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Source: leicaphilia.com

#leica #filmphotography #vintage photography #rangefinder #ernst leitz #leica100anniversary #oskar barnack #35mm film

Leica (Leitz Camera) I, 1927, with collapsible Leitz Elmar 1:3.5 50mm lens. “The camera that would change photogaphy forever”, built and designed by Oskar Barnack for Ernst Leitz Optische Werke in Wetzlar, from 1913 on. Wiki and nice little Movie.

#leitz camera #Ernst Leitz Optische Werke #Leitz Wetzlar #oskar barnack

Oskar Barnack, Eisenmarkt in the center of Wetzlar, Germany (1913)

One of the first pictures taken with a Leica by its inventor.

#Oskar Barnack #Leica #Wetzlar #Eisenmarkt #1913 #historical #b&w #street photography #people

The First Photograph Taken on a Leica Camera

In 1913, Oskar Barnack, an inventor and visionary who worked in the microscope department at Ernst Leitz, captured the first photograph with the Ur-Leica, the first 35mm still camera that would go on to define the Leica brand.

Stephen Dowling, founder of KosmoFoto, has written up an article detailing the history behind the first image captured on a Leica camera. In it, he details how Barnack, ‘an enthusiastic amateur photographer who often took cameras with him on his travels, ’took inspiration from his work on Leitz’s first cinema camera to develop a compact stills camera that would, after a decade of tinkering, go on to become the first Leica camera.

‘Barnack realized that by doubling the dimensions of [cinema] film – 36mm instead of 18mm – he could build a camera that was much more ergonomic and pleasing to use,’ says Dowling. ‘Instead of the film being transported vertically, as it was in a cinema camera, Barnack’s prototype camera transported the film horizontally. The perforated cine film was much easier to advance using toothed rollers than the mechanisms in larger cameras. The little negatives would be easy to make prints from in an enlarger.’

The first image captured with that camera was done so in the historic Eisenmarkt in Wetzlar, Germany. The photograph depicts ‘a crowd of shoppers in front of the Binding am Eisenmarkt’ and the location of its capture is now marked with a commemorate plaque that showcases an outline of the Ur-Leica and the phrases ‘First Leica picture was taken here 1913 by the inventor and visionary Oskar Barnack.’

By Gannon Burgett.