#Leica drp e leitz wetzlar germany movie#
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Then years later, in 1935, the camera and enlarger section was the most profitable for the Leitz company that still produced their famed microscopes and huntingscopes.

#Leica drp e leitz wetzlar germany professional#

Even some professional photogarphers got enthusiastic for the Leica once it was a reality. The build quality was exceptional, for a small negative to match the precision and quality of larger format cameras, once the small negative had been enlarged. The price of the camera was high somewhat the same range as any of the best cameras of the time. The workforce, trained in precision mechanics and -optics of microscopes, had new work to do. The production started in 1925 with just 100 cameras a month, but then soon 1,000 a month. Instead of letting staff go into unemployment, Leitz had decided to keep his workforce despite any sacrifice. In 1923 Germany got a new stable currency, but there was still much less demand. Even most professional photographers who had been presented for the Leica, didn't believe in such a camera.īut Leitz had lost the large Russian market for microscopes after World War I and was hungry for new expansion into a field he felt could be a promising future.

Ernst Leitz II made this decision on his own as all of his advisers warned him against the large risk it would involve for such a rather small company to enter the camera market.

#Leica drp e leitz wetzlar germany series#

To this date, the 50mm is still the standard lens for Leica cameras and is the one the rangerfinderfocusing mechanism was deveopled for.Įrnst Leitz II decided to put 'Barnacks camera' into commercial production in 1924 after they had produced a limited run of 31 Leica O Series cameras in 1923. With the development of an enlarger, the reduced negative format could then be printed in a larger size than the negative.Īnother Leitz employee, Max Berek, was instrumental in developing a lens for this camera, as he developed the first Elmax 50mm f/3.5 lens as the optimum focal length for the 24 x 36mm format. In any case, he learned that it could actually be turned into a new type of compact as the 'rotated' film format of film was plenty sharp (the film format for motion pictures was 24x18mm for large cinema theater screens, and rotating the film inside the camera and doubling the area made the 24x36mm format). Disillusioned, Barnack later offered the camera to Leitz after moving to Wetzlar, following his friend Emil Mechau who joined Leitz some years earlier. He had developed the first 135mm film-based photo-camera and took it to Zeiss director Guido Mengel, who rejected the design. Till that moment, the size of the negative had been determining the size of the final picutre. Barnack was a film geek and moving pictures was the new revolution back in early 1900's.Īs early as 1905, while employed by Carl Zeiss (from 1902 to 2010), Barnack had the idea of reducing the format of negatives and then enlarging the photographs after they had been exposed, 'small negative, large picture', was his motto, involving a small camera and an enlarger. The reasons told today are many, but that the Ur-Leica was designed as a compact means to test film stock is the most reliable. Or perhaps because he couldn't carry the traditional large plate cameras and wanted a smaller camera for him self.

#Leica drp e leitz wetzlar germany movie#

He became the designer of the Ur-Leica which he made two (possibly three) samples of in the period 1912-1913 with the purpose to test film stock and/or lenses for movie films. Oskar Barnack was headhuntet from Carl Zeiss to be the manager of the Research & Development Department at Leitz. Without the usual heavy equipment, photographs of people no longer had to be confined to stiff conventionally artistic poses. It was always instantly ready to capture life and action effortlessly from any angle with the photographer often able to remain unnoticed. The Leica was extremely compact and could be fitted with a very high quality lens that enabled photographers to work in ordinary outdoor settings with available light. Once photographing meant a large box camera on a tripod, shifting film plate after each shot - and working with a dark cloth over your head and the camera.