Leica History by Thorsten von Overgaard

[@evelasq1]

In other words sir, I have been shooting Nikons for years and underneath that camera technology is really a Leica Camera invention.

[@jamestulk4169]

About the "35 mm" format. 35 mm film stock dates back to Thomas Edison, and was intended to run through a movie camera in a vertical direction. Each frame was 24 mm wide and about 18 mm high. Barnack's inspired innovation was to combine two cine frames for the now-familiar 24x36 mm "full frame" format. This meant a bigger negative, and as FF enthusiasts keep telling us, better image quality, especially with the rather grainy film available ar the time. Interestingly, the APS-C format is quite close to the original cine film frame!

[@goswo]

This is soooo great. You, Mr Overgaard, inspire...

[@douggottlieb]

Great video Thorsten, but hoping it is only "History of Leica, Part 1: Invention of a Format" because as much as we love the beginnings, much has happened along the way that we'd love to hear your thoughts on. The M3. The M8 and M9. The S. The Panasonic partnership. The Q. Dr K saves the day. Etc. keep them coming! Great channel

[@MagicOfLight_ThorstenOvergaard]

The article tells a lot about the next things for now: www.overgaard.dk/leica_history.html

[@jd-py5nm]

there are some wonderful books on the brand as well

[@CraigMansfield]

Fascinating. The story about the amount of photos on a roll and his arm length, gave me goosebumps, for some reason - the impact to the world and a way of keeping a person here after their death, I think. I wonder why the film from that camera is not a negative? I grew up from the 70s with photographic negatives and slides for projectors, but I didn't know about photographic...............positives? How interesting.

[@roelfbackus]

Oskar Barnack was an employee of Carl Zeiss Jena from 1902 to 1910. Around 1905 he developed the first 135mm film-based photo-camera and took it to Zeiss director Guido Mengel, who rejected the design! Disillusioned, Barnack later offered the camera to Leitz after moving to Wetzlar, following his friend Emil Mechau who joined Leitz a few years earlier. Source: Legenden und Geschichten zur Leica - Hartmut Thiele, Munchen, 2nd edition (2020) & Geschichte der Kleinbildkamera bis zur Leica - Prof. Erich Stenger, 1979.

[@borderlands6606]

There were a number of cameras using 35mm movie film before the Leica. Some adopted a smaller format, some larger than the Leica. It would be fairer to say Leica produced the first compact camera with 36 x 24mm framing.

[@MagicOfLight_ThorstenOvergaard]

Yes, that is right. I think the Leica was the right design, and despite all the resistance at that the time against small negatives, Leica managed to have a handful of professional photographers and others showing it could work, in their own work as well as a lot of very popular slide show presentations. Back then, before television kept people hypnotized on their sofas, 1,000+ people would attend a slideshow presentation in the evening across Europe. If one look at photography magazines from back then, there was a lot of blurry 35mm photos (made with Leica and other cameras), as well as a lot of great, sharp and detailed 35mm photos. It wasn't the invention and use of the 35mm alone, but also great luck in making it popular and put into professional use.

[@oibal60]

Thanks! I own a 1968 M4, mint. It was my dad's. Thankfully I inherited his photography gene. I still use it!

[@MagicOfLight_ThorstenOvergaard]

Yes, that's a nice one. I love my M4.

[@dangerpowers123]

Really enjoyed this video. Regardless of what camera we own ...leica, sony, fuji etc... it's clear it's all steeped in the history or Leica and that film format they came up with.

[@jpdj2715]

Today's "full frame" was his format, true, but in his days it was generally called "double frame". Why? Well, 35mm movie film ran vertically through the movie camera and the horizontal movie frame size was 24mm wide, limited by the perforation to transport the film in the movie camera. That landscape movie format gave a frame height of about 18mm. With mechanical motors (spring motors, or human powered cranks), moving, stopping, exposing, 24 frames per second held a serious limitation. Movie film has an interesting property in that it can raise the illusion of higher resolution than still photography. When you want to shoot stills, if only to calibrate your movie film and its development/processing, then it helps to have a larger size. If you still have old Interbellum issues of National Geographic magazine in the attic on the family property, then you can open a couple and see the Leica was advertised really as "double frame". Your reference to the large still photography cameras of the day leaves context out that is relevant to Barnack's invention, in that the large cameras produced negatives (generally on glass) that were "printed" in contact ("printed" as there is no ink and no press, but a photographic exposure of one developed negative on a negative paper, thus giving a positive image). A contact print gives the same format as the negative you start with. At 24mm x 36mm frame size, you would get very small contact prints, and this implied another requirement for technology: a projector that could be used in a darkroom to enlarge the negative in exposing the image on the negative paper - also called printing in English. The roll of 35mm film, whole, or cut into strips of 5 or 6, enabled swift "printing", sliding the strip frame to frame, swapping paper, exposing and developing in the same pipeline. For a manufacturer of optical devices, this provided a new product line in optics (or more sales of existing lenses) as well as in enlargers. So the "Ur" Leica held a great promise to the Leitz company in this sense.

[@xx0746]

I really like your video very much. It's always clear in your presentation and insipred me a lot.

[@MagicOfLight_ThorstenOvergaard]

Thank you!

[@oscarlopez2052]

hello thorsten how are you? I know you have a leica md262 without a screen I have a question is it very difficult to measure the light with this camera? I am thinking of buying a leica and would like to buy the md 262, would you recommend it? thanks for your help

[@MagicOfLight_ThorstenOvergaard]

It's surprisingly easy, but you tend to think it's not going to work because you cannot see anything. Well, it used to work when we had no screens and films we would get back from the lab some days later. It was very validating using the M-D 262 the first days where I thought it would all go wrong; then realize it all worked really well and I seemingly knew what I was doing (even I had no idea).

[@Raychristofer]

Good job on this history.

[@michaelbruchas6663]

As usual - a great raconteur....

[@HHIto]

Today, do you buy digital Leica’s? I’ve got a carton of professional 35mm Ektachrome ..... only have nikons that probably need repairing.... and one TLR Rollei 3.5.

[@davidokon2988]

Nice Video Thorsten.

[@MagicOfLight_ThorstenOvergaard]

Thank you!

[@michalhadam1242]

Great!

[@bradyblades]

Does anyone have a Leica they want to give me as a christmas present :)?