[Leica] Early 35mm cameras

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

On 5/27/05 10:28 AM, "Lawrence Zeitlin" <lrzeitlin@aol.com> typed:

> This is a bit of a dumb (and newbie) question, but were Leica cameras
>> around during the second world war? Or did they arrive afterwards? For
>> some reason I think of the VW beetle and the Leica camera as arriving
>> around the same time. Am I incorrect?
>> thanks,
>> chris
> 
> 
> <<Leica pretty much invented the 135 (35mm) format we use today. The
> first Leica
> was produced in 1925, prototypes date back to 1911. The concept was the
> idea of Oskar
> Barnack.>>
> 
> 
> =========================
> 
> Close, but no cigar.
> 
> There were a number of 35mm still cameras using perforated movie film
> prior to the Leica. The first patent for one was issued to Leo,
> Audobard, and Baradat in England in 1908. The first full scale
> production camera was the Homeos, a stereo camera, produced by Jules
> Richard in 1913. It took stereo pairs, 18x24 mm, with two Tessar lenses
> and was similar to a primordial Stereo Realist. It was sold until 1920.
> The first 35mm big seller was the American Tourist Multiple, also
> appearing in 1913. It contained a 50 foot magazine with enough film for
> 750 half frame exposures and could be fitted with an f2.8 Steinheil
> lens. The camera cost $175 in 1913. By today's standards that's the
> equal of a $3000 Leica. The camera was advertized as containing enough
> film for a full European tour. Of course WW1 started the year after the
> camera was introduced and that pretty well killed grand tours to Europe.
> 
> The first camera to take full frame 24x36mm exposures seems to be the
> Simplex, introduced in the U.S. in 1914. It took either 800 half frame
> or 400 full frame shots on 50 ft. rolls. The Minigraph, by Levy-Roth of
> Berlin, another half frame small camera was sold in Germany in 1915. The
> patent for the Debrie Sept camera, a combination 35mm still and movie
> camera was issued in 1918, but was not marketed until 1922. Finally the
> Furet camera, made and sold in France in 1923 took full frame 24x36mm
> negatives and was the first cheap small 35mm camera to look vaguely like
> today's models.
> 
> Although Oskar Barnack designed his prototype camera around 1913, the
> first experimental production run of ur-Leicas (Serial No. 100 to 130)
> did not take place until 1923. Full scale production of the Leica did
> not begin until 1925.  By that time there were at least a dozen other
> 35mm cameras available. The success of the Leica was attributed by
> contemporary photographic writers, not only to its small size and to the
> precision of its construction, but to its relatively high price which
> established it as a "prestige" item among both photographers and people
> of fashion.
> 
> Larry Z
> 
> 
I'm loving knowing this so clearly now! Or at all!
We might point out that these cameras shooting stills on "movie film" might
be called by us as "half frame" now but at the time the were considered
"single Frame". As movies were 18x24 usually.
For still use when they later made 24x36 it was then called "doubleframe".

In the 1970's Wes made cardboard slide in slide mounts where if you ordered
single frame they were 18x24 and doubleframe 24x36. I thought it was a grand
typo or I had been temporarily transported to a different time warp
continuum. But the guy behind the old dusty counter in the old camera store
in Maplewood Mo on Manchester street assured me the situation.


Mark Rabiner
Photography
Portland Oregon
http://rabinergroup.com/