While Kodak’s famous box camera made photography much more accessible at the start of the 20th century, it relied on simplicity for its appeal, which ultimately imposed some limitations on what could be achieved with it. If you wanted something that could do more, then inevitably the available equipment was big, bulky, and expensive.
However, as has been the case throughout the history of photography, the challenge was always to design smaller and lighter cameras without compromising either capabilities or image quality.
Many at the time took up this challenge, among them a gifted engineer, inventor and keen amateur photographer called Oskar Barnack. Born in 1879 in the eastern German state of Brandenburg, Barnack suffered from acute asthma, which limited his ability to carry a heavy wooden camera on a tripod – not to mention a case of glass plates –over any great distances. With cinema also rapidly gaining in popularity,
Barnack’s first ideas were around adapting movie film – with an 18x24mm frame – to a compact still camera. However, this frame size was still too small to deliver a sufficiently high-quality negative for enlargement so Barnack’s stroke of genius was turn the movie film on its side and run it though his camera horizontally, at the same time creating a larger 24x36 mm frame (actually originally 24x38 mm). The problem now was to find a lens with a matching imaging circle as what was available was either too small (covering the 18x24mm frame) or too big.
Eventually, a dedicated lens was designed by another important player in this story, a physicist and mathematician named Max Berek (1886 – 1949). He determined that the 50mm focal length was best suited to the 24x36mm frame and initially devised a four-element collapsible 50mm f/3.5 optic which was briefly labelled ‘Anastigmat’. This was followed by a five-element design called the Elmax – derived from Ernst Leitz Max – and which quite shortly after evolved into the four-element 50mm f/3.5 Elmar, the first of a long line of standard lenses to carry this famous name (over 30 versions, in fact).
First Steps
Barnack and Berek came together at the optical firm of Ernst Leitz Optische Werke, in the historic German town of Wetzlar, and where they both worked on precision microscopes.
Prior to joining Leitz in 1911 (by which time he was 32), Barnack had worked at Carl Zeiss on microscope design while Berek joined the company in 1912 immediately after he had graduated from the University of Berlin. Also a mineralogist, he specifically worked on polarized light microscopy and on developing anti-reflection lens coatings. Barnack was also involved in Leitz’s cinema camera project and, specifically, devised a device to check the film speed, which, in those days, tended to vary considerably from one batch to the next. This device worked a lot like a small still camera – it had a compact metal body with a tube fitting to take a lens, a single-speed shutter and a knob-type transport for the short length of movie film that was being exposure tested.
By 1914, Barnack had built two prototype cameras – and possibly a third – now with a focal plane shutter, a fixed collapsible lens and a sports-type viewfinder mounted on a cold shoe. Only one of these prototypes survives and is now known as the Ur-Leica... literally meaning before Leica.
Over the next few years, the prototypes were extensively trialled by both Barnack and Ernst Leitz II who was an enthusiastic supporter of the project. One of the most famous of these photographs is Barnack’s shot of the Eisenmarkt square in Wetzlar, a view which is largely unchanged today and you can stand in exactly the same spot from where it was taken which is marked with a commemorative plaque. However, global affairs intervened and it would be over a decade before Barnack’s revolutionary camera finally went into production.
To explain, back in 2014 Leica Camera AG celebrated the 100 years anniversary of the Ur-Leica which coincided with the opening of its brand new headquarters back at Wetzlar and appropriately named Leitz Park. In 2025, it’s the launch of the commercially-ready version – and the first camera to be badged a Leica – that’s the subject of this year's ‘Leica 100’ centenary.
The Big Decision
In the decade from 1914 to 1924, there were various small runs of hand-built prototypes – including the Null Serie (O Series) which numbered 25 examples – as Barnack refined his design to arrive at what is known today as the Leica I, but back then it was simply called ‘the Leica’ (an amalgam of Leitz and camera). Actually, to be absolutely historically correct, the very first cameras were called the Leca, but this was soon changed to avoid confusion with a French-made camera called the L’Éca.
After the first World War, the German economy was also left in ruins and the global depression which followed put severe pressure on manufacturers like Leitz. After his father died in 1920, Ernst Leitz II assumed control of the company and decided that diversification was the key to survival. He really wanted to build Barnack’s camera, but not all his senior managers agreed with the idea because it would cost a lot to tool up for production and the unproven ‘miniature format’ (i.e. 35mm) was considered too much of a risk. A special meeting was called to resolve the matter. After four hours, the two sides were still deadlocked and Ernst Leitz II was forced to make the final decision. As he elected to turn Leitz into a camera maker – and an unknown among well-established names such as Kodak and Zeiss – he could not possibly have envisaged the far-reaching effects of what was a very courageous move.
Explaining his decision, he stated, “This small camera is an opportunity to create work for our employees – if it lives up to the promise I see in it – through the years of the Depression and to get them through the difficult times ahead.”
The name Leica was adopted at the last minute for the first showing of production models at the 1925 Leipzig Spring Fair. The camera attracted mixed reactions and sales were initially slow, but Leitz had shrewdly kept the production run small (less than 1000 units) so when demand began to grow, it quickly outstripped supply which is always a clever marketing ploy.
By 1936, a total of 200,000 Leicas had been built, proving Oskar Barnack’s emphasis on optical and mechanical precision had been right. Unfortunately, his on-going health problems eventually got the better of him and he died, of pneumonia, at the start of the same year, aged 56.The Leitz name continued to appear on Leica cameras up until 1986 when it was decided to concentrate all the company’s photographic activities under the Leica brand. The familiar red dot logo appeared in the mid-1970s and was worded either “Leitz” or “Leitz Wetzlar” up to 1986.
Technical Freedom
The Leica’s compact dimensions combined with its comparative ease of use and exceptional quality brought a new technical freedom to photography which revolutionised areas such as reportage and documentary work. It also delivered new creative possibilities derived from its unobtrusiveness, convenience and versatility, which allowed greater spontaneity and responsiveness on the part of the photographer.
Few other cameras have had quite such an impact on how photographs are seen and recorded, and there’s no doubt Leica greatly contributed to the 35mm format becoming the most successful and popular ever.
A string of legendary names in photography adopted the Leica camera among them Alfred Eisenstaedt, Robert Capa, André Kertész, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, William Klein, Werner Bischof, W. Eugene Smith and Ernst Haas. As a result of their efforts the Leica rangefinder camera is inextricably linked with much of the visual documentation of world events since the early 1930s.
Of course, it wasn’t just the small size which had appeal, but also the features and specifications. The Leica I – as it became known – from 1925 had a fixed 50mm f/3.5 Elmar lens with a slip-on rangefinder, and its focal plane shutter operated over a speed range of 1/20 to 1/500 second (plus it had a ‘T’ setting).
Lens interchangeability was introduced in 1930 with the Leica I Model C, although the L39 (39 millimetres diameter) screw mount wasn’t standardized until 1931 and, in 1932, the Leica II with a built-in coupled rangefinder was introduced.
The Leica III with a shutter speed range now extending down to one second followed in 1933 and the IIIa, with a top speed of 1/1000 second, appeared in 1935. Subsequent developments included flash synchronization, a self-timer and a brightline viewfinder with automatic parallax correction.
By 1946, production of Leica cameras reached 400,000 units, but in the immediate post-war years, there were problems with the supply of raw materials and the ongoing threat of a Soviet invasion. Ernst Leitz II elected to move some production to a facility in France and, later, in the early 1950s, an operation was established in Canada which was seen as a safe haven in the likelihood of another world war.
Bigger Views
At the end of second World War, work began on a major update of the Leica 35mm rangefinder camera to make it even more convenient and easier to use. Competitors like Zeiss with the Contax II were snapping at its heels and so Leica wanted another ‘big bang’ like its original Model I. It’s arguable that this next-generation model was almost as significant as the original Leica and similarly had a far-reaching impact on photographic practice, especially in the areas of documentary, street and photojournalism.
Launched in 1954, the M3 featured a combined viewfinder and coupled rangefinder – as first seen in the pre-war Contax II – but which also incorporated the projection of brightline image area frames for different lens focal lengths and, even more conveniently, also provided automatic parallax correction. Furthermore, these frames were engaged automatically when the lens was attached (although the 50mm frame was fixed). The ‘M’ stood for messsucher (yes, there are three esses), the German word for a rangefinder viewfinder, and the number ‘3’ referred to the number of frames provided for different focal length lenses. Also notable was the finder’s brightness and its large, 0.91x magnification. It was the work of Ludwig Leitz – one of Ernst Leitz II’s three sons – and the company’s then chief engineer, Wilhelm ‘Willi’ Stein.
Given the lens was communicating with the camera body – albeit in a very basic mechanical way – the old screwthread mount gave way to a quick and easy bayonet fitting. The M3 also offered the convenience of a single dial for setting all shutter speeds (the previous generation cameras had separate controls for the fast and slow setting) and film advance was now via a rapid-wind lever (initially double-stroke and later clutchless for multi-stroke). While the film was still loaded through the base – as it is on today’s M Series film cameras – it was made significantly more convenient by the provision of an opening back plate. Everything about the M3 was an improvement on the previous-generation Leica III (which, incidentally, remained in production until the end of the 1950s) and the same configuration is still used in Leica’s current film cameras while the viewfinder and the basic control arrangement have been carried over into the digital models.
Furthermore, the M3 largely set the template for all interchangeable lens 35mm rangefinder cameras subsequently, including the Minolta CLE (which, of course, was Leica-derived), the Cosina-made Voigtländer Bessa models, the Konica Hexar RF and, ironically, the Zeiss Ikon ZM (also built by Cosina).
The M3 was followed by the M2 in 1958 and this model had a wider 0.72x magnification finder with brightline frames for the 35mm, 50mm and 90mm focal lengths. Consequently, the M1 was popular with press photographers and photojournalists who tended to shoot with wider angle lenses. There was, briefly, an M1 (introduced in 1959) which is why Olympus had to switch to the OM-1 designation for its famous 35mm SLR.
This was a ‘budget’ model and lacked both a rangefinder and the auto image frame switching.
Saved From Extinction
With a question mark over the future of the 35mm rangefinder camera, given the rising popularity of SLRs in the format, the M4 – introduced in 1967 – represented a full makeover of the M3/M2 in terms of ergonomics and operational convenience. So, for example, the old and cumbersome film rewind knob was replaced by a fold-out crank handle. The viewfinder was given a full set of frames for 35mm, 50mm, 90mm, and 135mm.
Introduced in 1971, the M5 gained TTL spot metering, which used a measuring cell on a swing-down arm that retracted at the moment of exposure. However, this also added bulk and also made the M5 incompatible with certain wide-angle lenses so this model was not well received and production ended prematurely in 1974.
Following the commercial failure of the M5 and the future of 35mm cameras looking more like an SLR, Leica seriously considered ending its M line, but was convinced by its Canadian operation – which made M mount lenses – to move production to North America. Subsequently, the M4 was revived and two versions – the M4.2 (1976) and the M4-P (1980) – were built in Canada. Both were reasonably successful so camera production returned to Wetzlar for a last run of M4s before the original M6 was introduced in 1984. Thanks to another decade of progress, Leica was able to incorporate TTL metering into what was essentially an updated M4-P without compromising its compact proportions. This was a more conventional centre-weighted averaging system, but with measurements made off the shutter curtain, which was painted with a large white dot to achieve the bias. Additionally, the number of viewfinder frames is increased with pairs for 28mm/90mm, 35mm/135mm, and 50mm/70mm. First time around, the M6 was the second best-selling Leica M camera – there were M6TTL and M6 Classic versions along the way – and a total of 180,000 units were made by the time production ended in 1998. Then, 24 years later in 2022, the M6 was revived albeit with an upgraded construction and revisions to the metering plus, notably, a return to the ‘Leitz’ red dot logo.
In reality, despite the introduction of digital M models from 2006, Leica never actually stopped making 35mm RF cameras, and the MP – which was introduced in 2003 – and the M-A (from 2014) are still available today. The M7 – which introduced aperture-priority auto exposure control to the M system – was built from 2002 to 2008 and was essentially the stepping stone to the digital line which commenced with the M8. This was a tentative start with an ‘APS-H’ sized CCD sensor and, like the M5, not greatly loved when it was launched, but over time has been more widely appreciated as, at its heart, it’s still a classic Leica rangefinder camera. The M9 (2009) moved to a full-frame CMOS sensor – at a time when these were still rare in any category of digital camera – and with the subsequent generations of M10 and M11 models Leica has worked at providing more digital-era conveniences while still preserving the essential traditional elements of an M series model. For the time being at least, the famous Leica optical messsucher remains and through which countless photographers have viewed the world to record events both big and small to make news or to make art.
Staying In Character
Of course, there have been many other series of Leica cameras; the 35mm SLRs from the original 1964 Leicaflex to the 2002 R9, fixed-lens compacts both film and digital, the early Digilux digital cameras produced in conjunction with first Fujifilm and then Panasonic (this relationship ongoing), the digital medium format S line SLRs, the Sofort instant cameras, and the SL range of full frame mirrorless models… only the second manufacturer to adopt this configuration after Sony.
Leica itself has been through a few ups and downs over its long history, but today is stronger than it’s ever been with operations also making luxury watches and cine lenses, collaborations with smartphone companies and involvement in high-end home cinema systems.
The legacy informing all of this goes all the way back to Oskar Barnack’s unyielding commitment to pursuing quality, both mechanical and optical, without compromises. In terms of new technologies, Leica may well have erred on the conservative side, but more often than not this was because doing things the traditional way was considered better, particularly in terms of performance and reliability.
Today’s market demands some element of competitiveness, which Leica achieves partly by still doing things in its own unique way and partly through strategic partnerships, most notably its long-term technical tie-up with Panasonic. Consequently, even the most contemporary of Leica cameras are still distinctly Leica in their character, and owning one makes you a part – however small – of the most storied history in photography.
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