By José Manuel Serrano Esparza
GENESIS OF AN IDEA
When during the second
half of 1911, 1912 and 1913 Oskar Barnack made a number of motion pictures
tests
with a 18 x 24 mm format
metallic movie camera coupled to a Zeiss Kino Tessar lens and using a constant
exposure time of 1/40 sec, he realized that on making enlargements from those
negatives up to a roughly print size of 13 x 18 cm on black and white
photographic paper, results were acceptable.
But it also dawned on him
that to make his new, very small and exceedingly light Ur-Leica camera
prototype commercially feasible it was utterly necessary to get top-notch image
quality in enlargements up to 8 x 10 " (20 x 25 cm) and even more made
from those original tiny black and white frames, so it was apparent that the 18
x 24 mm cinematographic format was too small for that aim, since the b & w
photographic emulsions of the time featured a lot of grain.
That´s why he decided to
double the length of the 18 x 24 mm cinematographic format, increasing it up to
36 mm, giving birth in 1914 to the Ur-Leica prototype camera using 24 x 36 mm
format film, which would turn within time into the most widespread one in the
history of photography.
Therefore, the rather
grainy 18 x 24 mm cinematographic b & w films of the time (with a much
lesser area than the 864 square millimeters of the 24 x 36 mm film format) and
their very small surface made impossible to achieve great image quality in
medium and big size prints.
Nevertheless, nineteen
years later, in 1933, the German photographic firm Kochmann, based in Dresden,
launched into market the first half-frame model boasting shape of photographic
camera: the Kochmann Korelle K viewfinder camera, made in bakelite, featuring a
Compur shutter with speeds up to 1/300 sec, interchangeable lenses, able to get
seventy-two 18 x 24 mm format pictures on a roll of 35 mm film, very small
dimensions of 90 x 32 x 56 mm and a weight of only 300 g.
1946 : DUCATI TAKES THE
WORLD HELM IN THE SCOPE OF 18 X 24 MM FORMAT SCOPE OF PHOTOGRAPHIC CAMERAS
Fifteen years after the
introduction of the half-format Kochmann Korelle camera, something absolutely
unexpected happens when Antonio Cavalieri Ducati and his three sons Adriano,
Marcello and Bruno (who had founded the Società Scientifica Radio Brevetti
Ducati in Bologna in 1926, building a new factory in the Borgo Panigale area of
the city nine years later) decide in early 1946 the design and production of an
incredibly tiny professional 18 x 24 mm format rangefinder photographic camera
with also amazingly small and first-class interchangeable lenses, eight years
before the creation of the 125 cc single-cylinder Trialbero Racer (first
desmodromic Ducati bike) in 1954 by the genius engineer Fabio Taglioni, and forty
years before ther also eminent engineer Massimo Bordi began to develop the
ottovalvole Ducati V-Twin desmodromic engines featuring 4 valves per cylinder
(inspired by the legendary Cosworth DFV Formula 1 highly compact and efficient
powerplants from late sixties), giving birth to the breed of Ducati Superbikes
with models like the Ducati 851, Ducati 888, Ducati 916, etc, which would
subsequently turn the Italian firm into the most laureate one ever in WorldSBK.
The name of this 18 x 24
mm format camera, a prodigy of Italian craftsmanship and flair for miniaturized
mechanics is Ducati Sogno Micro Camera.
To begin with, its
specifications are stunning for the time, being much smaller than a Leica IIIc,
with dimensions of 54 mm (height), 33 mm (thickness) and 100 mm (length),
featuring a built-in rangefinder and a weight of only 245 g.
It is a masterpiece of
precision stemming from the impressive Italian ingenuity, second to none
mechanical excellence, passion, gift for begetting small devices working
flawlessly like a Swiss watch and elegance to spare, since the contours and
shape of this camera, clearly inspired by the LTM39 mount Leica rangefinder cameras
produced since 1924, are likewise a straightforward homage to the typical
Italian sense of beauty strongly pervading virtually everything they make.
Besides, from a mechanical
viewpoint, this is a one-of-a-kind camera and a world in itself, providing very
different technical solutions in comparison to the ones boasted by the LTM39
mount Leica cameras manufactured until then, something that has been thoroughly
proved by the recognized photographic mechanic pundits Rick Oleson and Ryuichi Watanabe (New Old Camera), who have extolled the most significant traits and
virtues of the 18 x 24 mm format Ducati Sogno :
- Though the shutter of
the half-frame Ducati Sogno is a horizontally travelling cloth curtain focal
plane one, as also happens in the LTM39 mount Leica rangefinders, its working
is very different, because in the screwmount Leicas the shutter travels at a
fixed speed, changing the exposures times by adjusting the width of the
travelling slit between the two curtains, whereas the Ducati Sogno shutter´s
opening is fixed at about 20 mm, and to get velocities higher than 1/20 sec,
the speed of travel is increased by raising the spring tension of the shutter
speed dial to a higher speed setting.
- That very special
shutter mechanism of the Ducati Sogno micro camera is optimized for shooting
handheld at the 1/20 s and 1/50 s lowest speeds very quietly and in an
amazingly smooth way, so only at the highest speeds the photographer can feel
the spring tension.
- Unlike the LTM39 Leica
24 x 36 mm format, whose shutter features two independently controlled
curtains, the Ducati Sogno´s shutter has only one curtain with an opening in
it.
- The manufacturing
optomechanical quality of the Ducati Sogno camera and its lenses is on a par
with the cream of the crop of Leitz and Zeiss Ikon photographic products of the
time.
- The Ducati Sogno camera
sports a very special bayonet mount that is unlocked pressing the small button
located on the camera´s front plate, beside the lens, and then turning the lens
counterclockwise, using the focusing arm or lens ring.
- The array of eight
lenses for the Ducati Sogno is very comprehensive for the time : a Vitor 35 mm
f/3.5, a Vitor 35 mm f/2.8, an Argon 28 mm f/4, a Dugon 19 mm f/6.3, an Eltor
40 mm f/2, a Luxtor 40 mm f/1.5, a Lator 60 mm f/2.8 and a Teletor 120 mm
f/5.6.
Designed by Giuliano
Toraldo di Francia (Emeritus Professor of Physics at Florence University), all
of them feature an excellent optomechanical construction and deliver very good
image quality, in addition to enabling a remarkable accuracy of focusing by
means of the coupled rangefinder.
- The Ducati Sogno´s build
quality is superb, manufactured in an utterly handcrafted way and it is
entirely metallic, with brass and aluminum top panel.
- The optics of the
rangefinder is also top quality.
It is really incredible that only one year
after the end of the Second World War and a devastated Italy suffering a huge
economical crisis, Ducati has been able to design and produce such an
extraordinary camera like this, of which 10,000 units will be made until 1952.
1948 : ERNST LEITZ WETZLAR
BEGINS DABBLING IN THE 18 X 24 MM FORMAT SPHERE OF PHOTOGRAPHIC CAMERAS WITH
THE LEICA 72
1948 means a very good
year for the German photographic industry, particularly embodied by Ernst Leitz
Wetzlar and Zeiss Ikon, since it is the last production season of the Leica
IIIA (manufactured between 1935 and 1948, with a total of 92,687 units sold)
and the ninth production year of the Leica IIIC (manufactured between 1940 and
1951) that will reach the figure of 133,626 units sold, and it is besides the
twelfth production year of the superb Zeiss Ikon Super Ikonta 531/2 6 x 9
format folding camera (1936-1953) featuring a coupled rangefinder and yielding
extraordinary image quality, thanks to the huge 6 x 9 cm size of its negatives
(five times bigger than a 24 x 36 mm format one) and the optical quality of the
Novar, Tessar and Schneider Xenar lenses used by it in synergy with Compur,
Compur-Rapid and Synchro-Compur shutters.
But though Leica is being
highly successful with the sales of its 24 x 36 mm format LTM39 rangefinder cameras,
the top brass of Ernst Leitz Wetzlar feel that there is perhaps the chance of creating a new market niche of Leica cameras using 18 x 24 mm half-frame format, returning to Oskar Barnack´s original idea of 1911-1913 until finally choosing the 24 x 36 mm format for the Ur-Leica prototype in 1914, doubling the length of the 18 x 24 mm cinematographic format and increasing it up to 36 mm.
Therefore, some meetings
are held between Ernst Leitz III, Ludwig Leitz, Willi Stein, Adam Wagner and
Theo Kisselbach (founder and director of the Leica School in 1946) in Wetzlar
(Germany) in 1948 to analyze the entrepreneurial and commercial chances of
creating a new 18 x 24 mm half-frame Leica camera.
Right off the bat, they
realize that from a technological viewpoint, there are two main possibilities
of fulfilling that project :
A) To follow the
fundamental keynotes pioneered by the half-format Ducati Sogno rangefinder
camera, id est, begetting a completely new RF micro camera (much smaller than
the Leica IIIA and Leica IIIC) with also utterly new interchangeable lenses
designed and manufactured from scratch for 18 x 24 mm format.
They painstakingly analyze
and test a Ducati Sogno unit coupled to some lenses and using the special
casettes of 18 x 24 mm format film, verifying the excellent image quality it
yields in prints up to roughly 24 x 32 cm and subsequently studying the amazing
innards of the camera.
Ludwig Leitz, Willi Stein
and Adam Wagner perceive that it is a masterpiece of mechanical engineering,
incredibly small and with first-class lenses coupled to the camera through its
state-of-the-art bayonet.
But they also realize that
the Ducati Sogno has got a significant drawback : because of its amazing
miniaturization and the very little inner space available, it uses special
casettes with 47 cm of 35 mm film, so only fifteen 18 x 24 mm pictures can be
obtained.
And to get seventy-two 18
x 24 mm pictures with each 35 mm film roll is one of the top priorities to
strive after making a profitable half-format Leica camera, saving a lot of
emulsion costs to potential customers and beguiling them into purchasing it.
However good the Ducati
Sogno may be, fifteen shots are very few ones in comparison to the thirty-six
exposures possible with a 24 x 36 mm format camera of the time or the
seventy-two ones Leica wish to offer with the new 18 x 24 mm format rangefinder
they try to create.
Moreover, the Ducati Sogno
(whose range of shutter speeds goes from 1/20 s to 1/500 s + B) features a
further major downside : its slowest shutter speed is 1/20 s, unlike the LTM39
Leica rangefinder cameras
that have had a special
dial for slow speeds (1/20 s, 1/8 s, 1/4 s, 1/2 s and 1 s) working through a
train gear built for it inside the shutter mechanism since 1933, when Oskar
Barnack provided the Leica III (Model F, 1933- 1939) with it for the first
time.
And the possibility of
using the 1/8 second shutter speed with 24 x 36 mm format rangefinder cameras
like the Leica IIIa or the Leica IIIc enables the photographers to often get
sharp images shooting handheld, because of the absence of a swivelling mirror
present in the slr cameras, whereas having available the 1/4 s and 1/2 s
shutter speeds is often very helpful to save pictures also shooting hand and
wrist if the photographer has got where to lean his/her back.
On the other hand, Ernest
Leitz III knows that the Ducati Sogno (which has been manufactured since 1946
and will go on in production until late 1951, with a total figure of 10,000
units made) has not been selling well hitherto because of its inevitable very
high price and the dificulty that the Italian firm is having to generate good
revenue with it and create a worthwhile market niche.
It is a too good camera
whose production cost is very steep because both the camera body and lenses are
made in an entirely handcrafted way, unit by unit, and its breakthrough
miniaturized mechanics needs the efforts of highly experienced technicians
during many hours of labor consuming toil.
Furthermore, trying to
emulate that path creating a a half-frame camera concept of its own, much
smaller than a Leica IIIa or a Leica IIIc and with interchangeable lenses,
according to the rationale set forth by the Ducati Sogno, would be a very risky
gamble and mean for Ernst Leitz Wetzlar having to set a specific department for
it and make a huge investment in completely new interferometric instruments,
new tools, new state-of-the-art coating facilities to provide the tiny lenses
and prisms for 18 x 24 mm format with antireflection layers, a specific lathe
unit to manufacture the new rings, tubes, mounts and helical focusing mounts
for lenses, new Edwards vacuum vapour deposition machines, different
gear-cutting machines, etc.
B) To modify the film
gate, counter, viewfinder and wind mechanisms of Leica IIIa units, creating new
half-frame Leica rangefinder cameras getting two vertical 18 x 24 mm frames
inside each negative of standard 24 x 36 mm format film roll, yielding a total
of 72 shots.
From both an entrepreneurial
and technological viewpoint, it is the safest route, in addition to saving the
massive design and production costs inherent to have a go at creating a smaller
camera than a Leica IIIa or IIIc.
It is also a very good
choice, based on the proved reliability and flawless operation of the Leica
IIIa and the great image quality it delivers coupled to the 4 elements in 3
groups Leitz Elmar 50 mm f/3.5, designed in 1925 by Professor Max Berek and the
best standard lens in the world at the moment along with the 7 elements in 3
groups Carl Zeiss Sonnar 50 mm f/1.5 designed by Ludwig Bertele in 1932.
The Elmar 50 mm f/3.5 is
the lens chosen to be attached to vast majority of the thirty-three Leica 72
cameras created by Ernst Leitz Wetzlar,
the first of which is made
in 1949 and bears the serial number 357151.
A further half-format
Leica 72 camera prototype was presented at the Photokina Köln in 1950,
and the rest of 18 x 24 mm
format cameras manufactured in Wetzlar were made at a very slow pace until
1963.
All the cameras built were
almost identical, with the only exception of a few units that
instead of the most
widespread built-in fixed metallic small window mask that partially covered the
standard viewfinder to frame the 18 x 24 mm vertical one,
featured a movable add-on
little window with identical aim.
In addition, Ernst Leitz
Wetzlar managed to build a specific half-frame brightline in the viewfinder of
the Leica 72 cameras, working good enough in synergy with the aforementioned
metallic masks for 18 x 24 mm format.
Whatever it may be, the
tests made above all by Theo Kisselbach (then the greatest darkroom expert at
Ernst Leitz Wetzlar), developing black and white negatives exposed with Leica
72 cameras coupled to Elmar 50 mm f/3.5 and Summitar 50 mm f/2 lenses and
making prints with a Leitz Focomat Ic enlarger, only give professional results
with very low sensitivity b & w films like Kodak Panatomic-X ISO 32 and
Agfa ISOPAN IF 17 ISO 40 up to roughly 30 x 40 cm size, whereas on loading
Kodak Plus-X 125 it is only possible to get good image quality up to roughly 20
x 28 cm enlargements.
But results obtained using
Kodak Super-XX ISO 100 (then considered a high speed film, along with the Kodak
Plus-X 125, and whose sensitivity would subsequently be increased to ISO 200)
yield excessive grain in prints beyond approximately 13 x 18 cm.
Needless to say that
unlike standard 24 x 36 mm format negatives, the very small surface of the
half-frame ones doesn´t allow to make any kind of selective reframings of the
pictures with every black and white emulsion of the time, since grain
skyrockets and there is a significant overall drop in image quality.
1954 : ERNST LEITZ MIDLAND ONTARIO (CANADA) COMES INTO PLAY
During the three first
years elapsed between 1949 and 1951 manufacturing very few units of the 18 x 24
mm format Leica 72 camera, Ernst Leitz Wetzlar upper echelons realize that it
will be very difficult to make this half-frame camera commercially viable and
profitable, because most of the films available at the time are grainy and
prints beyond 20 x 28 cm made from the tiny 18 x 24 mm format negatives on
using ISO 100 or higher sensitivity films don´t yield good image quality, so
the camera isn´t versatile for genres like travel and street photography
shooting handheld.
But Ernst Leitz Wetzlar
know that the steady evolution in film technology will increasingly churn out
new chemical emulsions featuring less grain, more resolving power and contrast,
enabling perhaps in few years better chances of getting good quality prints up
to approximatel 30 x 40 cm size departing from the very small 18 x 24 mm
negatives exposed with the Leica 72.
Therefore, in 1954 they
decide to boost the Leica 72 production with 150 units more (from serial number
357301 to 357450, made until 1957) that will be manufactured at the new Ernst
Leitz factory in Midland, Ontario (Canada), built only two years before, in
1952.
Broadly speaking, 1954 is
being a great and pivotal time for Leica, with the introduction of the Leica M
system of rangefinder cameras and lenses, pioneered by the fabulous Leica M3,
presented in the Photokina Köln of that year and which will become a remarkable
success with 226,178 units sold all over the world between 1954 and 1968.
In addition, a new golden
age for the German photographic firm has started with the healthy competition
between two eminent optical designers : Professor Helmut Marx (in Wetzlar) and
Dr. Walter Mandler (in Midland, Ontario, Canada), whose huge gift for
generating top-notch highly luminous lenses will mean a turning point in the
history of photographic objectives.
Therefore, Ernst Leitz
Midland Canada manufactures its first 18 x 24 mm half-frame Leica 72 camera
(serial number 357301) in 1954.
Walter Kluck (Marketing Director
of Ernst Leitz Midland Canada), Walter Mandler (who has just arrived at Ernst
Leitz Canada) and Otto Geier (Supervisor of the Optics Department)
painstakingly study the possibilities of the Leica 72 to beget a market niche
with it.
A number of tests are made
with 18 x 24 mm format Leica 72 cameras coupled not only to Elmar 50 mm f/3.5
lenses, but also to the new Summicron 50 mm f/2 collapsible Type 1 (1953-1960),
obtaining a bit better results stopping down than with the Elmar 50 mm f/3.5.
But in comparison to the
very small and light Elmar 50 mm f/3.5 featuring a weight of 111 g, 31.64 mm
length extended and 36 mm front outer mount diameter making the combo with the
Leica IIIa camera body (as base of the Leica 72 with the aforementioned
modifications to be able to use 18 x 24 mm format very small negatives) pretty
compact, the little for its high luminosity but weighty for its size Summicron
50 mm f/2 collapsible Type 1, whose front elements are contained in a lens head
that is approximately 14 mm in depth, is too heavy (216 g).
Some further tests are
made coupling the Leica 72 to the Summarit 50 mm f/1.5 (manufactured between
1949 and 1960), but it is also too heavy (320 g), and though yielding a stellar
performance in portraits as well as boasting a distinct vintage look and an
amazingly beautiful melting bokeh, it is far from the Elmar 50 mm f/3.5 and the
Summicron 50 mm f/2 Collapsible Type 1 in terms of sharpness and contrast, and
is less forgiving than both of them as an all-round lens, since it is very
prone to flare and begets distracting light sources.
Therefore, in the same way
as had happened with vast majority of the first units of the Leica 72
manufactured by Ernst Leitz Wetzlar since 1949 (only very few ones were coupled
to Summitar 5 cm f/2 lenses), Ernst Leitz Canada also decided from 1954 onwards
that the Leica 72 cameras had to be coupled to Elmar 50 mm f/3.5 lenses to get
maximum feasible compactness, comfortable use and the best possible image
quality shooting handheld.
And the relatively small
widest f/3.5 aperture of this very tiny and light lens didn´t mean any
hindrance, since from the get-go in 1948, when the decision to build a few
units of the camera was made in Wetzlar, the Leica 72 had been conceived as a
point and shoot camera.
On the other hand, a new
breakthrough black and white high speed film has just been introduced in 1954
in 24 x 36 mm format : the Kodak Tri-x 400, which at the time has got a real
sensitivity of ISO 200 and from the very instant of its presentation becomes
the photojournalistic emulsion par excellence, thanks to its amazingly wide
exposure latitude making possible to push it up to three stops and fend itself
well with over exposure, its rich tone gradation, high sharpness and contrast,
its very special feel based on its visually appealing grain and an incredible
versatility of use in portraiture, travel photography, street photography, sports,
etc.
Ernst Leitz Midland Canada
grasps that to achieve good image quality with the Leica 72 cameras loaded with
Kodak Tri-X film will be a key factor if they want to have any chance to spawn
a new market niche for this product.
But once more, the very small
size of the 18 x 24 mm format negatives turns into an unsurmountable obstacle,
because results with Kodak Tri-X film rated at ISO 400 are simply acceptable up
to roughly 15 x 20 cm enlargements, and beyond it, grain skyrockets, so when
the film is rated up to ISO 800 and ISO 1600 (one of the most significant
virtues of this emulsion) excessive grain is apparent even with 13 x 18 cm
prints, and image quality is really bad.
This way, Walter Kluck
(Marketing Director of Ernst Leitz Midland Canada and the first person that had
arrived there in 1952 along with Georg Matthias and Karl Kraiker) explains
clearly to Walter Mandler and Otto Geier that it is virtually impossible to
make the 18 x 24 mm format half-frame Leica 72 camera commercially viable and
profitable, since it can only obtain good results beyond 20 x 28 cm size on
photographic paper with very slow ISO 32 and ISO 40 film, something confirmed
by further exhaustive tests carried out by Rudolf Seck (Manager of the
Photographic Applications Laboratory), getting prints from half-frame negatives
exposed with some Leica 72 cameras.
1960 : NIKON ENTERS THE
HALF-FRAME SCOPE OF CAMERAS
An unexpected movement
takes place in March of 1960 when Nikon releases its first half-frame camera :
the 18 x 24 mm format Nikon S3M rangefinder.
Nippon Kogaku uses an
already existing 24 x 36 mm format Nikon S3 rangefinder camera as base, and
adapts it to 18 x 24 mm format, creating a new film gate for the half-frame
format and a new vertical viewfinder, replacing the original horizontal 35, 50
and 105 brightlines for vertical 35, 50 and 105 framelines adequate to the
smaller half-frame, reducing costs using fixed brightlines instead of more
expensive parallax framelines.
It is a masterpiece
camera, also taking seventy-two pictures on a standard 36 exposure roll, but it
is more complex and technologically advanced in design than the Leica 72, in
addition to offering correction marks for close-up focusing with the 35 mm, 50 mm
and 105 mm framelines,
and comes with a
state-of-the-art for the time S72 motordrive enabling shooting up to 4.5 fps.
The Japanese photographic
firm gamble is daring and particularly interesting, since it is launched into
market at a tipping point instant in which they have just begun to make the
transition from rangefinder cameras to reflex ones embodied by the Nikon F,
introduced one year before, in 1959, and which will mean the beginning of
Japanese dominance in the international photographic industry regarding sales.
In the same way as had
happened with Leica, Nikon has dismissed the idea pioneered in 1946 by the
Ducati Sogno of an exceedingly small utterly new camera built from the ground
up and featuring interchangeable lenses specifically built for the 18 x 24 mm
format, because it would have drawn a significant percentage of the firm´s economical
resources on tackling its mass production and fighting for creating a market
niche.
That´s why Nikon tries to leverage
a 24 x 36 mm format Nikon S rangefinder camera as a technological platform,
implementing the necessary modifications to adapt it to the half-frame format
and coupling it to the 7 elements in 3 groups Nikkor-S·C 50 mm f/1.4, with
dimensions of 42 mm length x 47 mm
diameter and a weight of 152 g.
This small standard lens
is excellent from a mechanical viewpoint, feels very solid, is made from chrome
brass and its focusing ring boasts smoothness and long focus throw on turning.
It delivers good contrast
and sharpness in the center between f/4 and f/8, but suffers from focus shift
when stopping down, as well as being prone to flare.
It is a lens oozing
character and vintage glow, with oustanding creative potential (particularly at
f/1.4 and f/2) for photographers knowing its traits, and delivers a very nice kind
of image, but the sharpness and contrast it yields on stopping down, though
good, is far from the Elmar 50 mm f/3.5 (nearly all of them) and a few
Summicron 50 mm f/2 collapsible Type 1 used by Ernst Leitz Canada in its Leica
72 cameras, whereas its uniformity of optical performance between center,
borders and corners at different diaphragms is also clearly below both of them.
Apart from putting the
Nikon S3M through its paces with b & w films like Kodak Plus-X 125, Kodak
Tri-x 400 and others, Nippon Kogaku makes tests with the new Kodak Ektachrome
colour slides (ISO 160) just appeared one year before, in 1959.
But on making prints from
the tiny 18 x 24 mm format negatives and slides, grain skyrockets in larger
than 15 x 20 cm prints, and the superb but very slow Kodachrome colour film of
the time, featuring a sensitivity of ISO 10, is not an option to shoot
handheld.
Nippon Kogaku realizes
that great resolving power and sharpness of lenses and films in symbiosis with
little grain will be a key factor to turn a 18 x 24 mm format point and shoot
camera (whose tiny half-frame emulsion surface was very little tolerant to
grain) into a commercial profitable venture.
However, in the same way
as had happened with the tests carried out by Theo Kisselbach and Rudolf Seck
with 18 x 24 mm negatives exposed with Leica 72 cameras, Nippon Kogaku darkroom
experts perceive that the choice of striving upon enhancing the Mackie lines
between high and low density areas created during the development of black and
white films like Kodak Tri-x 400 with Agfa Rodinal, optimized to strengthen the
acutance in contours, is not possible, because the exceedingly small surface of
the half-frame negatives makes it much more difficult to attain than with 35 mm
films.
But unlike the Leica 72
camera featuring very small dimensions (133 mm length / 39 mm width / 65 mm
height) and a weight of 410 g making up a total of 521 g with the Elmar 50 mm
f/3.5 lens (111 g) attached,
the Nikon S3M camera is
not light (590 g), its dimensions are 136 mm wide / 43 mm thickness / 81 mm
height and the combo with the Nikkor-S·C 50 mm f/1.4 (152 g) gives a total
weight of 742 g, perhaps too much for a
half-frame camera concept whose main raison d´être must be compactness and use
convenience shooting handheld.
Therefore, though the 18 x
24 mm format Nikon S3M is gorgeous, in the same way as its electric motordrive
(a sphere in which Nikon clearly beats Leica) and a total of 195 units are made
between March 1960 and October of 1961, Nikon stops the production of its
half-frame camera because of three main reasons :
a) They are utterly
devoted to the development and spreading of the 24 x 36 mm format Nikon F
reflex camera, launched into market in 1959 and meaning a pivotal moment in the
history of photography, to such an extent that it will be adopted by a high
percentage of professional photographers all over the world, who appreciate its
ruggedness, reliability, impressive resistance to mechanical failures, its
exposure meter fully coupled to the aperture, its motordrive, its sturdy
stainless-steel F-Mount bayonet with 44 mm of internal diameter, its very
comprehensive array of lenses between 21 mm and 1000 mm, and its unmatched
modularity as a system with a lot of interchangeable viewfinders, pentaprisms,
focusing screens, etc.
And that is the wisest
entrepreneurial way with which Nikon starts reigning supreme during sixties in
the field of professional photography from the viewpoint of sales, thanks to
its commendable and unmatched price / quality ratio, a trend that will be
highly reinforced in 1972 with the introduction of the Nikon F2, a true
horsework boasting superb mechanics and able to flawlessly work without
batteries.
b) Nikon realizes that the
best route to create a 18 x 24 mm format niche market is building a new smaller
and lighter half-frame rangefinder camera, whose dimensions and weight should
be significantly more compact than the Nikon S3M and with better lenses.
But the construction of a
18 x 24 mm camera like that along with the design and manufacture of specific
lenses for half-frame from the ground up (a very difficult and hugely expensive
venture that had already been studied by Ersnt Leitz Wetzlar and Ernst Leitz
Canada during the first half of fifties) would mean giving birth to a specific
department and a tremendous investment in new machinery and facilities, so it
would draw a great deal of the firm wherewithal.
Masao Nagaoka, President
of Nikon and a man featuring tremendous market insight along with a very deep
knowledge on photographic devices and optical glasses, feels that manufacturing
such a miniaturized half-format RF camera with a wide range of interchangeable
tiny lenses and make it profitable is virtually impossible at the moment, since
chances are that it won´t go beyond a stage of very risky startup with meager
commercial possibilities.
c) After fulfilling the
rangefinder/slr transition, turning the Nikon SP rangefinder camera into the
slr Nikon F by adding a mirror box, pentaprism and a larger lens mount, Masao
Nagaoka decided that Nikon would focus its production of photographic
objectives on highly luminous 35 mm, 50 mm, 85 mm and 105 mm lenses for its
Nikon F system of 24 x 36 mm reflex cameras.
In 1960 Nikon had also a
roadmap for the design and manufacture of relatively luminous but smaller and
lighter top-class primes delivering exceptional image quality like the
Micro-Nikkor-P 55 mm f/3.5 Preset (1961), the Micro-Nikkor-P Auto 55 mm f/3.5
(1963) and others, also for 35 mm Nikon F cameras.
And for a short time it was considered the chance
of creating miniaturized Micro-Nikkors specifically designed for 18 x 24 mm
format, but the idea was soon rejected, because it would have increased even
more the design and manufacture cost, so after October of 1961, Nippon Kogaku
didn´t make any half-format Nikon S3M camera more, and the idea of mass produce
it and trying to create a half-frame market niche was definitely brushed aside.
1959 : OLYMPUS PEN SYSTEM
OF CAMERAS AND LENSES, THE GAME CHANGER
One year after the
creation of the 18 x 24 mm format Nikon S3M, Olympus presents in 1959 a brand
new and completely revolutionary half-frame camera :
the Olympus Pen, which
becomes an instant sensation.
It is an exceedingly small
18 x 24 mm format viewfinder camera, with dimensions of 68.5 mm (height) / 106
mm (width) / 40.7 mm (thickness), a weight of only 350 g and is coupled to an
amazingly sharp 28 mm f/3.5 wideangle fixed lens.
The camera becomes a sales
hit and Eiichi Sakurai (Director and Head of the Camera Development Division at
Olympus) decides to support with all of his strength the highly proficient
engineer who has created this groundbreaking miniaturized half-frame system :
Yoshihisa Maitani, who within a short time will become the most influential
designer of photographic cameras ever along with Oskar Barnack.
From his childhood years,
Maitani has proved to be a genius of both mechanics and the design of
photographic devices, to such an extent that in 1943, being only ten years old,
he invented his first camera, handcraftedly made.
Born in 1933, Maitani has
been a dyed-in-the-wool enthusiast of the 24 x 36 LTM39 Leica rangefinder
cameras like the Leica II (Model D), Leica III, Leica IIIa, etc, admiring their
amazingly small size and very light weight, together with their ability to
yield top quality images with its tiny first-class lenses like the Elmar 50 mm
f/3.5.
But the very brilliant
Japanese designer, a technological and mechanical driving force in himself,
perfectly knows the many limitations of Leica rangefinder cameras in scopes
like microphotography, macrophotography, sports and the use of medium and long
teleobjectives, so he is striving after creating a new 18 x 24 mm format camera
much smaller and lighter than the Leica screwmount ones.
And what´s more important
and incredible : it must be a reflex camera, core of a very comprehensive
photographic system including a huge lineup of lenses specifically created from
scratch for the 18 x 24 mm format and different accessories.
The cream of the crop of Olympus
firm engineers and technicians have told him for years that it is impossible to
create such a miniaturized reflex photographic system, since technical
difficulties are virtually undefeatable.
But the Japanese genius
perseveres, has the whole support of Eiichi Sakurai, and above all, has stepped
up a great friendship with another genius : Yoshihada Hayamizu (Head of Lenses
Design at the Olympus CO, Ltd Optical Department).
During a lot of meetings
during 1960 and 1961, Maitani bluntly explains Yoshihada Hayamizu that it is
absolutely indispensable to create top-notch lenses specifically designed for
18 x 24 mm format in order that the very small half-frame format reflex camera
he wants to create delivers very good image quality, because the tiny surface
area of the negatives is very critical with the optical performance of
objectives.
Therefore, Yoshihada
Hayamizu builds up a great optical team with prominent optical designers like
Toshihiro Imai, Nobuo Yamashita, Toru Fujii, Hiroshi Takase, Yoshiaki Horikawa,
Tadashi Kimura, Fumitaka Watanabe and others.
And in 1963, the Olympus Pen
F camera, jewel of the crown of the half-frame 18 x 24 mm format Pen System, is
launched into market.
It is a design and
mechanical masterpiece, an absolutely revolutionary, very small and highly
innovative interchangeable lens camera, the world´s first single-lens reflex
one in this tiny format, featuring a porro prism viewfinder and a rotary
titanium shutter, as well as being able to get seventy-two frames on each 35 mm
film roll.
A quantum leap in
comparison to everything made before in the realm of 18 x 24 mm half-frame
cameras and lenses.
Because the Japanese
genius Maitani has been able to beget a 18 x 24 mm format single reflex camera
almost as pocketable size as a 35 mm format Leica IIIa rangefinder and with a
weight of only 441 g, as is confirmed by the great photographic guru Herbet
Keppler in an article in Modern Photography magazine number of May 1964 (he had
seen and touched a prototype of the Olympus Pen F two years before, in March of
1962, during the Photokina in Cologne), where he raves about Maitani´s
incredible ingenuitity and talent creating the side mounting and swinging
mirror, the solid titanium metal semicircular rotating focal-plane shutter
allowing full flash sync with bulb and electronic flash up to 1/500 s, the
Olympus F bayonet, the praiseworthy synergy of the side swinging mirror with
the fully enclosed prisms and the building of the whole finder system to the
side of the picture area, getting rid of the traditional, delicate and exposed
top prism housing.
In addition, Keppler had
the chance of using two lenses : the Olympus Zuiko Auto-T 100 mm f/3.5 and the
Olympus Auto Zoom 50-90 mm f/3.5, stating that both of them were exceedingly
sharp : the first one excellent for portraits (equivalent to a 150 mm lens in
35 mm format) and the second one the best zoom he had ever tested until that
moment.
And he was right : the
Olympus Pen series of 18 x 24 mm format cameras reached the astonishing figure
of 8 million units sold of the different models between 1960 and mid eighties.
Therefore, for the first
time in history, Maitani had achieved to design and manufacture a highly
successful and profitable half-format photographic camera with interchangeable
lenses, on an industrially efficient basis, creating a market niche for it, unlike
many half-frame snapshot compact cameras coupled to very good fixed non
interchangeable lenses and made by other firms during sixties like the Canon
Demi with a 28 mm f/2.8 (1963-1964), the different versions of Konica Eye with
Hexanon 30 mm f/1.9 and 32 mm f/1.8
(1964-1967), the Ricoh Auto-Half from 1960 with a 25 mm f/2.8, the Yashica
72-E from 1960 with a Yashinon 28 mm
f/2.8, the Fujica Half from 1963 with a Fujinon 28 mm f/2.8 lens and many
others.
And a further seminal
factor for that accomplishment, as was also proved by Herbert Keppler, was the
excellent optomechanical performance of the Zuiko Auto-T lenses specifically
designed for the 18 x 24 mm format, delivering great sharpness, to such an
extent that enlargements made from the tiny half-format negatives exposed with
the Olympus Pen F camera up to a size of roughly 11 x 14 inches (28 x 35 cm)
yielded very good image quality and were virtually impossible to tell from
prints made from 24 x 36 mm format negatives, both with slow, medium and fast
films if they were correctly exposed and properly developed.
Moreover, the formidable
Olympus Optical Team directed by Yoshihada Hayamizu has designed and
manufactured nothing less than twenty different top-notch tiny lenses, from a
20 mm f/3.5 wideangle to a 800 mm f/8, for 18 x 24 mm format, all of them
featuring approximately half the size and one third the weight of conventional
lenses for 35 mm format.
Some of them are truly
oustanding, like the Zuiko Auto W 25 mm f/2.8, the Zuiko Auto S 38 mm f/1.8,
the 38 mm f/2.8 with pancake design (rendering the camera even more sleek), the
Zuiko Auto S 42 mm f/1.2, the Zuiko Auto T 60 mm f/1.5, the Zuiko Auto T 100 mm
f/3.5 and the Zuiko Auto Zoom 50-90 mm f/3.5.
It is by far the best and
most comprehensive half-format photographic system ever made, resulting in a
significant upturn of Olympus as a firm.
And the landmark,
exceedingly futuristic and cutting-edge design of the 18 x 24 mm format Olympus
Pen F cameras anticipated in more than fifty years the contours and shapes of
some mirrorless digital cameras of XXI Century, utterly confirming Yoshihisa
Maitani´s visionary mind and huge talent.
1959-1967 : LEICA DOESN´T
SURRENDER IN ITS SEARCH FOR CREATING A 18 X 24 MM HALF-FRAME CAMERA WITH MARKET
POSSIBILITIES
Throughout the seven first
years of upheaval within the half-frame domain of photographic cameras brought
about by the Olympus Pen System series of 18 x 24 mm format cameras and its
raft of first rate lenses and accessories, Leica has kept on manufacturing its
highly successful line of M-System cameras, particularly the Leica M3 and Leica
M2 (flagships of the brand), while 1959 and 1960 are the two last years of very
good sales of the Leica IIIG (last of the screwmount models, designed by Adam
Wagner, Willi Stein and Friedrich Gath, launched into market in 1957 and
featuring many improvements in comparison to its LTM39 mount predecessors).
Therefore, though
particularly Nikon is beginning to dominate the international photographic
scene in terms of firm revenues and use by professional photographers, both
Ernst Leitz Wetzlar and Ernst Leitz Canada are economically very healthy during
late fifties and mid sixties, a stage in which Leica M cameras and lenses, the
core of the firm, go on being the qualitative pinnacle regarding optomechanical
precision and image quality yielded, so sales blossom.
Anyway, from early
sixties, Ernst Leitz starts realizing that photographers are increasingly
moving towards SLR cameras offered by Japanese competitors with an unbeatable
price/quality ratio, so rangefinder cameras market share could be threated in
few years.
That´s why in 1964 the
German photographic firm decides to move into the 24 x 36 mm format slr scope
and introduces the Leicaflex, its first pure single lens reflex camera sporting
uncluttered minimalist design and extraordinary mechanics.
It is brilliantly
engineered and with a great viewfinder, but a bit obsolete from a technological
viewpoint, far from the Nikon F series cameras in versatility (since it lacks
any exposure automation, interchangeable screens or a hotshoe) and inevitably
more expensive, because of the uncompromising quality of metals used in its
construction.
It will be manufactured
until 1968, but won´t be able to withstand the onslaught of the Japanese
photographic industry in the reflex sphere, in spite of its superb array of
Leica-R lenses (many of which were then and keep on being nowadays the best in
the world in the reflex arena), being subsequently followed by the Leicaflex SL
(1968-1974), a far better camera than the original Leicaflex, boasting a step
ahead extraordinary engineering, a very special industrial minimalist
aesthetics and a unique smoothly sloping back area, as well as offering a
philosophy focused on the essentials, remarkable sturdiness, a superb very big
and crisp viewfinder and center weighted through the lens light metering.
But incredibly, Leica has
meanwhile been striving upon implementing the development of two almost
parallel and secret 18 x 24 mm half-format camera projects :
a) The Leicaflex 18 x 24
mm half-format camera whose main features were unveiled during the Westlicht
Photographica auction held on November 20, 2006, in which the only completely
finished camera, manufactured in 1965, was sold, explaining that it was
designed and built by Willi Franke in 5 years of development and coupled to a
special Summicron 35 mm f/2 lens specifically designed for half-format by
Helmut Müller.
But the most defining
feature of this half-format Leicaflex prototype was that it featured a rotary
shutter and a mechanics related to the Olympus Pen F cameras.
Its order of development
was given in April of 1962, but the huge difficulties to grapple with the
technological challenge of finding the best possible shutter for such a special
camera in terms of reliability and preservation of a wide range of shutter
speeds up to 1/1000 s,
made them adopt in early
1964 for its 18 x 24 mm format Leicaflex prototype
a rotary metallic
focal-plane shutter similar to the one featured by the half-frame reflex
Olympus Pen F of 1963, combining speed, durability and outstanding ability to
avoid camera shake on shooting handheld at 1/15, 1/8, 1/4 and 1/2 slow shutter
speeds.
As a matter of fact, three
Leitz engineers had examined an Olympus Pen F 18 x 24 mm format camera for
approximately two hours during the Phototina Köln 1963 held between March 16
and 24 of that year, being bowled over by the myriad of amazingly innovative
technical solutions that Yoshihisa Maitani had implemented in this half-format
photographic tool, particularly the metal rotary focal plane shutter to make
use of the space behind the prism (instead of a bulky two-curtain focal-plane
shutter like the ones typically featured by 24 x 36 mm format slr cameras of
the time) and the great quality of its lenses.
But the Leicaflex 18 x 24
camera project was abandoned in January of 1967.
b) The Leica-H 18 x 24 mm
half-format rangefinder camera. One of the most amazing and fascinating
photographic projects ever made, with which Ernst Leitz Wetzlar returned to the
way trailblazed by the Ducati Sogno in 1946, id est, the creation of a tiny 18
x 24 mm format rangefinder camera much smaller and lighter than a Leica IIIa or
Leica IIIc.
But unlike the Italian
half-frame camera with interchangeable objectives, the Leica-H is an
autoexposure camera and permanently attached to a fixed and top-notch quality
35 mm f/2.8 lens.
That´s to say, the Leica-H
is conceived to all intents and purposes as a very posh and compact 18 x 24 mm
format point and shoot camera coupled to a tiny and excellent collapsible lens
delivering great image quality.
One unit of the only three
Leica-H camera prototypes completed is lavishly illustrated in the gorgeous 488
page book " Prototype Leica ", written by Lars Netopil (who rescued
this half-format camera from oblivion, devoting many years to glean as much
information as possible on its birth and evolution) in both English and German.
It seems that the first
drawings of this amazingly compact and lightweight camera hark back to 1959,
when the first sketches were made within the Adam Wagner Development Group.
But the most important
persons in the design, construction and development of the three prototypes of
the Leica-H were two young and very brilliant Leitz engineers :
- Georg Mann, a genius of
design, main creator of the Leicaflex (1964-1968), Leicaflex SL (1968-1974) and
Leicaflex SL2 (1974-1976).
In the same way as had
already happened with the extraordinary (though complex) Zeiss Ikon Contarex
Super from 1967, the Leicaflex SL and Leicaflex SL2 were masterpieces of
optomechanical precision, built with the best possible materials and oozing superb
engineering, in addition to being coupled to the second to none in the reflex
field Leica R lenses.
What this man (Honorary
President of the Leica Historica e.V) made was an unprecedented feat, since he
had to fight with the different models of Leicaflex cameras that he designed
against the whole Japanese photographic industry, embodied at the time by such
great slr cameras like the Nikon F, Pentax Spotmatic, Canon F1, Nikon F2,
Olympus OM-1 and others, as well as being much larger companies having available
boundless economical resources, much more cash-flow to invest on R & D and
a higher capacity for introducing technological innovations and new models of
cameras within shorter times.
In addition, Georg Mann´s
astonishing mechanical prowess turned him into the mastermind of the optimized
Leica M4-P Winder and the motorized drives for 24 x 36 mm format Leica
single-lens reflex cameras.
Between early sixties and
1965, Georg Mann made the design and drawings of many assemblies of the three
18 x 24 mm format Leica-H prototypes.
- Erwin Neurath, another
prestigious Leitz engineer, who had invented in 1953 the Summicron 5 cm f/2
Compur (with built-in between-the-lens central shutter for screwmount Leica
rangefinder cameras, enabling electronic flash sync at 1/100 and 1/200 s) and
was also an important person in the construction of the Leica-H.
1965-1967 : ERNST LEITZ
STARTS ENVISAGING THE END OF ITS HALF-FORMAT CAMERAS RESEARCH
In late 1965, Dr. Ludwig
Leitz (Head of Research and Development Department since 1939) is visited in
Wetzlar by Heinz Waaske, another genius camera designer.
He is a 41 year old
self-made man featuring a tremendous talent for photographic mechanics and has
made the first prototypes of a new 24 x 36 mm format miniature camera smaller than
vast majority of the 18 x 24 mm half-frame cameras and whose first sketches he
drew three years before while he was chief engineer at the German photographic
company Wirgin in Wiesbaden.
Heinz Waaske shows Ludwig
Leitz one of the first completely functional units of this breakthrough
viewfinder camera without rangefinder coupled to a collapsible and exceedingly
small fixed 3 elements in 3 groups Steinhel München Cassar 40 mm f/3.5 lens,
offering it to Ernst Leitz for its mass production.
Ludwig Leitz (a mechanical
authority, creator of nothing less than twenty-six photographic patents between
1935 and this meeting, in addition to having played a leading role in the
development of the Leica M3) thoroughly examines this incredibly tiny camera
for its 24 x 36 mm format and realizes that it is a further game changer, only
four years after the launching into market of the Olympus Pen F.
The Rollei 35 stems from a
myriad of technological solutions, including a new type of shutter divided into
two functional parts to tackle the short radius of available space around the
wholly insertable lens and the separate components being mechanically coupled
by shafts.
It is a prodigy of miniaturization and space saving all over its surface, using a new five-sprocket film guiding wheel instead of the eight-sprocket usual one.
Ludwig Leitz´s huge market
insight makes him grasp that this camera means the beginning of a new trend
that will coexist throughout the second half of sixties and seventies with the
18 x 24 mm format cameras from different Japanese brands, and will probably
prevail during eighties with some other tiny 24 x 36 mm format cameras designed
by those companies.
Definitely, that path is
far from being the best and most profitable for Leica from a technological and
entrepreneurial viewpoint, because of a number of reasons :
a) Though the introduction
of the Olympus Pen F and its wide range of excellent lenses has meant a
significant improvement in image quality within the domain of half-format
cameras, the very small surface of negative goes on being a major drawback on
making enlargements from 30 x 40 cm size upwards, and the 24 x 36 mm format
Leica M and Leicaflex cameras, thanks to their bigger film surface and the
reference-class Leitz lenses coupled to them, deliver far better image quality
in terms of resolving power, sharpness, contrast, tonal range and so forth.
b) Though the Rollei 35 is
presented at the Photokina Köln 1966 connected to a new and excellent Zeiss
Tessar 40 mm f/3.5 lens that increases the standard of image quality (thanks to
its larger film area) in these so tiny photographic cameras, Leica has been
involved in a completely different optical approach since the introduction of
the first Summicron 50 mm f/2 lenses in 1953, giving top priority to the design
and manufacture of highly luminous 50 mm lenses ( Summicron-M 50 mm f/2
Collapsible Type 1 from 1953-1960, Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 Rigid Type 2
1956-1968, Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 Dual Range Type 2 1956-1968 and Summilux-M 50
mm f/1.4 1959-2004), 35 mm lenses (Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 Version 1 1958-1968
and Summilux-M 35 mm f/1.4 1961-1968) and 90 mm lenses (Elmarit-M 90 mm f/2.8
1959-1974) lenses for its M line of 24 x 36 mm format rangefinder cameras.
A lens philosophy that has
just also been applied to the new Summicron-R 50 mm f/2 (1964-1976) and
Elmarit-R 35 mm f/2.8 (1964-1979) designed and built for the likewise 24 x 36 mm
format Leicaflex camera (1964-1975).
But it is not only a
question of getting unmatched levels of resolving power, sharpness and
contrast.
A further highly
significant goal for Leica, particularly with the fastest 50 mm standard lenses
and the 35 mm wideangle ones, is to get maximum possible uniformity of
performance between center, borders and corners, at every diaphragm and
shooting distance, since the Leica users are very exacting as to image quality.
c) The steadfast advances in film technology have resulted in the appearance of new extraordinary 24 x 36 mm format films like
the Kodachrome-X ISO 64 colour slide in 1962, which is often used by Leica
photographers and connoisseurs from its very introduction. and some of them subsequently project the transparencies on big screens with Leitz projectors,
getting mind-blowing image quality in king sizes, something utterly out of the
reach of half format.
And the then very
widespread Kodak Plus X Pan ISO 125 black and white film, in existence from
1954 and featuring almost non existent grain, superb sharpness, rich gradation
and wide exposure latitude keeps on being a great choice for professional
photographers.
But such extremely high
quality emulsions need to be in synergy with the cream of the crop lenses to
draw their full potential.
Therefore, however good
they may be, lenses specifically designed and built for the tiny 18 x 24 mm
format will be a far cry from getting the image quality obtained with the best
Leitz lenses created for 24 x 36 mm format in sizes aproximately from 30 x 40 cm
upwards.
d) The half-format cameras
need to be coupled to small or relatively small widest aperture lenses to
preserve the camera / objective compactness in size and weight, so these 18 x
24 mm photographic devices feature much lesser ability to highlight subjects
with out of focus background in genres like portraiture, fashion, sports, etc,
something that is reinforced by the more extensive depth of field inherent to
the half-frame format in comparison to the 24 x 36 mm one.
e) Since the half-frame
format came from the motion picture cameras, when the camera is held in
horizontal position, the frame is positioned in vertical portrait standing,
that´s to say, contrary to vast majority of cameras with other formats, so
photographers have to hold the camera in vertical position to get landscape
shots.
And though this native
vertical portrait configuration would be adopted in future by some 6 x 4.5 cm
medium format rangefinder cameras like the Fujica GS645 (1983), Fujica GS645W
(1983), GS645S (1984) and the amazing Fuji GA 645 AF (1995), it was always a
bit uncomfortable to a significant percentage of traditional users of 35 mm
cameras accustomed to getting pictures of sceneries with their cameras in
horizontal position.
f) In mid sixties, 24 x 36
mm format Leica M rangefinder cameras (particularly the M3 and M2 models) were
still selling very well, being the business epicenter of the firm, something
that would be followed by the Leica M4, of which 59,441 units were sold between
1967 and 1975.
In addition, Leica has
just started the production of its also 24 x 36 mm format Leicaflex reflex
cameras.
Therefore, Ernst Leitz
decided not to go on researching and producing half-frame cameras, because the
Olympus Pen-F with interchangeable lenses was too good and the arrival of the
likewise tiny 24 x 36 mm format Rollei 35 camera definitely meant that Leica
would have to devote huge economical and engineering resources to be able to
design and manufacture a 18 x 24 mm format camera that could compete in the
market with those two excellent products and new ones that would arrive.
As a matter of fact,
Ludwig Leitz expressed his convition that within time, Yoshihisa Maitani would
create a 24 x 36 mm incredibly small rangefinder camera able to compete with
the Rollei 35.
And he wasn´t wrong, since
Maitani would present the Olympus XA in 1979, featuring dimensions of 102 x
64.5 x 40 mm, a very light weight of 225 g, aperture priority automatic mode
and a great F.Zuiko 35 mm f/2.8 lens.
This way, after making the
last drawings of the 18 x 24 mm format Leica-H and its fixed 35 mm f/2.8 lens
in 1967, Ernst Leitz definitely abandoned the design and production of analog
half-frame cameras, fully aware that instead of branching out the firm trying
to open a new line of half-frame camera product, the soundest and most
efficient path was to mostly concentrate on the 24 x 36 mm format Leica M and R
Systems of Cameras and Lenses, because seventies would be hard years, with a
full-scale onslaught of Japanese 35 mm reflex cameras that highly probably
would result in a significant drop in sales of the German photographic brand
and a threat to the very existence of the Leica M rangefinder breed, as would
be verified in 1977, when Walter Kluck convinced Ernst Leitz Wetzlar to
transfer the production of the Leica M4-2 to Midland (Canada), saving the Leica
M lineage of 24 x 36 mm format rangefinder cameras, 29 years after the great
Leica photographer Walther Benser sent in December of 1957 a discerning letter
to Gunther Leitz (owner of Ernst Leitz together with Ernst Leitz III and Ludwig
Leitz) explaining to him his conviction that the 24 x 36 mm format Japanese slr
cameras would rule the roost very soon regarding the photographic market.
Thirty-six years later,
Leica would resume the path of high quality very compact cameras with the
extraordinary 24 x 36 mm format and autofocus Leica CM, probably the best 35 mm
compact camera ever made (without forgetting the also superb Contax T2 from
1990 with an amazingly sharp Carl Zeiss Sonnar 38 mm f/2.8 lens, the Nikon 35
Ti 1993-1999 and Minolta TC-1 1996-2005), designed by Profesor Achim Heine in Berlin, the upper class
segment of Leica´s compact analogue cameras, with dimensions of 117 x 65 x 36
mm a weight of 300 g (smaller and lighter than a Leica IIIa or IIIc), a
viewfinder display built using the Leica M7 as a reference, manufactured in
titanium and coupled to a state-of-the-art six elements in four groups Summarit
40 mm f/2.4 lens, optimized to get splendid results with slides and getting
impressive sharpness from corner to corner.
For other articles on this blog please click on Blog Archive in the column to the right
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