Ur-Leica Story

[terry_sham]

Just feel interesting about the story and history of Ur-Leica.
Somebody said the first lens which Oskar Barnack put on Ur-Leica is a Kino-Tessar 50mm. Is it true? Why didn't choose Leitz's or others?

[adan]

Well, according to Erwin Puts' Leica Lens Compendium, the lens on the Ur-Leica was a 42mm f/4.5 Leitz Mikro-Summar of 6 elements (out of Leitz's microscope lens catalogue of 1910).

So neither a Zeiss, nor a Tessar (6 elements vs. 4) nor a 50mm.

[terry_sham]

I have also heard that there are totally 2 Ur-Leica. Are they using the same lens?

[TimF]

James Lager's "Leica: An Illustrated History, Vol. 1" (1993 edn.) says about the Ur-Leica, pp8

"Two cameras were prepared; only the unit illustrated survives. Various lenses were tried on the Ur-Leica; at first a 5cm f/3.5 Zeiss Kino-Tessar, then a 6.4cm f/4.5 Leitz Microsummar and finally a Leitz 42mm Milar presently fitted. The second camera was carried by Ernst Leitz II on his trip to the United States in 1914"

FWIW, a refined Ur-Leica was constructed c1918-20, and is referred to as prototype #3. There is also a picture in Lager of this camera, but without a lens fitted.

[terry_sham]

Quote from LLC by EP:
"He chose the Mikro-Summar 1:4.5/42mm, which he fitted in at least one of his three prototypes. The Ur-Leica, residing in the museum in Solms, has been equipped with this lens. Some researchers have identified the lens as a Milar or a Summar. There is no inscription on the lens, so there is room for some interpretation. The exact focal length however can be measured and recently the optical engineers at Solms just did this and established a focal length of 42mm. The only lens in the Leitz microscope catalogue around 1910 is the Mikro-Summar, a six element symmetrical lens. So we may now reveal with certainty the identity of the mysterious lens in the Ur-Leica. It is a Mikro-Summar with 6 elements, symmetrically arranged."