working Ur-Leica?

[George Furst]

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This is the first time a person used the same lens that Barnack used over 100 years ago. For a long time no one knew which lens was used in the above original Barnack photo. I think the match of the two pictures verify that it was indeed the Leitz micro lens that would fit on a microscope. It is the Mikro Summar 42mm f4.5 lens that is a little larger than the distance measured when you put two finger nails together! I was amazed that such a small lens would make such great photographs. This was my inspiration for moving forward on this project. While loading the camera in the dark, I find it is a real “Barnack moment”. Walking in the footsteps of a giant!

I wish to comment on where this topic has gone and show my appreciation for all those who have added so much to this topic. I mean where else would one be able to read a topic that is so historic. The birth of the 24X36 mm format! 

I just returned from the dark after loading the UR Camera of Ray. I look forward to running another film through it. Again thank you for caring on and adding so much to our knowledge. By the way, while at Wetzlar I was told that the shutter curtain used in the Dummy URs were left over from the production of the lllg cameras. Production of those cameras ended about the same time that the trainees were making the Dummies as a graduation project. So you can think of the heart of your Dummy UR being a lllg curtain! Best to you all and thank you again for carrying this post on...

[pedaes]

George - it was a privilege to meet you and attend your presentation on this camera in Wetzlar. I was struck by how small it feels in the hand, and Jim Larger took a snap of it alongside my M10 to illustrate this point. Hope you continue to have fun using it.

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[willeica]

13 minutes ago, George Furst said:

This is the first time a person used the same lens that Barnack used over 100 years ago. For a long time no one knew which lens was used in the above original Barnack photo. I think the match of the two pictures verify that it was indeed the Leitz micro lens that would fit on a microscope. It is the Mikro Summar 42mm f4.5 lens that is a little larger than the distance measured when you put two finger nails together! I was amazed that such a small lens would make such great photographs. This was my inspiration for moving forward on this project. While loading the camera in the dark, I find it is a real “Barnack moment”. Walking in the footsteps of a giant!

I wish to comment on where this topic has gone and show my appreciation for all those who have added so much to this topic. I mean where else would one be able to read a topic that is so historic. The birth of the 24X36 mm format! 

I just returned from the dark after loading the UR Camera of Ray. I look forward to running another film through it. Again thank you for caring on and adding so much to our knowledge. By the way, while at Wetzlar I was told that the shutter curtain used in the Dummy URs were left over from the production of the lllg cameras. Production of those cameras ended about the same time that the trainees were making the Dummies as a graduation project. So you can think of the heart of your Dummy UR being a lllg curtain! Best to you all and thank you again for carrying this post on...

It was great to meet you in Wetzlar and to capture some of your enthusiasm for the UR Leica project. I recall you having a discussion with Lars Netopil and Jim Lager about what lens was used for the actual Eisenmarkt shot. I think that you have well and truly established that it was the 42mm lens with the lovely shot shown above. It was also a privilege to go with you to the grave of Oskar Barnack and to show your cameras there. I also recall Lars mentioning the issue of documentation (or lack of documentation) concerning your brass and silver camera (also a replica) shown below, pictured along with a UR replica and case at Oskar's grave. I will certainly share with you anything that I might come across concerning this camera. I hope to see you again at a future LHSA event.

William

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[Ambro51]

....as for M875, the Original is in Leitz’s possession and has been since the day Barnack built it.   It is the subject of Georg Mann’s article in VIDOM 50, “Die Mutter Der UR Leica?”  Using the photos and measurements therein I was able to recreate two of these Cameras.  They operate flawlessly with ISO 6 film and the ‘Snap Slide Shutter’ provides consistent exposures in the 1/40 th second range, with the camera oriented vertically, as it would have been when attached to the left side of a period Cine Camera.~~~~~Documention........thin on the ground as it is for All early Prototype Leicas.  The artifact and its provenance do the talking .  It fulfills all the needs and requirements of the. “Exposure Tester Camera” and Leitz has Nothing else in their collection which comes close to doing this.  If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, and it flies like a duck, and it floats like a duck ....it’s a DUCK. 🙂

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Edited November 15, 2018 by Ambro51

[George Furst]

On 10/5/2018 at 4:26 PM, willeica said:

I took the photo above with a Leica lens on a Huawei P20 and sent it to George. I subsequently showed it to Jim Lager who had told us earlier at George’s presentation that he believed that a second Ur Leica does not exist. I told Jim that we had been to Oskar’s grave and had discovered the second Ur Leica. On a more serious note, the Leica Archives are developing nicely and will develop further as Leica intend to put considerable resources into preserving their heritage.

 

William

I wish to thank William for taking this photograph during the International Leica Club 50 year celebration at Wetzlar. What to me is special about the photo is that the sun suddenly shined onto the stone above Barnack’s grave. It was like Barnack received a special salute that day. You must understand that this grave yard is very old and there are huge trees covering much of the area. Most of the graves in this area are deep in the shade. 

I was proud to be able to grace Oskar Barnack’s grave with his wonderful revolutionary creation. Maybe the light was coming not only from the sun but also from Barnack as a thank you for the effort to bring his invention to light and share with more people. Thank You Oskar you made my day. And thank you William (Willeica) for sharing this wonderful inspired photograph. It now graces Mr Kim’s office in Seoul for others to admire!

[willeica]

7 hours ago, George Furst said:

I wish to thank William for taking this photograph during the International Leica Club 50 year celebration at Wetzlar. What to me is special about the photo is that the sun suddenly shined onto the stone above Barnack’s grave. It was like Barnack received a special salute that day. You must understand that this grave yard is very old and there are huge trees covering much of the area. Most of the graves in this area are deep in the shade. 

I was proud to be able to grace Oskar Barnack’s grave with his wonderful revolutionary creation. Maybe the light was coming not only from the sun but also from Barnack as a thank you for the effort to bring his invention to light and share with more people. Thank You Oskar you made my day. And thank you William (Willeica) for sharing this wonderful inspired photograph. It now graces Mr Kim’s office in Seoul for others to admire!

Thanks George

It was a pleasure and an inspiration to meet you in Wetzlar. I felt that our trip to the graveyard to visit the graves of Leitz, Berek and Barnack was magical, if one can say such a thing. It took us a while to find the graves and while we were searching I asked some local people who were visiting a family grave about the location of the Barnack grave. They had heard about Leitz and knew where the Leitz family grave was, but they had never heard of Barnack. This was a pity because, while the Leitz factory would have been successful making microscopes and other optical instruments, it was because of the genius of Barnack that Wetzlar is now known around the world.

I am glad that my photo is now gracing the walls of Mr Kim's office. His fame is now starting to spread because of your great project. It was a miracle of some kind that the shaft of light landed on Oskar's grave just as you arrived with examples of Mr Kim's handiwork.

I look forward to meeting you at future LHSA events, perhaps in Boston next year, to hear more about the progress with your great project.

William

[George Furst]

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I sent the finished UR number 80 off to Star Camera Company last week and know that he will soon be sharing pictures taken with it. I wish to share with you the difficulties Mr Kim experienced with this Dummy UR. It certainly proves without a doubt that these were made by apprentice Leitz workers. This Dummy had so many problems that we hoped that he/she failed this final exam. The film guide with frame for pictures was defective as it did not line up with the film guide sprockets. Mr Kim had to make a new one out of brass stock and unsolder the guides and resolver them onto the newly made guide. Then the holes on the top of the Dummy were not centered and the film spools would not fit into the correct locations. Mr Kim and to remove material off the Dummy casing enough that the film spools now fit. This had to be carefully done so as not to remove too much material and weaken the case. There were other minor problems but as always Mr Kim only said that he had solved them. 

Mr Kim now will not give an exact price for this modification. He said that this is impossible as each Dummy UR is unique and until he opens it up and starts the job does he know the extent of the modification necessary for the process of making it into a working Replica. When I finally picked up the camera to ship off he summed up the experience with “Glat to get that tooth ache off my desk!”

[hoglundtw]

George - I had the same two problems on the UR Leica replica I am working on. Instead of moving the film gate, I solved that problem by extending the take up roller on one end and shortening on the other. This was needed to get take up roller to align with take up spool for the film. See previous posts on this thread. And I also had to do cut outs of the interior casing to enable the supply side film spool to fit in. 

My project has stalled as I've twice broken  the springs in the tension roller.  First on the dummy part (springs are way too weak) and then on another roller I cannibalized from a FED camera. With the latter, I had it working for a couple dry fires and then wound it too tight and broke it.  I have another FED on order and will try to be more careful with this one and then hopefully join the "I'm shooting with an UR Leica" club. 

Tom

[Ambro51]

I had a nice talk with George today, it was great to talk to the man behind the keyboard!  Anyway in the course of discussions he talked of the Isenmarket photo which I posted,  please note this was taken with his UR #38, not the newly crafted #80.  Both cameras share the same optic.  

[Ambro51]

This one Was taken with #80.  What do you think?    I’m really looking forward to trying the new Ektachrome!  

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Edited November 23, 2018 by Ambro51

[George Furst]

On 11/23/2018 at 9:44 AM, Ambro51 said:

This one Was taken with #80.  What do you think?    I’m really looking forward to trying the new Ektachrome!  

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This photo with the original Mikro Summar 42mm f4.5 illustrates the excellence of the performance of this lens. I think that it performs as well as if not better than the classic Elmer 50 mm f3.5 lens that was used on the original Leica la. I also like the slightly wide angle of the lens. Thank you for sharing this high resolution photo with us. We look forward to your future photographs with this No. 80 UR Replica.

[jerzy]

"working Ur-Leica" - German technician, Rolf Oberlaender made a short series (quantity not known to me) of fully functional Ur-Leica late 80-ties/early 90-ties. He built them from scratch, did not want to use replicas made by Leitz as a base. His replica is identical with the original Ur-Leica, as article says. Attached article about him and his Ur-Leica replica is unfortunately in German only. One of his replicas is on a way to me, having it in my hands I will be able to say more how is it constructed. 

Oberlaender Ur Leica.pdf

[wlaidlaw]

As I posted on another thread, my Leica built UR (#80 or 08 reads either way up on the inside of the base plate, bought from the most recent Westlicht auction ), is very poorly made inside. Full of razor sharp un-filed or un-sanded edges on the sheet steel shutter framing, the shutter tapes not even connected (lying loose) and the lens aperture jammed and not related to the position of the actuator. I did not expect a working camera, as I know they were apprentice built dummies, but I did expect, given its "mint" description on Westlicht, at least the shutter to be working and the aperture moving. If any apprentice I was training handed me that for inspection, he would have been in detention after school, to start from the beginning again. I am tempted to return it to Westlicht, as not matching the auction description and buy another one elsewhere. 

Wilson

[Ambro51]

Thank You So Much for the negative review of the UR Replica.   It has Certainly benifited my plan of buying as many of these as I can (at reasonable prices).  Again, Thank You!!

[Ambro51]

The Oberlander version is quite the enigma.  Your input is most appreciated as are All additions to this Megathread.  George had mentioned he felt all these cameras are sitting on glass shelves somewhere....as in all his research he has not seen one reference to them as a “working camera” nor any images taken by one.  Hopefully you’ll wring this thing out and report more details.   Herr Oberlander was one magnificent looking individual!

Edited December 8, 2018 by Ambro51

[George Furst]

On 12/8/2018 at 11:10 PM, jerzy said:

"working Ur-Leica" - German technician, Rolf Oberlaender made a short series (quantity not known to me) of fully functional Ur-Leica late 80-ties/early 90-ties. He built them from scratch, did not want to use replicas made by Leitz as a base. His replica is identical with the original Ur-Leica, as article says. Attached article about him and his Ur-Leica replica is unfortunately in German only. One of his replicas is on a way to me, having it in my hands I will be able to say more how is it constructed. 

Oberlaender Ur Leica.pdf

I highly doubt that he made these UR Leicas from scratch. I have looked at the article referenced to above and the pictures show a camera that is based on the Dummy UR made by apprentice Leitz mechanics in the 70s. I have worked with these cameras for a few years and know that it would be prohibitively expensive to make a casting of the body and do all the machining necessary to make a functioning UR from scratch. I also see no reference to which lens was used by Mr Oberlaender. We all would like to know if he used the 42 mm Mikro Summar lens as at the time there was little information available to indicate which lens Barnack had used. 

We all look forward to any information about this Replica and a few pictures of the inside and more pictures taken with the camera. Thank you for providing us with this information. I did a fishing expedition looking for information about this prior working UR way back when I started this project and got no where. Here in Korea we had to start our project with no information except a schematic and even that was not available until after our first example was made by Mr Kim in his Oskar Barnack like work room on a third floor walk in here in Seoul, South Korea. The more I look at the inside of Mr Kim’s UR Replica, the more I appreciate his skills as an innovative camera mechanic. By the way he said that he would make the film counter functional for a price. Someday when I raise the money, I may have him do the job but until then I wait for the rattle of the empty film feeding spool to indicate I have used up all the film. An added piece of information is that I almost always use a 36 exposure roll of film when I load the camera. When I add more length of film from my bulk film, the camera jammed. I only did that once and paid dearly for the attempt! 

[George Furst]

22 hours ago, Ambro51 said:

The Oberlaender version is quite the enigma.  Your input is most appreciated as are All additions to this Megathread.  George had mentioned he felt all these cameras are sitting on glass shelves somewhere....as in all his research he has not seen one reference to them as a “working camera” nor any images taken by one.  Hopefully you’ll wring this thing out and report more details.   Herr Oberlander was one magnificent looking individual!

I wish to correct the above by saying that I did note that Herr Oberlaender’s Camera was refered to as a working camera in the listing of the auction a few years ago in Vienna. And yes I have never seen a picture taken with his modification of the Dummy (as I say above I am sure that it is utilizing a UR Dummy body) and welcome the report of one being found and soon going to be shared with this forum. I am really curious to know if he solved the problem of the film counter. I bet that he did not. But if he did any information on how this works would be appreciated. Mr Kim said he would modify mine so it would count the pictures using the dial on the front of the camera but the price of many hundreds of dollars for the modification has held me back from taking him up on the offer. I had the audacity to ask for a diagram of how he would do it, but he demurred. He holds some secrets close to his vest! I am sure that with this information, Ray would accomplish the task on his Number 80. How about it Ambro51.....?

Edited December 9, 2018 by George Furst
Spelling of Herr Oberlaender’s name.

[willeica]

Thanks George. I am waiting on the report from Jerzy about the Oberlaender Ur replica. If there is any person who can tell us how Mr Oberlaender constructed his camera, it is Jerzy. It would be fascinating to see if he managed to get the frame counter to work. I have looked at this on photos of the original and there must be some little gear wheel arrangement to get the counter to turn in a different plane from the wind knob. The drawing on page 46 of Richter's book shows a spindle behind the frame counter but not how this is turned.

William

[wlaidlaw]

26 minutes ago, willeica said:

Thanks George. I am waiting on the report from Jerzy about the Oberlaender Ur replica. If there is any person who can tell us how Mr Oberlaender constructed his camera, it is Jerzy. It would be fascinating to see if he managed to get the frame counter to work. I have looked at this on photos of the original and there must be some little gear wheel arrangement to get the counter to turn in a different plane from the wind knob. The drawing on page 46 of Richter's book shows a spindle behind the frame counter but not how this is turned.

William

William, 

If I were to design the film counter, I would put a peg type cog at the top of the shaft running up from the frame counter with probably 6 or 8 pegs. These pegs on the cog would be struck by a peg in the wind on shaft and rotate say 1/8th of a turn at each turn of the wind on spindle. There would then be a 5:1 bevel gear at the bottom to rotate the frame counter. Then 40 frames would cause one rotation of the frame counter (8 x 5). This is the sort of technology that clock makers have used for years and would have been very familiar to the Wetzlar technicians. 

Wilson

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[willeica]

1 hour ago, wlaidlaw said:

William, 

If I were to design the film counter, I would put a peg type cog at the top of the shaft running up from the frame counter with probably 6 or 8 pegs. These pegs on the cog would be struck by a peg in the wind on shaft and rotate say 1/8th of a turn at each turn of the wind on spindle. There would then be a 5:1 bevel gear at the bottom to rotate the frame counter. Then 40 frames would cause one rotation of the frame counter (8 x 5). This is the sort of technology that clock makers have used for years and would have been very familiar to the Wetzlar technicians. 

Wilson

Thanks Wilson. Let's see what Jerzy finds. I am aware of such mechanisms in clocks etc, but there would have been other items inside the UR Leica body. Leitz moved the frame counter to the top before series production commenced, where it remained for the next 90 + years.

William