The third group was simplified to two cemented elements, which was easier and cheaper to make.

By 1925, the Leitz laboratories had produced glasses with improved optical properties, and Professor Berek designed an improved version of the ELMAX called the ELMAR that had four elements in three groups. When the Leica launched, this lens was renamed the ELMAX, for E Leitz and MAX Berek. Unlike other triplets, the Leitz Anastigmat had the diaphragm between the first and second elements. The lens had five elements in three groups-the third group being three cemented elements-and was initially called the Leitz Anastigmat. The first Leica lens was a 50 mm f/3.5 design based on the Cooke triplet of 1893, adapted by Max Berek at Leitz.

Barnack resorted to a Leitz Summar lens for the protoype, but to achieve resolution necessary for satisfactory enlargement, the 24x36mm format needed a lens designed specially for it. Barnack tried a Zeiss Tessar on his early protoype camera, but because the Tessar was designed for the 18x24mm cine format, it inadequately covered the Leica's 24x36mm negative. To make big photos by enlargement, (the 'small negative, large picture' concept) required that the camera have high quality lenses that could create sharp negatives. The focal plane shutter had a range from 1/20 to 1/500 second, in addition to a Z for Zeit (time) position.īarnack conceived the Leica as a small camera that produced a small negative. It was an immediate success when introduced at the 1925 Leipzig Spring Fair as the Leica I (for Leitz camera). Though the prototypes received a mixed reception, Ernst Leitz decided in 1924 to produce the camera. The Leica went through several iterations, and in 1923 Barnack convinced his boss, Ernst Leitz II, to make a pre-production series of 31 cameras for the factory and outside photographers to test. The Leica transports the film horizontally, extending the frame size to 24×36 mm, with a 2:3 aspect ratio, instead of the 18×24 mm that cinema cameras use, as they transport the film vertically.

Intended as a compact camera for landscape photography, particularly during mountain trips, the Leica was the first practical 35 mm camera that used standard cinema 35 mm film. The first Leica prototypes were built by Oskar Barnack at Ernst Leitz Optische Werke, Wetzlar, in 1913. Reproduction of the Leica Prototype, 1913, 1:3,5

Leitz wetzlar germany 250mm flickr