100 years of Leica

[Paul J]

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1913-2013.

 

There is surely no other surviving camera manufacturer that has that credential. Incredible.

 

It makes sense to me that they would have been holding off for something very big for that celebration.

 

I'm getting more excited about Photokina now.

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The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[earleygallery]

Apart from Kodak of course.

[andybarton]

Who no longer make cameras.

 

What about some of the other brands? Nikon aren't far behind.

 

Zeiss started making microscopes in the 1840s and camera lenses before the turn of the 19C

[earleygallery]

Kodak still sell some cheap digicams. OK they're in chapter 11 and probably not producing any more, but technically they're still going!

 

Pentax (Asahi) were founded in 1919. Nikon 1917!

[andybarton]

I think that this is certainly going to be a very interesting year for Leica given the anniversary and I am very glad that I have the opportunity to be in Koln next week.

 

I can see a Platinum Special Edition MM of some description in the next 12 months. Which would be nice and shiny.

[rramesh]

I think we forget Voigtlander. While they are owned by Cosina, I think they still have the pedigree.

[earleygallery]

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Well done, I think you win the prize!

 

This from Wiki "Voigtländer is an optical company founded by Johann Christoph Voigtländer in Vienna in 1756 and is thus the oldest name in cameras".

 

Let's remember that Leica are not the original Leica/Leitz company either, they are a completely different company who are using the brand name, much the same as Cosina/Voigtlander.

[iedei]

 

Let's remember that Leica are not the original Leica/Leitz company either, they are a completely different company who are using the brand name, much the same as Cosina/Voigtlander.

 

all significant companies evolve over time....you'll be hard pressed to find ANY company who has not. That being said....yes it is the same company, merely undergone changes as any company would have to survive....it doesn't mean they're not the "same company"...

[Paul J]

Who care's if it's owned by different people. The M camera remains on whole, vastly similar to the previous M's and uses lens designs based on and refined from old designs owned by the company. There is certainly no other camera on the market which can claim that. Although I'm sure, it seems, you will try to argue otherwise

[earleygallery]

Why so touchy? I'm only pre-empting someone else saying the Voigtlander don't count because they're owned by Cosina.

 

From Wiki - Leica Camera AG, a German optics company, produces Leica cameras. The predecessor of the company, formerly known as Ernst Leitz GmbH, is now three companies: Leica Camera AG, Leica Geosystems AG, and Leica Microsystems AG, producing cameras, geosurvey equipment, and microscopes, respectively. Leica Microsystems AG is the owner of the Leica brand, and grants licences to Leica Camera AG and Leica Geosystems.

[andybarton]

But all of the Leica subsidiaries used to be part of the same company. When it was split, only one of them could be the owner of the "brand".

 

Leica Camera is just as much "Leitz" as Leica Microsystems, but as they have been split and new owners come along, the ownership changes.

 

It's a bit like saying that Ford Motor Company isn't really Ford because Henry isn't around any more.

 

It's not like a company, with no previous connection, buying a brand name, just for the name and kudos. Think Triumph Motor cycles, for example.

[earleygallery]

Ford are still partly owned and managed by members of the Ford family.

 

Companies change over time, they get sold and bought, ownership and control and strategy changes. Leica are now owned by Dr Kauffman and Blackstone, and have a licence to use the Leica brand, which is somewhat different to the original company.

 

It matters not to the end products, but it is the case.

[andybarton]

OK, not such a good example then...

[colonel]

Pinhole camera

 

The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC) observed that the spaces between the leaves of trees acted as tiny pinholes which cast the image of a partial solar eclipse onto the ground.He also used a metal plate with a small pinhole to project an image of a solar eclipse onto the ground. The ancient Chinese philosopher Mozi (c. 470 BC – c. 391 BC)—founder of Mohism during the establishment of the Hundred Schools of Thought—lived just before the time of Aristotle and it was in his Mojing (perhaps compiled by his disciples) that a pinhole camera was described. The Mojing stated that the "collecting place" (pinhole) was an empty hole "like the sun and moon depicted on the imperial flags," where an image could be inverted at an intersecting point which "affects the size of the image."The Mojing seems to be in line with the Epicurean theory of light traveling into the eye (and not vice versa like in Pythagoreanism), since the Mojing states that the reflected light shining forth from an "illuminated person" becomes inverted when passing through the pinhole, i.e. "The bottom part of the man becomes the top part (of the image) and the top part of the man becomes the bottom part (of the image)." In his Book of Optics (1021), Ibn al-Haytham (965–1039) wrote of his experimentation with camera obscura, which was followed by Shen Kuo (1031–1095), the latter who alluded that the Tang Dynasty (618–907) author Duan Chengshi (died 863)—in his Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang—described inverted images of Chinese pagodas.

 

Camera Obscura

 

The monk, Roger Bacon's notes and drawings, published as Perspectiva in 1267, are partly clouded with theological material describing how the Devil can insinuate himself through the pinhole by magic, and it is not clear whether or not he produced such a device. On 24 January 1544 mathematician and instrument maker Reiners Gemma Frisius of Leuven University used one to watch a solar eclipse, publishing a diagram of his method in De Radio Astronimica et Geometrico in the following year. In 1558 Giovanni Batista della Porta was the first to recommend the method as an aid to drawing.

 

First fixed picture

 

The first partially successful photograph of a camera image was made in approximately 1816 by Nicéphore Niépce using a very small camera of his own making and a piece of paper coated with silver chloride, which darkened where it was exposed to light. No means of removing the remaining unaffected silver chloride was known to Niépce, so the photograph was not permanent, eventually becoming entirely darkened by the overall exposure to light necessary for viewing it. Later, in 1826, he used a sliding wooden box camera made by Charles and Vincent Chevalier in Paris, France. He made his first permanent camera photograph in 1826 by coating a pewter plate with bitumen and exposing the plate in this camera. The bitumen hardened where light struck. The unhardened areas were then dissolved away. This photograph still survives.

 

Daguerreotypes and calotypes

 

Louis Daguerre and Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (who was Daguerre's partner, but died before their invention was completed) invented the first practical photographic method, which was named the daguerreotype, in 1836.

 

Dry plates

 

Collodion dry plates had been available since 1855, thanks to the work of Désiré van Monckhoven, but it was not until the invention of the gelatin dry plate in 1871 by Richard Leach Maddox that they rivaled wet plates in speed and quality.

 

Film

 

"The use of photographic film was pioneered by George Eastman, who started manufacturing paper film in 1885 before switching to celluloid in 1889. His first camera, which he called the "Kodak," was first offered for sale in 1888"

 

35mm

 

"Oskar Barnack, who was in charge of research and development at Leitz, decided to investigate using 35 mm cine film for still cameras while attempting to build a compact camera capable of making high-quality enlargements. He built his prototype 35 mm camera (Ur-Leica) around 1913, though further development was delayed for several years by World War I. Leitz test-marketed the design between 1923 and 1924, receiving enough positive feedback that the camera was put into production as the Leica I (for Leitz camera) in 1925"

 

Digital

 

The first recorded attempt at building a digital camera was in 1975 by Steven Sasson, an engineer at Eastman Kodak. It used the then-new solid-state CCD image sensor chips developed by Fairchild Semiconductor in 1973.

 

The first true digital camera that recorded images as a computerized file was likely the Fuji DS-1P of 1988, which recorded to a 16 MB internal memory card that used a battery to keep the data in memory. This camera was never marketed in the United States, and has not been confirmed to have shipped even in Japan.

 

The first commercially available digital camera was the 1990 Dycam Model 1; it also sold as the Logitech Fotoman. It used a CCD image sensor, stored pictures digitally, and connected directly to a computer for download.

 

 

As usual, everything is from China

 

RIP Kodak 1878 - 2012

[Paul J]

A positive post about 100 years in the making and that it could bring something very exciting for everyone and all you can bring yourself to post is one sentence based on a negative followed up by a comment saying Leica isn't really Leica.

 

Life of the party aren't ya?

[andybarton]

To whom is that comment directed?

[earleygallery]

I assume he means me.

 

A positive post about 100 years in the making and that it could bring something very exciting for everyone and all you can bring yourself to post is one sentence based on a negative followed up by a comment saying Leica isn't really Leica.

 

Just pointed out that Leica aren't the oldest camera brand out there. Can you show me where I said Leica isn't really Leica?

[Paul J]

I assume he means me. Can you show me where I said Leica isn't really Leica?

 

Let's remember that Leica are not the original Leica

 

It's a hundred years of the same designs by the same company that we are still using in some form today. What difference does it make who owns the company? Hundred years and I'm guessing, means a special reason to celebrate and I'm also guessing the M10 or what ever else comes from Photokina is going to reflect that.

 

Appy Days - Cheer up!

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[earleygallery]

Sorry Paul are you saying I'm incorrect? Leica have changed ownership a few times over the years (Hermes etc). You're implying I said something else.

 

I expect they'll produce some anniversary edition of whatever the newest current M is next year (MM or M10?) along the lines of the Titanium M9, another hideously expensive one off.

 

I'd prefer to see something more imaginative.

[Paul J]

I'm not saying you're incorrect at all. I could really care less who owns Leica at the moment.

 

However, unless I'm reading things incorrectly, In your posts it feels as though you are saying that everyone else is incorrect...