Jump to content

Leica books


Pecole

Recommended Posts

The second edition covers later models and accessories. The first edition has many typos; Richard Hubbard (see p. viii of the 2nd. Edition) and I spent a whole chemistry practical class searching these out instead of supervising the students. Rather appropriate since Dennis Laney began his career as a chemist.

 

Needless to say : when I quoted Laney as my favorite, I referred to the 2d edition, indeed.

Link to post
Share on other sites

For Leica Historica Members

 

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

For Leica Historica Members

 

I was - of course! - a Leica Historica member for many years, and should have mention Vidom as a good reference. About the book you show, I believe you should have added a little information for the "non-members"...

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
  • 5 years later...

Hi,

Yes, I know that this is a 5 years+ old post but I in my opinion this should be pinned because it's always relevant.

Probably the only title that would add to those already mentioned, is the "Grosses Fabrikationsbuch Leica-Objektive" by H. Thiele. It's not error free but in my opinion is the best (if not the only) source available for detailed lens production.

I still miss in my shelves the Von Einem's Ten variants (despite in one of the Leica Historica commemoratives there's an article about variants but seems to miss some), as well as the Jim Lager's Wehrmacht. I hope they will appear sooner or later.

About Rogliatti, I have none of them and he seems one of the must have. Do you specially recommend any of them or will they add very little to the already mentioned?

Thanks in advance and best wishes,

Augusto

Edited by tranquilo67
Link to post
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, tranquilo67 said:

Hi,

Yes, I know that this is a 5 years+ old post but I in my opinion this should be pinned because it's always relevant.

Probably the only title that would add to those already mentioned, is the "Grosses Fabrikationsbuch Leica-Objektive" by H. Thiele. It's not error free but in my opinion is the best (if not the only) source available for detailed lens production.

I still miss in my shelves the Von Einem's Ten variants (despite in one of the Leica Historica commemoratives there's an article about variants but seems to miss some), as well as the Jim Lager's Wehrmacht. I hope they will appear sooner or later.

About Rogliatti, I have none of them and he seems one of the must have. Do you specially recommend any of them or will they add very little to the already mentioned?

Thanks in advance and best wishes,

Augusto

Thanks Augusto. I have some pages from von Einem which I may be able to share with you if I can find where I filed them electronically. 

I was going to email you about a few things, but my recent Zoom talk on Irish photography has kept me very busy, even with the follow up.

William 

  • Thanks 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, tranquilo67 said:

Hi,

Yes, I know that this is a 5 years+ old post but I in my opinion this should be pinned because it's always relevant.

Probably the only title that would add to those already mentioned, is the "Grosses Fabrikationsbuch Leica-Objektive" by H. Thiele. It's not error free but in my opinion is the best (if not the only) source available for detailed lens production.

I still miss in my shelves the Von Einem's Ten variants (despite in one of the Leica Historica commemoratives there's an article about variants but seems to miss some), as well as the Jim Lager's Wehrmacht. I hope they will appear sooner or later.

About Rogliatti, I have none of them and he seems one of the must have. Do you specially recommend any of them or will they add very little to the already mentioned?

Thanks in advance and best wishes,

Augusto

Hello Augusto,

I have 2 of Rogliatti: Leica the first 60 years & Leica & Leicaflex lenses. They are good. All of the books by everybody have things that nobody else does. All of the books by everybody contain errors. Sometimes typographical. Sometimes a lack of editing for grammar. Not content. Part of this sometimes has to do with translation where something in 1 language might mean something somewhat different in another.

If you or anyone else reading this here needs something from 1 of them. Just ask. I will write the answer here because I do not have the technological capability to put anything onto a computer screen.

Best Regards,

Michael

 

Edited by Michael Geschlecht
  • Thanks 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

On 8/20/2021 at 2:57 PM, willeica said:

Thanks Augusto. I have some pages from von Einem which I may be able to share with you if I can find where I filed them electronically. 

I was going to email you about a few things, but my recent Zoom talk on Irish photography has kept me very busy, even with the follow up.

William 

Thank you very much William!!!

On 8/21/2021 at 5:07 AM, Michael Geschlecht said:

Hello Augusto,

I have 2 of Rogliatti: Leica the first 60 years & Leica & Leicaflex lenses. They are good. All of the books by everybody have things that nobody else does. All of the books by everybody contain errors. Sometimes typographical. Sometimes a lack of editing for grammar. Not content. Part of this sometimes has to do with translation where something in 1 language might mean something somewhat different in another.

If you or anyone else reading this here needs something from 1 of them. Just ask. I will write the answer here because I do not have the technological capability to put anything onto a computer screen.

Best Regards,

Michael

 

Hi Michael,

Yes, fully agree with you that every book adds something. I will probably go for the First 60 years.

Thank you very much.

Best wishes,

Augusto

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, tranquilo67 said:

Thank you very much William!!!

Hi Michael,

Yes, fully agree with you that every book adds something. I will probably go for the First 60 years.

Thank you very much.

Best wishes,

Augusto

I have Rogliatti's book and it is fine. I think that earlier I recommended the Blue Book first and then Laney's as the most comprehensive. Lager's set has the best photos. 

One issue is that most of these books were written many years ago. While they relate to history, there have been discoveries from time to time which are not in any of the books.

Unfortunately, nobody writes books like these anymore, probably because of the internet.

William 

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, willeica said:

I have Rogliatti's book and it is fine. I think that earlier I recommended the Blue Book first and then Laney's as the most comprehensive. Lager's set has the best photos. 

One issue is that most of these books were written many years ago. While they relate to history, there have been discoveries from time to time which are not in any of the books.

Unfortunately, nobody writes books like these anymore, probably because of the internet.

William 

Agree!!! But on the other hand, in my opinion, there's nothing like a proper book made by a true expert despite it can be a bit out of date. I have seen so many uninformed statements (not only opinions but ridiculous things stated as the absolute TRUTH) in internet that is scaring because they're repeated later on as a mantra.

Best wishes,

Augusto

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, tranquilo67 said:

Agree!!! But on the other hand, in my opinion, there's nothing like a proper book made by a true expert despite it can be a bit out of date. I have seen so many uninformed statements (not only opinions but ridiculous things stated as the absolute TRUTH) in internet that is scaring because they're repeated later on as a mantra.

Best wishes,

Augusto

I agree. I've lost count of the number of times that I have consulted Laney's book and others, but we should not discount things which have emerged on this forum, such as the first IIId and the Summar/Summarex developments and various markings, plus the last LTMs etc, etc., etc. I'm sure that people like Luigi and Jerzy could provide a long list of such items. 

The issue is that no one is writing these up and cataloguing them centrally. An online combined index for the various magazines, VIDOM, Viewfinder, the UK Society, Photographica World plus this section of the Leica Forum etc, etc would be useful. Also this information needs to be tracked by and fed into the Leica Archives.

William 

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

One other problem is that most of the books that do exist are out of print and getting hard to find. You can still find various editions of Rogliatti for reasonable prices, but people want crazy money for Laney 2. A straight reprint would be valuable if someone could secure the rights, as Red Dot did for the same publisher's Pocket Book (even the latter is out of print right now, though there's discussion about a new edition in another thread).

Perhaps some of the experts could be encouraged to add material to this site's Wiki?

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Anbaric said:

One other problem is that most of the books that do exist are out of print and getting hard to find. You can still find various editions of Rogliatti for reasonable prices, but people want crazy money for Laney 2. A straight reprint would be valuable if someone could secure the rights, as Red Dot did for the same publisher's Pocket Book (even the latter is out of print right now, though there's discussion about a new edition in another thread).

Perhaps some of the experts could be encouraged to add material to this site's Wiki?

I agree with the idea of a reprint of Laney's book as I find it is the book which I consult the most along with the Blue Book. There was some discussion with Jim Lager about updating his book, but I don't believe that will happen now. Dennis Laney is deceased and so are most of the other authors mentioned here. The Wiki is good, but probably needs a bit of a polish and an update. I'll take a look at it and I might also talk to the people in the Leica Archives. Doing this sort of thing, as I know from my many pro bono activities in the photography field, is a thankless and time-consuming task. When the revised LHSA website appears soon it will have a lot of vintage Leica material including manuals for most models and old catalogues etc for members of the LHSA. I have seen that section and it looks quite good. I will also have a section on that site which will be about happenings in Europe and I expect that a good chunk of that will be about discoveries and vintage auctions etc. There is a lot to do. 

William 

  • Like 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, willeica said:

I agree. I've lost count of the number of times that I have consulted Laney's book and others, but we should not discount things which have emerged on this forum, such as the first IIId and the Summar/Summarex developments and various markings, plus the last LTMs etc, etc., etc. I'm sure that people like Luigi and Jerzy could provide a long list of such items. 

The issue is that no one is writing these up and cataloguing them centrally. An online combined index for the various magazines, VIDOM, Viewfinder, the UK Society, Photographica World plus this section of the Leica Forum etc, etc would be useful. Also this information needs to be tracked by and fed into the Leica Archives.

William 

Hi William,

I'm through the process of reading every Viewfinder issue and fully agree that it would be great to have a kind of subject index. If you're interested on a given topic i.e. Leica-0 there are articles, references to it in one of the yearly meetings, references to it in articles about visit to the museum etc. if not, that information has low utility.

I remember some time ago, when "I reach de conclusion" about early IIIc logged in the books Leica as IIIb, I shared it with Jim Lager and he kindly pointed me to his Viewfinder article written 40 years ago "Believing what you see" (not bad, only 40 year delay!! :) )

There is a lot of extremely interesting information there that is not accessed more (or at all) because it's not know that it even exists. Even the Leica Wiki (to me one of the best online references) starts to be a bit out of date.

 

16 hours ago, Anbaric said:

One other problem is that most of the books that do exist are out of print and getting hard to find. You can still find various editions of Rogliatti for reasonable prices, but people want crazy money for Laney 2. A straight reprint would be valuable if someone could secure the rights, as Red Dot did for the same publisher's Pocket Book (even the latter is out of print right now, though there's discussion about a new edition in another thread).

Perhaps some of the experts could be encouraged to add material to this site's Wiki?

Agree!! Many of them command a very high price but even more, there are some that take years to find a sample (even if willing to pay a nice amount of money).

Best wishes,

Augusto

Edited by tranquilo67
Link to post
Share on other sites

I agree about Laney's book. It is usually the first book I take when I need information about some Leitz/Leica topic. When I am looking for information on lenses Erwin Puts' Leica Compendium is the second one I use.

Several topics about which articles in Viewfinder have been published I trace with the CD-rom with the contents of volumes 1-37 (1968-2004). For member of Leica Historica it is possible to read Vidom articles on the website of Leica Historica in the Vidom archive section. But it would indeed be wonderful if a new book could be published, or a revised edition of Laney's Leica Collector's guide or Jim Lager's books.

Lex

Edited by sandro
Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...