From The Phoblographer
Photographs by Lars Netopil, Lars
Netopil Classic Cameras
The story of the Leica H
is a rather unfortunate one that in many ways, makes me question how it would
have affected the camera manufacturing industry. Imagine being so committed to
a creation of yours: treating it almost like a special part of you only to know
that while the idea is pretty fantastic, it just won’t make it into the world
because of problems that are completely out of your control. You’d be
destroyed–and that’s exactly how Adam Wagner felt when he learned that Leica
would essentially be crushing his dreams. Many photographers and resellers can
speak with great detail about the history of the R series, the M series and
even the company’s other cameras like their film point and shoots. But as I
discovered in over two years of research, not much is really known about the
Leica H.
The Backstory of the Leica
H
The what, you say? Yeah,
see–you probably didn’t know very much about it either. Adam Wagner was the
designer of the Leica H and there isn’t a whole lot of information about it.
The Leica H was a camera that was designed to compete with the half frame
camera market. For the uninitiated, Olympus came out with a camera around 1959
that was called the Olympus Pen. It turned into an entire lineup of cameras due
to its success. The Olympus Pen was a half frame camera, meaning that it took a
roll of 35mm film and doubled its effectiveness in picture taking. Each image
would only take up half a frame of 35mm film and by default had a vertical
shutter to cater to the design. It was a camera designed for families and folks
who took lots of portraits.
Olympus would later bring
back the camera lineup digitally with the Olympus Pen EP-1 and its successors
with the most recent variant: Olympus Pen F. Leica had been rumored to be in
the Micro Four Thirds world to produce a camera for many years, but it never
really happened. Leica, however, is still a company that maintains a close
relationship with Panasonic. Thus, they still are a part of the Four Thirds
circle. When it comes to actual cameras though, they tend to march to their own
drumbeat these days. That spirit is perhaps part of what influenced the
decisions made with Adam Wagner’s creation.
There are different sides
of the story depending on who you ask, but the biggest and most accepted reason
as to why the Leica H was never made is because Leica’s factories were so busy
making the M series cameras and lenses. They didn’t have the capability to
expand and the M series was tried and true to bringing in lots of money for the
company. It’s a tough decision: do you innovate or do you keep paying the bills
and ensuring that your employees can pay the bills?
Asking the Experts about
the Leica H
My research initially
began with Leica. I’ve had a great relationship with the company since founding
the Phoblographer. The teams that I talked to though, couldn’t provide me with
any information. However, Leica put me in touch with the folks who could.
I was introduced to
Stephen Clowery, who heads up the Leica Historical Society of America. I asked
about the camera, but even he couldn’t tell me about it. Instead, he introduced
me to Jim Lager–a man who Stephen calls the Leica Historian extraordinaire. But
Jim had no real luck finding out anything about the camera. “Apparently it was
owned by Leitz and buried somewhere in the Museum contents.” explains Jim to us
in an email. “When I photographed the Museum items in 1988 the Leica H was not
there.” He continued to state whatever information he knew about the camera:
“The Leica H is mentioned
in Emil Keller’s book titled A Source of Today’s 35mm Photography Part II The
Leica Years. Also in the Leica Collectors Guide by Laney on pages 82 and
140-141. In Lars Netopil’s book titled Prototype Leica a version of the Leica H
is illustrated. The H was an auto exposure 18×24 format camera with fixed lens.
The designer was Adam Wagner who was upset with Leitz when they did not
manufacture his creation. He decided to leave the Company after 32 years. Lars
Netopil states that the camera was presented in 1959 and by the mid 1960’s
could have been produced. Leitz did not have the production capacity at that
time. We can only wonder how the H would have done in comparison with the Pen F
system. Today we have digital gear.”
Lars Netopil , who Jim
cites, is one of the better known experts on the camera and even Bellamy Hunt,
the Japan Camera Hunter concedes to this. This article is the compilation of
two years ago research on the Leica H, and during that time, I figured that
Bellamy would have been one of the people that would have sold one–I obviously
didn’t know any better. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case due to the extreme
rarity of the camera. According to Bellamy, it’s such a rare camera that he’s
never even seen one in person. “It was meant to be a compact half frame to compete
with the hot (at the time) half frame market which the Japanese were
dominating.” states Bellamy. “But it never went into production for reasons
unknown.” Bellamy continued to state that Leica was famous for making some
pretty poor management decisions in the past.
“I believe the other one
resides at the Leica museum, though I am unsure on that. It would have been a
very interesting direction for Leica to go in and could have changed Leica a
lot from the company that we know today.” Indeed, I agree with this statement.
Perhaps a Minolta version would have also been made available eventually or
Leica and Minolta may have collaborated on creating a camera.
So with this said, it made
sense for my to go to the source itself and fortunately Mr. Netopil responded.
He sent me a brochure which states that the Leica H was finished by Adam and
his team in 1965. There are renditions of the Leica H online that don’t have
the rangefinder or any of the branding on it. But the images provided by Lars
help to give photographers a look at what the camera was supposed to launch as.
Could the Leica H Have
Done Well?
The Leica H seems like a
camera that could have genuinely been a hit with so many people. Of course, it
probably wouldn’t have done as well as the Leica M cameras in the long run or
it could have also done fantastically to the point where Leica would try to
avoid cannibalization in a similar way that they ended production of the Leica
CL.
“I believe it would be,
simply because there is nothing else on the market.” states Bellamy when asked
about whether or not it would have been successful on the market. “If it could
tick the boxes as far as AF, ease of use, lens performance and ISO selector
then it would be a sure fire winner. Leica has made some stunning compacts in
the past, there is no reason why they couldn’t do it again.” To curry this
statement, Bellamy has been working on developing his own autofocus point and
shoot film camera; and is still looking for investors.
It indeed makes me wonder
though: if Leica had put auto exposure metering in the camera, then Olympus and
others would have eventually done it as well.
From photos, everything
about the Leica H says high end, luxury and simplicity. The camera has very
clean lines, curves, and even had a collapsible lens that could make the camera
smaller. Unlike the Olympus Pen series, it isn’t an SLR per se. Instead, as Jim
stated, it had a fixed lens. So essentially, Leica created a fixed lens Olympus
Pen with some extra polish, portability, a rangefinder and class. As a vintage
camera collector, what about that doesn’t sound fantastic? Of course, the auto
exposure meter would surely wear out over time but if it were tweaked or
repaired, it would work just flawlessly.
According to
Collectiblend, the Leica H could fetch anywhere from $50,000-$130,000 today.
But to be honest, I’m sure that that isn’t totally accurate. There were only
three ever made and only two are in existence right now.
So let’s think about this,
if the Leica H were actually made, it surely wouldn’t have been simply a camera
that was thrown away. The Leica H would have mass appeal in some ways today as
a compact rangefinder camera with patina and that would attract street
photographers. Its auto exposure design would mean that eventually Leica would
have made a Leica H with manual controls. Street photographers and others would
use it with black and white film probably just for fun. Japan, China and
America would have loved the customized Leica a la carte versions. But it
eventually could have spawned a version with interchangeable lenses and perhaps
lots of folks who wanted to adapt those lenses onto their cameras today.
Of course, that’s all
second hand sales. Leica has always excelled in doing things that no one else
did. So with Olympus already into it, it would be tougher to really crack the
market as autofocus wasn’t too far behind in the world. But with a camera like
this and the fact that Leica more or less invented autofocus, consumer would
have had a total winner.
But unfortunately, we’ll
never have known any better.
All images “Photo (c) LarsNetopil Classic Cameras, Wetzlar“ Used with permission.
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