photographic process had
progressed far beyond the first infant steps.
But emulsion sensitivity was
still quite low and photographers the world over were looking fro faster
lenses. The most widely used lens of the
mid-century was a two element f/14 design manufactured by the French company of
Chevalier. The Austrian Joseph Petzval
was the first to design a multiple element portrait lens, ten times faster than
the doublet Chevalier. The Petzval lens
was a five element f/3.6 design with two cemented groups; the lens was
manufactured by Voigtländer. Petzval
also designed a “landscape” lens which had an unusually wide angle of coverage
for the time.
The next great step forward
in the development of modern lenses was made by the company of Karl August von
Steinheil. The famous Aplanat lenses led
to the Portrait-Aplanat, remarkable in its day for its speed of f/2.4. Lens speed and sophistication of design had
progressed rapidly in just a few years.
In 1878 young George Eastman
began producing photographic emulsions, but the start of one of the largest
photographic companies was slow. Eastman
had to fight for his success in a number of court battles, one of which
involved the principle of rollfilm In
1887 Hannibal Goodwin, a minister, patented a celluloid backed photographic
rollfilm. Eastman tried to get a patent
for a similar film in 1892, only to learn that Goodwin’s patent was five years
older. A bitter court battle lasted
eleven years; the patent right finally were given to Goodwin, but by that time
his health had deteriorated sharply and he assigned his rights to the Ansco
Company. Another court battle started
which was not decided until March, 1914.
Eastman Kodak Company ended up paying millions of restitution.
Another landmark of the
period was the founding of the Aktiengesellschaft Für Anilinfabrikation, AGFA,
once the largest photographic manufacturer after Kodak. (It may be of interest to note that one of
the company’s founders was Dr. Mendessohn-Bartholdy, a son of the great
composer Felix Mendelssohn.) Following
an initial involvement in the production of various chemicals, AGFA turned to
photographic developers. In 1891, after
the unsuccessful US marketing of their Eikogen developer, the company produced
an improved version, the now famous Rodinal™, which became the oldest,
continuously marketed photographic product on the market.
II: Young Barnack
Oskar Barnack was born
November 1, 1879, the son of a teacher in Lynow, a small town in the Mark
Brandenburg, close to Berlin. Shortly
after Oskar’s birth his father moved his family to Lichterfelde, a suburb of
Berlin and it is there that young Oskar would go to school.
One of Barnack’s early goals
was to become a landscape painter. His
father opposed the idea, brushing it off as a poor man’s trade, so young Oskar
was apprenticed to Master Lampe. Lampe
was engaged in what was apparently considered a much more sensible trade, the
manufacture of tellurians, the small clockwork driven models of the planets and
the solar system. Barnack enjoyed his
work with these precise mechanical devices; through his work he developed an
interest in astronomy and decided to become an astronomer.
He worked as hard as
possible, his newfound interest driving him through his three years of
apprenticeship. He accepted each new
task as a challenge and an opportunity for greater knowledge. No task seemed to be too difficult for him as
he perfected his mechanical skills and after 2 ½ years Master Lampe released
him from his learning period, telling him he had nothing left to teach him.
At approximately this time
the Leitz Company’s catalog was issued for the first time without reference to
its founder C. Kellner. It showed a
considerably expanded line of equipment and featured such “exotics” as a
projection apparatus illuminated by a paraffin lamp. By 1899 Oskar Barnack had committed himself
to a career as a master mechanic. That
year was also the 50th anniversary of the Ernst Leitz Company and that year the
catalog showed an apparatus for counting blood corpuscles, a stereoscopic
microscope and an arc lamp for microscopic projection.
After leaving Lampe, Barnack
made the customary travels through Europe as a journeyman. One of his travels brought him to a small
town in Saxony, where he began work for a manufacturer of calculating
machines. The company’s owner was not
fond of people from the big city of Berlin and for a while he treated Barnack
with disdain. On one of Barnack’s first
days at work his employer gave his new employee a calculator to disassemble for
cleaning and left for a short walk downtown.
Barnack found the machine badly in need of an overhaul. Though he had never worked on such a
mechanism, he fully disassembled the immense number of gears, levers and
springs, cleaned and reduplicated them and reassembled the machine. The owner, upon his return, found the
calculator operating as if it had just been manufactured. All was in perfect order. Barnack received an immediate raise.
In 1902 Barnack traveled to
Jena, a town in southeastern Germany near Austerlitz, where Napoleon had
decisively defeated the Prussians, Austrians and Russians in the Dreikaiser
(Three Emperor) Battle nearly a hundred years before (1805). There he joined the Zeiss Optical Works and
it was there where he first developed an interest in photography.
He enjoyed hikes in the
countryside, often spending time in the Thuringian Forest. He frequently took along a 5 x 7 plate camera
and developed some skills as a photographer.
But since he had never been a very strong person, he soon began
wondering about an alternative to carrying the heavy camera equipment along all
the time. The obvious choice was a
smaller negative and as early as 1905 he began experimenting with a camera
specially converted to take fifteen or twenty smaller negatives an a single 5 x
7 glass plate. The grain structure of
the film materials of the day proved too coarse for such an approach and no
useable enlargements resulted. He gave
up the idea.
Barnack’s health began to
give him problems and after receiving a small inheritance, he decided to travel
south to Tyrol, hoping the climate would rid him of asthma and chronic
colds. He remained near Bozen for a few
months, enjoying the fresh air and the countryside. With renewed vigor he traveled to Vienna, but
the leisurely pace in Vienna proved uncomfortable for the conscientious
Prussian and he soon returned to Master Lampe in Berlin. Lampe, thrilled at Barnack’s return and
contemplating retirement, offered Barnack his business at no cost. Barnack turned the offer down.
After a brief brush with the
manufacture of mechanical pencils in 1909, Barnack returned to Jena and the
opto-mechanical industry, taking a job at the Jena glass works. There he befriended Emil Mechau, who had
started work on a new type of movie projector that used a rotating prism
instead of the mechanical cam-claw arrangement to freeze the frames on the
screen. Mechau thought his prism system
to be superior, since with a compensating prism one frame would blend into the
next, not unlike a dissolve projector.
His superiors in Jena, however, did not think the project worthwhile to
pursue and Mechau was forced to set aside its development. Discouraged, he left Jena. He took his idea to Leitz in Wetzlar and in
1910 he joined the company with a guarantee he could continue to develop his
projection system. Barnack, always
looking for new challenges, left Jena the same year and joined the IKA camera
factory in Dresden. He stayed in Dresden
only two months and then returned to Jena.
III: Barnack in Wetzlar
In 1910 it became apparent
that Leitz was in need of a master machinist in the microscope research
department. Emil Mechau, recently
arrived from Jena, thought immediately of his friend Oskar Barnack and
suggested him to the Leitz management.
Leitz contacted Barnack on short order, but he was hesitant and his
reply very much illustrates his character.
Though he seemed dissatisfied with his work in Jena and being interested
in the Wetzlar position, he answered, “Surely it is not desirable for a company
to hire a young employee who still has to familiarize himself with the new
tasks and whose health compels him to take a leave of absence of one or two
months every year, not to mention the fact that the costs of such cures would
be too high for me as a private person.”
The answer impressed Ernst Leitz and he decided to hire him in spite of
his disclaimers. His assurances
prevailed and on January 1, 1911, Barnack arrived in Wetzlar.
Barnacks original letter, declining the job offer from Leitz
He was soon befriended by
Leitz who recognized the affinities between Barnack’s personality and his
own. Leitz helped Barnack to locate and
purchase a small house, located such that it was protected from the harsh east
winds, with a glass enclosed porch and Barnack’s beloved garden. Barnack was so susceptible to chills that it
had become common practice for him to stay home after a hair cut to avoid a
cold. Leitz thought the sheltered house
and glass enclosed porch might help to keep his employee’s health from
deteriorating any more than necessary.
As a master machinist one of
Barnack’s first tasks was to design diamond lathes for the lens polishing
department. Soon he started work on an
all aluminum movie camera, a radical departure from the heavy wooden models of
the time. It would become the first all
metal motion picture camera ever. This
venture into movie cameras resulted from the company’s need for films to test
Emil Mechau’s projectors. There was
apparently no way to buy or rent films in Germany at the time, nor did Leitz
see fit to buy a camera from another company.
Barnack's motion picture camera
Barnack himself made a number
of movies with his new device and samples of his work still exist. Members of the LHSA (Leica Historical Society
of America) had the pleasure to view several of these movies during their
annual meeting in Minneapolis in 1980.
Barnack displayed considerable skill as a motion picture camera man and
for awhile seriously thought of changing careers again.
Barnack using his motion picture camera
One of the problems of
shooting movie film at the time was determining proper exposure. Photoelectric meters were not yet available
and the camera operator always ran the risk of losing the whole 200 foot roll
to improper lens settings. Barnack
decided to build a small exposure testing device that would use short sections
of movie stock. With it he would expose
film by the common method of the time - take a good guess – and expose his
movie identically. Afterwards, the test
exposures were processed and any exposure problems were compensated for by evaluating
the test and adjusting the development of the movie film accordingly.
Barnack’s “lightmeter” was
equipped with a Zeiss Kino Tessar lens and had a fixed exposure time of 1/40
second, the common motion picture shutter speed. The quality of the results surprised him; in
the motion picture film he had finally found a fine enough grain structure to
yield good enlargements and he recalled his old idea of making a small negative
camera. He decided to give the problem a
good try and, in 1913, he finished his first real still camera.
To get the most from the
small 35 mm film he chose to double the size of the standard motion picture
frame; in so doing he created the modern 35 mm still camera format (or full
frame format). The camera had a focal plane
shutter with a fixed slit width of 40 mm.
Shutter speeds were controlled by variable spring tension. The first lens was the same Zeiss Kino Tessar
he had used in the exposure testing camera, but it proved to have
unsatisfactory coverage for Barnack’s full frame format. The next lens tried was a 64 mm Leitz Macro
Summar, but it too was unable to satisfy Barnack’s requirements. It was Max Berek, Leitz’ chief lens designer
who finally solved the problem. The
challenge was to design a lens equal to or better than the best the market
could then offer. He designed the Leitz
50 mm f/3.5 Anastigmat, later renamed the Elmax. It was the five element forerunner of the
world famous Elmar.
Max Berek
It is important to note that
the Barnack prototype 35 mm camera was not the same as the exposure testing
camera built quite some time prior as is commonly assumed. The exposure testing camera had a fixed 1/40
sec. exposure time and used the common half frame format of 18 x 24 mm of the
time. However, it gave the impetus for
Barnack to build the Ur Leica, which was to become the “grandfather” of the
famous line of Leica rangefinder cameras.
Prototype I: The Ur-Leica
Thus the first Leica camera
came into existence. Many improvements
were to come later, but most of the features of the production cameras were
already present in that unnamed experimental camera. It wasn’t until much later that it was called
the Ur Leica. The camera did not yet
have a self capping focal plane shutter.
To avoid exposure during winding, a small disc, directly attached to the
lens, had to be swung into place to make the camera light tight. But unlike any camera before, this was an
entirely new design, one that for the first time combined film transport and
shutter cocking mechanisms and avoided the possibility of accidental double
exposure. Since the camera utilized the
relatively inexpensive motion picture film, twelve pictures now could be made
for the price of a single 5 x 7 plate and 40 exposures could be made in a
single loading. The camera laid the
foundation for an entirely new kind of photography and influenced the 35 mm
camera deign for years to come. Only in
recent years has the basic focal plane shutter design, as used in principle in
the Ur Leica, been replaced; it is still used in various forms by most camera
makers.
Initially, film had to be
loaded into the camera in the dark, something that Barnack soon recognized as a
problem. To overcome this problem, he
designed a reloadable cassette that could be inserted into the camera. To make room for the cassette it was necessary
to shorten the roll of film from the initial 40 exposures to 36. This maximum of 36 exposures per roll has
never been changed and the daylight loading film cassette has become universal. Even the comparatively insignificant
accessory shoe, added by Barnack to the Ur Leica to accommodate a viewfinder,
has kept its dimensions through all the years since it was built onto the Ur
Leica. Perfection, as we all know,
cannot be improved upon.
The following
is Oskar Barnack’s own description (c. 1931) of the cameras development:
I have often been asked, “How did the Leica really
come to be?” Whether it was particularly
difficult, whether it took a long time, why I arrived at the particular format
of 24 x 36 mm, further, what actually happens when something is invented, and
many other questions. The development of
the Leica system caused me such a chronic shortage of time that I was happy to
take care of at least the immediate problems and tasks as best I could.
For the time being, it did not occur to me to
entertain historical reflections.
Perhaps that might happen when more time has passed. But these considerations did not take Curt
Emmermann into account; he proved to me quite clearly that it was my duty to
say something in the new “Leica:” magazine (published by Emmermann), even if it
was only in the form of an apology. This
is indeed correct: I really have no
apologies for the Leica. When I think of
the many bothers and vexations experienced by otherwise accomplished photo fans
with this peculiar camera and how allsorts of newfangled gadgets made life
difficult for my dear contemporaries, such as the perforated motion picture
film, which always tore right away (if you loaded it incorrectly), a camera
that nobody could understand, then those confounded cassettes designed
especially to irritate my fellow men, when I think of all that, I feel like a
real mischief maker.
Whereas up to now everything had been nicely solved
and arranged with those solid plates and those wonderful roll films. All that worked very smoothly. One should have left well enough alone. A friendly acquaintance, who had some bad
results through no fault of his own, even wanted to throw the Leica at my head.
My only consolidation is that the unfortunate one,
when he happened to have some bad luck, was not automatically in danger of his
life, as could easily be the case in an automobile or an airplane, when the
steering mechanism goes on strike. I
also lived in the hope that perhaps these mistakes might be followed by know
how, which turned out to be the case quite often. Fourteen days later the bomb thrower
mentioned above was quite pleased, as he informed me in a letter that he really
did not mean it so seriously.
The Leica happens to be a rather sensitive
creature. A French acquaintance, who
prized his Leica very much, described it as ‘capricieuse comme une jolie
femme.’ With superficial or even
incorrect handling it promptly exerts passive resistance and if you try to
force it, you might as well pack up.
However, this is a minority because the majority does not consider the
instruction booklet entirely superfluous.
This conclusion is based on eager testimonials, unsolicited and often
the result of enthusiasm.
There were cases where 100,000 exposures were made in
the very same Leica in one year, without any trouble whatever! A Leica owner like that is a master of his
craft, and the instrument performs smoothly in his hands. Here imitation is recommended.
How did I happen to design the Leica? To answer this question, I really have to go
back 2 ½ decades. It was around
1905. At that time I assiduously made
photographs with my (5 x 7) plate ‘crate’ with 6 double plate holders and a
leather container that resembled a sample case.
That was quite a lot of baggage to carry up the slopes of the
mountains. As I was already bothered
somewhat by asthma, the thought must have occurred to me: Isn’t there an easier
way? In any case, I still remember very
clearly how I experimented with (5 x 7) plates, trying to divide them into small
individual pictures by using a lens with a short focal length in a special
fixture , resulting in rows of 15 to 20 pictures. But the attempt was a complete failure. Because of the coarse grain of the plates,
One of Barnack's pictures of the Wetzlar Cathedral
the enlargements were not exactly appealing. For a while, I let the entire matter rest,
but the realization ‘Small negative, large picture’ for a still camera had been
born.
In the meantime, a change took place in my activities,
as I joined the Ernst Leitz Optical Works in Wetzlar. Here my responsibilities included, among
other things, motion picture technology.
I designed my first motion picture camera in 1912 and pretty soon I was
headed in the right direction because of the fine grain of motion picture
film. A postcard size enlargement from a
motion picture frame was quite acceptable.
But meanwhile I had become more demanding. The postcard and even more so the size might
be nice souvenir pictures, but the actual , real picture emerges only at 5 x 7
or better yet at 8 x 10. Even these
sizes appear quite small once one has seen pictures 20 inches wide. It is really true that, the larger the
picture, the more plastic and realistic its effect.
For that purpose the motion picture frame was too
small. Since regular film unfortunately
was not permitted to become wider because of the wonderful invention of
standardization, I had to employ as much feasible length in order to make
optimum use of it. Right off, I tried to
double the frame width and what do you know, it worked out very well; that is,
24 mm wide and 36 mm long. That is how
the Leica format came to be. In other
words, it was not the product of prolonged pondering, as was the case later
with other camera parts that frequently seem quite insignificant. To this day, I still consider the proportion
of 2 by 3 as the most attractive one.
Now the actual designing of the Leica began. I gave a free reign to my yen for the unusual
and the novel. I was not restricted by
any particular assignment or direction, as would be the case in a modern design
department; rather it was a private hobby.
Because I was not inhibited by customary guidelines and because I used
hardly anything that was heretofore considered essential for a good
photographic camera, the result was this novel type of camera. Already then it was basically as it is still
seen today. The difference was that the
first model did not have a focal plane shutter with variable slit width, it had
a fixed slit 4 cm wide and several spring tensions and it did not yet have
daylight loading cassettes. But it
already had all the other features. Particularly the obligatory coupling of film
and shutter advance.
Wetzlar "Eisenmarkt"
Probably the best know photograph by Oskar Barnack
I used that model for many years and I still have many
pictures from those days. However,
further refinement of the camera was temporarily halted by the outbreak of
World War I. More important things had
to be worked on. But extremely valuable
experience was gained with the many pictures taken during the war years, so
that, when the question of actual manufacture was later brought up, I was able
to come up with a production model in a relatively short time.
One of Barnack's pictures made during the mobilization for WWI
Next, the following things had to be designed: a
rangefinder for close-up pictures, an indispensable requirement for a camera
without ground glass; then the self capping focal plane shutter with adjustable
slit width that was absolutely reliable and finally daylight loading by means
of cassettes. I also built the
viewfinder at that time. After these
things had been satisfactorily solved, as I believe they were, only one major
item remained to be settled and that was a suitable lens. This naturally would have to be of superior
quality, because at least a tenfold linear enlargement was required.
This is where the work of Professor Dr. M. A. Berek
comes in. He succeeded in designing a 50
mm f/3.5 anastigmat lens which was at least equal to the very best lenses of
its type. This step had a very
significant effect in getting the whole concept of a small camera
accepted. Very slowly at first, then
gradually faster, but with remarkable even acceleration from year to year. Now 60,000 Leica cameras have been
built. That’s what is called healthy
evolution.
Today, six years later, one might well say that the
existence of a good miniature camera has been definitely justified. Small cameras that once existed about 16 to
18 years ago, like the “Minigraph,” undoubtedly did not survive because their
negative size (18 x 24 mm) was too small and their external dimensions much too
large. A miniature camera just had to be
small and to make 500 exposures on a single film, as in the “Minigraph,” is not
everyone’s cup of tea. Thirty-six
exposures with the Leica are already plenty, and on the other hand, this is
occasionally desirable.
The future of the miniature camera is substantiated by
the new models of the most varied types that are now constantly appearing on
the photo market. I do not consider them
as competition, quite the opposite, they all support the new concept of “Small
Negative, Large Picture.” Those who want
to draw a final conclusion from the wealth of their long experience with all
sorts of camera types will probably change over to the Leica.
That is quite understandable. It is simply the most versatile and the most
universally applicable camera. All the
accessories and objects that have been added in the course of time fit the
Leica perfectly and they form the complete range of instruments that made the
now so-called Leica system a reality.
Now the door is open to master any photographic task by means of appropriate accessories from photographs
of the most distant subjects, as in astronomy, to close-up pictures with
supplementary lenses, proceeding further to even shorter subject distances to a
scale of 1 to 1, that is, actual size, thus branching the gap to
photomicrography.
That is the Leica and what it can do.
(From “Viewfinder,” Vol. II, No. 4: used by
permission)
Barnack himself demonstrated an eye for the
picturesque, but with the Leica in hand he also showed some skill as a
photoreporter. His pictures of the
mobilization for World War I represent some of the first spontaneous photo
reportage in history. He also photographed
during the Wetzlar flood in 1920.
A Barnack photograph of the 1920 Wetzlar flood
The outbreak of World War I
ended development of “Barnack’s camera,” as it was called. Barnack stayed in Wetzlar during the war; the
German forces refused him because his health was so poor. Very little is known about the plant’s
activities during the war years, but it is safe to assume that it was occupied
with military contracts.
Though he was unable to
continue work on the camera, Barnack photographed with the prototype throughout
the war years. When food began to run
short he used photographs for barter, photographing farmers and farm buildings
in return for eggs and butter.
By the end of the war Barnack
was very much in need of a vacation.
Ernst Leitz, aware that his friend’s health was failing, invited him
along on a trip to the Black Forest. The
camera accompanied them, of course. The
trip provided a photographic opportunity that has left us a large stock of
negatives from that earliest Leica, including a number of pictures of Leitz and
of Barnack himself.
Ernst Leitz I (left) and Barnack vacationing in the Black Forest
There were two prototypes which Barnack had made before the war. The first one was presented by Barnack to Ernst Leitz II. It was the first of Barnack’s cameras to
reach the United States, accompanying its owner on a voyage in the spring of
1914. Leitz photographed during the trip
on the ship Das Vaterland (the Fatherland) and in the streets of Manhattan; but
he also took advantage of the trip to file patents on the new camera and the
first US patent was granted in that year.
The history of this camera is quite interesting. The subject has been well researched by Gianni
Rogliatti, who gave the following account:
This second prototype, identical to the Ur Leica and
built presumably at the same time, was the one used by Barnack and remained in
the hands of his family when he died.
For some unknown reason it was given into the custody of the Deutsches
Museum in Munich during World War II.
After the war the camera was returned to the son of Oscar Barnack who
was living in Munich and operating a grocery store. Barnack’s son later sold the camera and it
was resold at an auction. All of this
happened several years ago and Barnack’s son subsequently died causing every
trace of the camera to be lost.
(from “Viewfinder,” Vol. 12,
No. 1; used by permission)
Rogliatti went on to say
that, far from being lost, the second prototype now seems to reside,
unannounced, in an unidentified collection.
Manhattan 1914, Photograph by Ernst Leitz II
In 1914, when Count von
Zeppelin landed one of his dirigibles in nearby Giessen, Barnack immediately
set out to see it and after some talk convinced the Count to take him up on one
of the voyages. In so doing he made the
first ever aerial photo with a 35 mm camera.
The year 1913 saw one other
major breakthrough at the Leitz plant.
During that year the company developed the first binocular microscopic
eyepiece, a feature so common on the modern microscope that little thought is
given to it anymore.
After the war, Barnack made a
third prototype, incorporating a number of improvements and changes. The shutter was still not the self capping
type, yet Barnack had left off the small lens covering disk, thinking it sufficient
to press the lens against the chest during film winding to avoid accidental
exposure.
Leica Prototype 3
Ernst Leitz II took over the
company in 1920 following the death of his father. At this time Emil Mechau had refined his
projector and the company began production of the Model 3 Cine Projector at a
new plant in Rastatt.
Barnack further refined his
camera, at last incorporating the self capping shutter and in 1923 the company
decided to try a pilot run of 30 or 31` cameras (the exact number has never
been conclusively determined), the so called Nullserie preproduction model, equipped with Max Berek’s 50 mm f/3.5 lens.
Ernst Leitz II
The cameras were distributed
to professional photographers for evaluation and drew a mixed response. Most were skeptical of the new miniature
format, but many acknowledged that it could produce astonishingly good enlargements
and that it had great potential.
Leica Nullserie Preproduction model
The advances of the early
years occurred during Germany’s postwar depression. Unemployment was widespread. Money had virtually no value; a loaf of bread
costing a million marks or more was not unusual. Many cities printed their own money. When paper ran out they printed it on leather
and even wood. Use of the barter system
reached an all time high.
Lower sales threatened Leitz
with layoffs. Ernst Leitz II despised
the possibility of such a thing and in his father’s tradition believed he owed
employment to his workers, even if it meant a loss for the company. Looking for new, marketable products, he
suggested Barnack’s camera to his board of directors. They opposed it; the risks were too high, it
was too drastic a departure from the usual trade of a microscope manufacturer,
the times were too harsh. But it was to
overcome the harshness of the depression that Leitz finally proclaimed,
“Barnacks Kamera wird gebaut (Barnack’s camera will be built).”
At that time, in 1924, Ernst
Leitz III had passed his high school examination, the Abitur, and before
entering university had come to the Leitz company as an apprentice instrument
mechanic and toolmaker. The day of his
father’s decision he called the longest day of his life; it was a fateful day
for the Leitz company and for photography in general.
Production started late in
1924 and by the time the camera was introduced to the public at the Leipzig
Spring fair in 1925, at least 800 cameras had been completed. The Leica caused quite a sensation. Many professional rejected it, skeptical of
its small size and subsequent performance capabilities. The general public, on the other hand, was
very much in favor of it; finally there was a camera small enough to be taken
anywhere.
The Leica, in fact, was soon
taken on the Zeppelin, on expeditions to the North pole and to Africa. It filled the need for a camera that was
small and that could be used with ease under almost any lighting conditions,
and it began to gain acceptance from professional photographers.
Still looking to improve the
camera, Barnack’s thoughts turned to a rangefinder. He called some of his associates into his office
and told them about the idea, then put a ruler across the top of a Model A
Leica from the rewind knob to the
winding knob. He told them neither the
size nor the pleasing appearance of the camera could be changed and
that the rangefinder had to fit in the space below the ruler. His words were:
“Gentlemen, the rangefinder
will have to fit within the dimensions of the present size of the camera, it
will have to be of such a design that it will function with all the lenses and
it must be possible to incorporate it into cameras that were built in the
past.”
No small order, but the
rangefinder materialized and the Leica II and Barnack’s farsightedness
prevailed. The new camera was called
Autofocal Camera. The year was 1932.
Two photographs of Barnack at his workbench in the Leitz factory
Improvements had been
occurring all along. The first
interchangeable lenses had appeard in 1930.
Lens production had been enhanced after 1927 when Ernst Leitz III, returning from university studies under Max Planck, began to develop a method
of machining lenses with the aid of diamond tools.
In 1932 Leitz introduced the
Leica Reporter which allowed the photographer to make 250 24x36 negatives
before changing film. Even an electric
motor was designed for this model. Barnack’s
improvements were continuous and comprehensive.
He was always willing to listen to new ideas. He would never make any direct comments on
any of these, but later one could often notice comments about the items like
“totally overexposed,” or “way underexposed” in the margins of his notes. Even though not all the improvements on the
Leica were not entirely his own ideas, until his death he made the decisions on
what was to be changed and what not.
Recent luxury features, like auto winders, 250 exposure backs, remote
releases and motor drives, just about all were at one time or another tried by
Barnack. And while one of today’s camera
manufacturers once claimed that every SLR has a little bit of their SLR in it,
one can safely say that in some way, every 35mm camera of recent times had a
bit of Oskar Barnack’s genius in it. As
a matter of fact, even the current digital Leica M must be considered to be a
direct descendant of Barnack’s ingenious prototype Ur-Leica.
Until his very last days
Barnack’s time was totally consumed by the Leica. Even when his poor health would confine him
to bed, he mostly occupied himself with the camera and when he returned to work
he would always bring along sketches of new ideas.
Design sketch signed by Barnack
This design sketch, signed by Barnack, was scanned from the original. It has the same size of the original and an accurate rendering of the yellowed color it has now.
Barnack designed shutter tensioning device, in effect a miniature torque wrench
His private life was very
quiet, and by himself he was a rather unassuming person. He was also a very accomplished chess
player. His character was not at all
influenced by the great success of his camera.
In summer of 1935 he became
seriously ill. The diagnosis confirmed
pernicious anemia. Recovery was slow,
but on January 2, 1936, he was able to celebrate his 25th
anniversary with the company. A few days
later pneumonia forced him back to bed.
His health deteriorated rapidly and on the morning of January 16, 1936
Oskar Barnack died. His legacy, the
Leica, remained, and long after Barnack’s death, his invention continued to
change photography an nothing else before or after has done.
Postscript 4-26-2013
This article was written, based on the published information
regarding the development of the Leica.
Further research has shown that this generally accepted and published
information contains several mistakes.
These are pointed out and corrected in the following article:
THE REVISED HISTORY OF THE LEICA
For more information on the Ur-Leica go to:
IS THIS THE OTHER UR-LEICA?
Other articles with pictures
of and by Oscar Barnack
WETZLAR EISENMARKT
THE UR-LEICA Part Two
