By Heinz Richter
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 with the Ur-Leica
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 company
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 haircut 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.
The camera was almost
totally destroyed in a fire. It wasn't
until many years later that Malcolm Taylor was asked to restore the
camera. This was described in detail in
the LEICA Barnack Berek Blog article "The 'Leica' Before The FirstLeica".
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 began to work on 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.
The Leica Prototype, 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 design 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,
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.
One of Barnack's pictures
of the Wetzlar Cathedral
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
In the past it has always
been assumed that Ockar Barnack made two prototypes, the first of which he
supposedly gave to Ernst Leitz II. The
subject appeared to have been well researched, including 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.
We do know the account of
the events that led to the development of the initial prototype of the Leica,
the Ur-Leica. I stand by my assertion
that this camera was not the exposure testing device that Barnack made (see:
HOW THE LEICA CAME TO BE)
It is with the many
accounts of what happened after the development of the Ur-Leica that a lot of
misinformation has been brought forth.
Recent extensive research
by me has shown that, in spite of all the published information about a second
Ur-Leica, there is and always has been only one example
The Leica Prototype or
Ur-Leica
It is correct that Konrad
Barnack did have a Leica camera that was at the Deutsches Museum for a while,
and it is correct that this camera was later sold by him to a collector, but
this camera was one of the preproduction, Null Serie (0-series) models made by
Leitz prior to the decision to manufacture and market the Leica. This camera was the 0-series camera #105.
Rolf Fricke, one of the
foremost experts of the Leica and co-founder of LHSA, the Leica Historical Society of America, now called the International Leica Society, wrote the
following:
The camera that was at the
Deutsches Museum was not an Ur-Leica!!!
It was 0-Series (or Null-Serie) camera No.105, which Konrad Barnack
requested back from that museum and subsequently sold to Jim Forsyth of
Florida. Many years later, Prof. Al Clarke of Columbus, OH and I bought out
that collector, and Al kept No.105, which he later sold to another prominent
collector, and Al also kept the large format camera that Oskar Barnack had used
during his hikes in the woods, and which he found cumbersome and which motivated
him to work on a smaller, handier camera, which led to the Ur-Leica. There is
no solid proof whatsoever that there ever was a second Ur-Leica. References to
a second Ur-Leica are always couched in the words "alleged", or
"said to be", and this eventually creeps into the stories of
superficial historians! The camera that Ernst Leitz took along on his visit to
New York was the original and only Ur-Leica!
Over the years Rolf has
had a rather personal connection to Leica, much beyond anyone outside of the
company. He explains that he bought his
first Leica, a used model IIIc on February 21, 1949. In Rio De Janeiro, where
he grew up.
I still have that camera
and the instruction booklet in Portuguese, the camera is still functional!
Next I very naively went
to the local Leitz representative, where a kind elderly gentleman (Paul Louis
Toinndorf) explained to me that the distributor does not handle retail matters,
which are the responsibility of the dealers, but he invited me in anyway and
patiently demonstrated to me what one can do with a Leica, like using a
wide-angle lens, a long focus lens, a close-up attachment, etc, none of which I
could even remotely afford.
He even very graciously
offered to lend me such accessories, all of which endeared the man and his firm
to me. Much, much later I learned that he had completed his apprenticeship at
Leitz in the Hausertorwerk building, the very building where Oskar Barnack had
his office, and he had met that legendary man in person! That warm treatment
endeared the camera to me and created a loyalty that led to further
acquaintances, all the way to the Leitz brothers and sister themselves, and
even repeated stays at the Leitz villa Haus Friedwart.
I recently wrote about the
possibility that I came across a picture of what might be the second
Ur-Leica. It is a picture of a camera
that obviously is of the same design as the known Ur-Leica, but it is outwardly
different. I obtained this picture from
the Deutsches Museum in Munich. I
contacted the museum to shed some more light on this issue. I corresponded with Frau Dr. Cornelia Kemp,
curator for photo and film at the museum.
She wrote about the camera that used to be owned by Konrad Barnack:
Picture of the Ur-Leica
from the Deutsches Museum in Munich
Bei der Leica handelt es
sich nicht um die Ur-Leica, sondern um die Nr. 105 aus der Nullserie, die ab
1923 hergestellt wurde. Sie gehörte aber nie dem Museum, sondern war ihm von
Oskar Barnacks Sohn Conrad von 1939-45 leihweise zur Verfügung gestellt.
(The Leica is not the
Ur-Leica, but the No. 105 from the pilot series (0-series) that was produced
from 1923. It never belonged to the museum, it was given on loan by Oskar
Barnack's son Conrad from 1939-45)
Leica 0-Series Camera with
optical viewfinder
Leica 0-Series Camera with
folding viewfinder
Dr. Kemp went on to
explain the picture the museum had sent to me:
Am 30. 9. 1940 bat der
Museumskonservator Theodor Konzelmann Conrad Barnack (son of Oscar Barnack) um
Bildmaterial für einen Vortrag. Unter
dem übersandten und am 30. 10. 1940 zurückerstatteten Bildmaterial befand sich
auch ein Leica Dia welches die Ur-Leica darstellt. Ganz offensichtlich versäumte das Museum
nicht , von dem Dia eine Kopie zu ziehen.
(On 9. 30. 1940 Theodor
Konzelmann, the curator of the museum, asked Conrad Barnack (son of Oskar
Barnack)for some photographic material for a lecture. Among the material sent
on 10. 30. 1940 was also a Leica slide of the Ur-Leica. Obviously the museum
did not miss out on making a copy of the slide)
This, however, does not
explain the differences between the camera on the picture from the Deutsches
Museum and the known Ur-Leica that is in possession of Leica Camera AG. Considering that the picture was taken in 1940
or even earlier, it stands to reason that the differences, which are mostly
cosmetic, occurred during the time after the picture was taken, especially if
one considers that until relatively recently, the camera was handled quite
often in a rather cavalier manner.
Rolf Fricke made the following
comment:
The one and only Ur-Leica
(by definition, it would not be an 'Ur-Leica' if there was more than one!)
traveled around for quite a bit after the Museum picture was taken in 1940. For
example, the former Leitz CEO Alfred Loew brought it to Rochester, NY in
conjunction with a presentation he gave at a Photo History Symposium at George
Eastman House way back in the 1970s, for which I organized the program. He left
the camera with me for a week while he went to Washington, DC on business and
retrieved it on his way back. Nowadays
that camera is highly insured and it is treated with significantly greater
caution and security.
I can certainly confirm
the relatively careless treatment of the camera from personal experience
because I had the opportunity to handle the camera on two occasions during
annual meetings of the Leica Historical Society. Once it had been brought by Rolf Fricke and
another time by Dr. Wangorsch, then the curator of the Leica Museum in Wetzlar.
We do know of the
existence of another prototype of the Leica, the so-called third
prototype. It is a camera visibly
different from the Ur Leica and it is always shown without a lens. However, there is what should be considered a
third prototype which is relatively unknown.
So called Prototype 3
This camera is thoroughly
described in the Book “Barnacks Erste Leica” (Barnack’s First Leica), written
by Dr. Günter Kisselbach. I did get
permission from Dr. Kisselbach to use some of the pictures from the book. Since I have not yet been able to obtain
this book, I am using a description by Rolf Fricke:
There is a large, very
well-illustrated book by the very personable Dr. Günter Kisselbach, an
ear-nose-and-throat doctor in Wetzlar, who is the younger son of Theo
Kisselbach, the erstwhile director of the original "Leica
Schule". Guenther's older brother
Wolfgang Kisselbach is the overall manager of the construction of the brand new
purpose-built factory buildings and museum in Leitz Park in Wetzlar.
The book is entitled
"BARNACKS ERSTE LEICA" (= Barnack's first Leica"), and it
features a camera in great detail that is very similar to the 0-series camera
with the same optical finder, except that it is all brass with brown leather
covering and has a different flat dial between the viewfinder and the rewind
knob for setting the slit width (in mm) of the focal plane shutter. Evidently
Kisselbach the father kept that camera when he retired and Kisselbach the
younger inherited it, and he thoroughly studied it and had it disassembled and
adapted for picture taking by expert repairman Ottmar Michaeli (who was one of
my speakers at one of the LHSA Annual Meetings!), all of which is beautifully
illustrated in the aforementioned book.
By "First
Leica", Günter Kisselbach means Barnack's first practical camera (still
not named 'Leica'!) after the Ur-Leica. On page 187 of that outstanding book
there is a photo of "Prototyp Nr.3" in what is left of the Leica
museum, which was plundered for sales when the company was about to go
bankrupt. That camera has no lens mount, a folding, recessed open frame
viewfinder frame on top and an exposure counter on the front of the camera.
There is no rewind knob, and the accessory shoe is located where that knob
would be.
Barnacks Handmuster
(Sample)
Top of 0-Series Leica for
comparison
For more information go to:
Since this camera is so
very close to the 0-series cameras, one must assume that the so-called
prototype Nr. 3 was made prior to it and I feel it is not wrong to refer to it
as the second (not third) prototype.
However, since no date for this camera has ever been established, this
is simply conjecture on my part. What I
can say with certainty at this point is that only one Ur-Leica was made by
Oskar Barnack and that two other prototypes exist from the time prior to the
0-series cameras.
In 1914 Ernst Leitz II
took the Ur-Leica to the United States.
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.
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.
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.
Leica I or Model A
Special version of the
Leica I or Model A with Compur shutter
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.
Leica II, first model with
rangefinder
Leica Reporter with
detachable electric motor
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
pensioning device, 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 as nothing else before or after has done.
________________________________________________________________________________________
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