George Furst

That is wonderful as Mr Kim deserves to be recognized for his being the first person in the world to make a UR Leitz Camera that actually takes photographs. There have been others who have tried to reproduce the camera using the replica, but evidently none of them were able to produce a camera that actually took photographs like the ones that the engineer Barnack made. It is the skill of Mr Kim that was able to overcome all the challenges. I have always felt that Mr Kim deserved an award for this accomplishment. I remember his discussing all the headaches related to this project. It is a great example of his skill and fortitude that he never gave up. My only part of it was that I encouraged him and brought pastries from time to time, as awards for keeping up with the project. This was an extremely difficult challenge. If it was easier, others would have made a working example before! That is wonderful that he will receive the recognition that is well deserved!

In 2018 when I went to the 50 anniversary of the International Leica Society (LHSA) I asked about this M875 prototype and why it is not listed as being made by Barnack, they stated that there is no record of it being made in the Barnack notebooks. Therefor they claimed with our this record they cannot state that he made it as the film exposure camera that is referred to in Barnack documents. Unfortunately I do not remember who the “they” was and did not write it down in my notes of the meeting. The above photographs were taken during the above 50 year meeting in Wetzlar. I remember we had a hard time finding the Oskar Barnack grave site, and fortunately found it before darkness overcame us. Related to this, I have a copy that Ray (Ambro51) made for me as a token of thanks for having Mr Kim make a working copy of the UR Leica using the Nachbitdung der Ur-Leica built by aspiring mahanics at the Leitz, Wetzlar manufacturing plant as a graduation project in the 1970s. I still have this test camera and am now thinking of running film through it as my guitar playing and singing in a local Live Cafe here in Daejeon have consumed me. What I know is that it is not an easy camera to use and the guilitine shutter sometimes hangs up on me. That being said, it is a fine replica of the original and Ray is commended to have made two, one for himself and the other for me. He is certainly an excellent mechanic of the Earnest Leitz tradition! I do have one question, in which Viewfinder is the article on the making of the replica UR found? I wish to make a copy for Mr Kim as I think he is holding up the repair of a camera until I provide him with a copy! I should have written the article but twice my computer crashed and I lost the article and never went on to try writing it again and moved on to other things. I am now 80 years old and have a number of projects including leading the Daejeon Hikers, a regional hiking society with hikes every Sunday. We are on Facebook, so look us up as “Daejeon Hiker”. You will see me there!

I never thought of the problem of the exposed film side of the camera and the problem of film being exposed to the light. Mr Kim’s design did not have that problem because he very carefully made the area isolated from the rest of the camera. It is also the reason that he redesigned the ratchet lever to be much smaller. I always wondered why he redesigned this little arm, you have answered the reason. I wish you the best and still wonder if you will be able to fit the folded lens between the shutter rollers. As I explained above this is the greatest challenge! I certainly agree with you that it would be easier to start with a different body. Barnack must have thought that too as he struggled with the shutter curtain room and light leak issue. This all shows that Barnack made the camera as small as possible. Any smaller the dimensions and he could never have been successful with a working camera. I always wonder if there were earlier attempts at making this camera. I find it hard to believe that he on his first try, came up with the smallest body possible! This final design must have been a culmination of a number of failed attempts. Too bad that he never shared his struggles with us. I am sure his wife became sick of hearing of his struggle to come up with the final design of the UR!

I do not see any reason that one cannot use this hood but remember that it was designed for the enlarger with use of the Elmar 50 mm lens. It has the convenience in that you can change the f stop without digging your finger to the sliding adjustment near the lens. One thing to check is if the f stops line up as it was designed for the 50 mm Elmar Lens when using it on the enlarger. I have used one hood very much like this on my Elmar 35 mm lens but have to be careful as the f stop numbers do not quite line up with the numbers on the barrel. I often check the actual f stop by looking into the hood where the actual f stop is viewed. I especially like using it with the 19 mm yellow filter Leitz made (or the other filters as appropriate) as this filter makes it more difficult to move the f stop slide close to the lens.

I have also lost things lost on the way to me via USPS priority mail and that is why a few years ago I always state that EMS must be used to send items to me. The amount of insurance allowed is limited to $2500 (and I have received items valued at many times this value) but I have never lost any item using this carrier. Did you have insurance on the camera? Usually there is some insurance available with the USPS.

The greatest challenge facing you is the diameter of the shutter curtain rollers. If their diameter is too large, you cannot collapse the lens in between the rollers. If you make the rollers diameter too small, the shutter does not function very well as the radius of the shutter does not have enough torque to function well when you release the shutter curtain. Also if the shutter barrel is too small in diameter, the spiral spring will not fit inside the shutter barrel or it will bind inside the shutter barrel! The critical dimension is not only the diameter of the shutter barrels but their diameter when the shutter curtain is rolled on one shutter barrel when the film is wound in preparation to take a picture, an the diameter of the other receiving barrel when the curtain is wound on it when the picture is taken. Related to this the receiving barrel has inside a spiral spring that is connected to the adjustment knob on the top that changes the shutter speed. In one of the above discussions it is said that the original UR had only one shutter speed. This is not correct. There are multiple speeds of the shutter curtain and they are controlled by the knob on the top of the camera that is connected by a gear to the spiral spring inside the shutter barrel. The highest shutter speed is obtained by moving the topside knob in the direction of the arrow under the shutter release button that is chrome. As you rotate this knob, you loosen the spring internal to the shutter drum and thereby change the speed at which the 8 mm shutter moves across in front of the film. I have estimated my original UR Replica, the first one made using dummy No. 38, as changing from 100th/second to 300th/second. This was estimated by taking picture of water drops falling from a fountain at my university and comparing the blur using a film camera with a shutter that I know the shutter speeds and can change them between 60th and 1000th/second. I know that the speeds are an estimation but it is the best I can do. I know the shutter speeds vary quite allot just by the sound of the moving of the shutter between slow speed and the fastest shutter speed. in the later iterations of this camera,Barnack changed the shutter speeds in a more elegant way by having two shutter curtains here one can change the width of the shutter curtain window. This is definitely more elegant but at the same time this leads to the failure of the curtains because one of the ribbons fail. Also it means that you need two shutter rollers holding the curtains that each have springs inside. This has been one of the major failure areas of the Barnack screw mount cameras. The single shutter curtain in the UR is not elegant but the part of the curtain glued to the shutter rollers is a much larger surface and thereby not as vulnerable to curtain failure. Those ribbons on the later screw mount Leitz shutters are very small and thereby the UR is less prone to failures of the shutter curtain. Also the shutter curtain with the 8mm window is very robust and not prone to failure. I have been using my UR Replica for Five years not and never had problems with the shutter curtain. I wish to again say the Mr Kim should receive recognition for what he has done. And what is amazing to me is it only took him 6 months to make the first replica from the dummy. He is a legend here in Korea and has a devoted following and even a movie made about his many accomplishments. It is critical the watch making was his first profession. And no fear of trying a challenging project. Certainly making the UR into a working camera is very challenging. The small size of the camera external and internal space makes it an almost impossible task!

I have seen these on many pre lllf cameras and always wondered if they really work? When the lllf came out there was a very complex sync table available on how it worked, complete with settings, with different flash bulbs. Yes remember them? And now we have electronic flash,that were in their infancy back then. Now that is the perferred option to the exploding flash bulbs, has any one tried to take a picture using the sync nipple? Did it work or did you see half of the frame covered and the other half blanked out?

You are correct! It is daunting. What you have is the shell and a few of the parts of the ur camera. Enough to make you think that there is just a little tweaking here and there and presto…a working UR just like Barnack made over one hundred years ago. Ambro51 is most knowledgable about this as he did it with one of his ur dummy cameras. If he has time he can give some of the frustrations and joys of the conversion. First the glass lens is not suitable to take photographs, it is there just for looks and that includes the adjustable iris diaphram. Then there is the shutter. What you see is a left over Leica lllg shutter curtain ( That’s what I have been told as the M3 usurped the screw mount cameras) Note the the two ribbons that hold it to one of the shutter drums, they are a part one of the two curtains found in the lllg. Then there is the question of controlling the tension of cocking the shutter drum. The gear controlling the tension is missing. The wheel to put it on is there, so all you have to do is make a gear on the wheel and a matching one on the cocking shutter to fit. Then there is the question of the shutter springs that reside inside one of the drums and make the shutter curtain window move across in front of the film when the shutter is released. Also there is no way to advance the film. Another set of gears or a special looped spring must be fashioned, like Oskar Barnack did. You must also find a Leitz Micro Summar 42 mm lens. This the easiest part of the project as they show up on eBay from time to time. Now when you have done all of the above, you must fit all into a very small space and be able to collapse the lens into the area between the shutter drums without damaging the fragile curtain. This happens to be one of the greatest challenges. When all this is done, take a rest like God did on the 7th day and start taking pictures!! We did all this a few years ago. When I say we, it was a labor of love with me advising a famous watch maker/camera technician, Mr. Kim, here in South Korea. I provided the lens and advised him on the shutter curtain window opening of 8 mm. I worked with him over a number of months and every week kept encouraging him and tried to share the pain he was experiencing to do something that seemed easy but in execution was not. One challenge after another arose. He complained of getting a headache every time he looked at the box of parts! As the hours and weeks passed, I fed him special pastries to keep the project moving forward. At the end, I give him $1200 for his considerable effort. Now I had to test the project camera to see if the lens focused, the film advanced, and the UR Replica worked. I did this and after a few light leaks were sealed we had the first operational Barnack UR Replica in the world that used the same lens that Barnack used!! The last project was making the film counter on the front of the camera work. So six months later I brought him the headache. After a number of months he accomplished this and now we had a fully functioning UR Replica. I am very proud of what Mr. Kim accomplished and feel he should receive an award for what he did. Without his watch making/camera background this camera would never have been completed. So when you look at your UR Dummy realize that it is tempting to think that this is a simple project, it is not! If it was, it would not have taken almost fifty years after the dummies were made by aspiring Leitz mechanics in the 1970s (A graduation project I believe) to add what is needed to make a fully functioning camera from the shell of the dummy. So I wish you good luck and look forward to hearing about your adventure by filling the pages of this thread!

This is an amazing tour de force! I always thought of these speciality lens as too expensive and too hard to use as to be so inconvenient. I’ll never forget seeing the Leitz example and being naked over by its size! I always thought of these as prestige lenses. A way to show that your company is in the big leagues. I also remember that one company selling lens offered you a car when you purchased the Leitz example. Thank you so much for showing that these were really fine lens and not just for show. You have provided a real service. It was not an easy time for the Wetzlar company and yet they had the know how to design a truely fine piece of optic. Do we know who designed this lens? How many were produced? Where did you find your rare example? What triggered you to spend all this effort, money and time to examine and test such rare lens?

the top has four screws holding the top to the body, this means that is is an early camer. It is also an eleven o’clock lens but missing the hockey stick for some reason. Yes the early cameras are relatively rare. What I do not understand is that it is not covered with shiny black lacquer, as of most cameras of this period. It also looks like it is chrome plated like the later standards of the time. Either that or it has had the finish sanded or wire brushed off the camera body. I would be very careful because all of these missing elements really bring down the value. Early, yes, a good example, no. Also what is happening to the shutter release location. Value, not too much in my opinion.

Yes William, I absolutely agree with you about an easier way to take pictures with this lens, and a less expensive holder for the lens than the UR Replica. I have documented on this forum much about my taking pictures with the UR containing this 42 mm Mikro Summar lens. Historic but not an easy camera to use especially since it must be loaded in the dark. Also the UR has a limited number of shutter speeds available and no longer exposures are possible. I think a holder that facilitates the use of this lens on the Barnack screw mount or M cameras is a great idea. I for one would be interested as I love the pictures made with this lens. Yes, I remember well our visit to the grave site of Oskar Barnack. Remember how long it took us to find him? We hunted for a long time! You were very gracious to take pictures of me hanging the UR Replica onto the large stone of his grave. Mr Kim has that photo that you took on the wall over his workbench. He told me that the picture is a real inspiration for him. Thank you so much for taking it!

This is an excellent lens. I originally used it on my microscope while doing research in a manufacturing company. When I found that this was the lens that Oskar Barnack used on the UR Camera first made in 1913-4, I decided to do research on this lens. It is a double gause lens, first designed by Metz around 1898. It has a diaphragm that varies from f4.5 to f11. I have had a number of these lens and one closed down to f16. It is the same design as the legendary Zeiss Planar lens. I will include a picture taken from the book by Emil Kellner “The Leica Story” September 1988. This diagram shows the original Leitz Mikro Lens available for purchase and a cross section showing the design of the lens.

If you go to “Working UR Camera?” On this forum topic you will see more pictures taken recently with this lens. These pictures really highlite the excellent performance of this lens. I have been using it for the last 5 years in my UR Replica that is being manufactured here in South Korea by a camera mechanic named Mr.Kim. Yes, this is the lens that is in the UR Leica located in the vault at the Leitz Works in Wetzlar, Germany. I have included a photo of this lens installed in the UR Replica.

The above photos were the first from the UR camera to be sent to Mark. In order to have them included I had to cut them in half so the original is much sharper. I will send one more again I had to do major cropping of the picture. This has been my greatest frustration with this forum, the limitation of the Max file size. I belong to other forums related to cars, and guitars and this is the only one that has strict limits on the file size. To me this is shocking as this is a forum dedicated to photography!

I’ll try again