100 years Null-Serie

[beoon]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

47 minutes ago, Roland Zwiers said:

So he started a project, requiring the set-up of new production facilities, additional staff, additional skills, and so on.

Roland,

I will have a look into this for you and hopefully get some information.
 

Alan

[Advertisement]

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

[Edward Schwartzreich]

I am enjoying this thread, which subject matter is close to my heart, and which new conceptualizations are quite exciting.

What i write just now is rather prosaic, but all of this has opened my memories of photography when I was a child in the late 1940s.    My stepmother had been a professional photographer, mostly of children.  Her camera was a Rolleiflex Standard, acquired likely in the 1930s.   Her father was German - her father's company was based in Frankfurt a/M until the War.  She obviously knew of the Leica, but felt, as I recall many felt in the U.S., that one simply needed a larger negative.   It was only well after WWII that she suggested that we try a 35mm camera, and she bought a fairly simple Agfa RF for us to try.

The reasons my memories are being stimulated is that when I first bought a Leica I and used it, it's deficiencies soon became obvious.  I tried first shooting with Kodak Technical Pan, thinking that I might approximate the film speeds of the better earlier films.   There was no problem shooting outdoors - I can guess exposure and distance / DOF as well as the next fellow -- but I was shocked to rediscover that one could not shoot indoors without a tripod.  It ought to have been obvious.  That brought strongly back to mind my experiences in the 1940s with the simple 127 Kodak that I had been given as a kid.  The combination of an f/3.5 lens and slow film had significant drawbacks.

What made the difference between the Leica I and my childhood camera was of course the quality of the lens.   That childhood camera had an Everset shutter, a very simple lens, only one speed of perhaps 1/50th sec, and could only use film with a fairly slow speed rating.  I could perhaps have used faster film and shot that roll only indoors, but I never thought of that at the time.  The development of the Leica made really no sense without Berek's lens.  It too could only shoot outdoors basically, with the films of the time.  Dr. Leitz simply had to know, if only intuitively, that the combination of the precision of the Leica camera (akin to the precision of Leitz's other optical products) could produce more than postcard-sized images as film products improved.   Because of the Anastigmat / Elmar lens.  I doubt he was really that surprised when Dr. Wolff worked with him to produce his very large enlargements in the mid-1930s.  This was still the Leica I with the Elmar lens, don't forget.

 

Ed

[Roland Zwiers]

Ed,

I am so happy that you join the discussion.
And even with personal memories from the 1940s!

Indeed, in the early days Leica indoor photography required a tripod.
This is already made evident by the probably first Leica review of 31 March 1925.
Editor Willy Frerk took a portrait picture at full aperture using a Tungsten studio lamp.
For this picture he needed an exposure time of 1/2 second.

This is also the review that states that
'The Leica is delivered with three cartridges, each cartridge contains 1,60m Toxo-Kinofilm, (...)"

This clearly suggests that Ernst Leitz pre-loaded the Leica cassettes with Toxo-Kinofilm.
Which leads to the hypothesis that this Toxo-Kinofilm is the first Leica film.  
As said before, the 35mm Perutz Grünsiegel film was introduced immediately after the Leica.
It was to be the film of choice for a later Leica review of 1 May 1925.

 

Roland 

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!

  

 

[willeica]

4 hours ago, Roland Zwiers said:

William,

Even after my deadline of 27 August 2023 there is a lot to research and to discuss.
So I really look forward to meeting all these famous Leica researchers!

In my analysis (always open for discussion!) Ernst Leitz II must have aimed at market introduction at the 1-11 March 1925 Leipzig fair.
That implies that he stored as many Leica I cameras as possible (the stock/flow chart suggests 100-125x) so as to release them for sale on 1 March 1925.
This does not exclude the possibility that some Leicas were sold before that date.
It only suggests that Ernst Leitz II did not aim at selling Leica I cameras as soon as possible.

 

Roland

 

 

We will be able to have discussions during and after both events. I suggest that you ask about the film types and the use of yellow filters at the PCCGB event as the people there will have a lot of experience with those topics and of using early film and plates. At the Wetzlar event the discussion may turn to Leitz records and distribution policy in the 1923-1926 period. The people there will have traced many different cameras from that period . So it is good that you will have two events as that will enable you to cover a broader field of topics.

3 hours ago, beoon said:

Roland,

I will have a look into this for you and hopefully get some information.
 

Alan

Thanks Alan. If you have a source for such information please let us know. I will PM you about the October event. If we are going to ask Tim Pullmann to source information about factory set ups and production line provisioning we need to be able to suggest how it might be categorised.

28 minutes ago, Edward Schwartzreich said:

I am enjoying this thread, which subject matter is close to my heart, and which new conceptualizations are quite exciting.

What i write just now is rather prosaic, but all of this has opened my memories of photography when I was a child in the late 1940s.    My stepmother had been a professional photographer, mostly of children.  Her camera was a Rolleiflex Standard, acquired likely in the 1930s.   Her father was German - her father's company was based in Frankfurt a/M until the War.  She obviously knew of the Leica, but felt, as I recall many felt in the U.S., that one simply needed a larger negative.   It was only well after WWII that she suggested that we try a 35mm camera, and she bought a fairly simple Agfa RF for us to try.

The reasons my memories are being stimulated is that when I first bought a Leica I and used it, it's deficiencies soon became obvious.  I tried first shooting with Kodak Technical Pan, thinking that I might approximate the film speeds of the better earlier films.   There was no problem shooting outdoors - I can guess exposure and distance / DOF as well as the next fellow -- but I was shocked to rediscover that one could not shoot indoors without a tripod.  It ought to have been obvious.  That brought strongly back to mind my experiences in the 1940s with the simple 127 Kodak that I had been given as a kid.  The combination of an f/3.5 lens and slow film had significant drawbacks.

What made the difference between the Leica I and my childhood camera was of course the quality of the lens.   That childhood camera had an Everset shutter, a very simple lens, only one speed of perhaps 1/50th sec, and could only use film with a fairly slow speed rating.  I could perhaps have used faster film and shot that roll only indoors, but I never thought of that at the time.  The development of the Leica made really no sense without Berek's lens.  It too could only shoot outdoors basically, with the films of the time.  Dr. Leitz simply had to know, if only intuitively, that the combination of the precision of the Leica camera (akin to the precision of Leitz's other optical products) could produce more than postcard-sized images as film products improved.   Because of the Anastigmat / Elmar lens.  I doubt he was really that surprised when Dr. Wolff worked with him to produce his very large enlargements in the mid-1930s.  This was still the Leica I with the Elmar lens, don't forget.

 

Ed

Ed, I look forward to meeting up with you in Wetzlar. The importance of the 'lens that made Leica' cannot be over-emphasised. I suspect that a lot of early indoor Leica photos were taken on tripods, but the introduction of faster films and lenses (Hektor, Summar) etc made a big difference later on. For professionals many preferred the larger negative size of the medium format camera right up to the 1960s when the versatility of SLR systems, such as the Nikon F, encouraged a movement by professionals over to 35mm. I remember when, in the 1980s, it was considered to be quite a sophisticated thing to use a 35mm SLR because of the association with press photography. 35mm film had come a long way towards being being acceptable for professionals, but this had taken 35 to 50 years to become a fait accompli. It all started with the Leica and so did the concept of a system camera which had started around 1931 with the Leica Model C. What I see looking at this is a long period of continuous development which took many years to stabilise. Digital has been a much shorter development curve taking less than 20 years to reach maturity and stabilise. 

William 

[Roland Zwiers]

Ed,

With the emulsions of 1924-1925 indoor photography was already possible.
But it required a fast lens and a fast dry plate.

With f/2 the Ermanox had a very fast lens.
Emulsions on glass plates could also be faster than emulsions on a celluloid base.
In addition one could hyper-sensitize (turbo-charge) the emulsion.

The example below is an advertisement from 1924.
The picture is taken with an ordinary bulb at a shutter speed of 1/20 of a second.

 

Roland 

 

 

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!

[willeica]

35 minutes ago, Roland Zwiers said:

Ed,

With the emulsions of 1924-1925 indoor photography was already possible.
But it required a fast lens and a fast dry plate.

With f/2 the Ermanox had a very fast lens.
Emulsions on glass plates could also be faster than emulsions on a celluloid base.
In addition one could hyper-sensitize (turbo-charge) the emulsion.

The example below is an advertisement from 1924.
The picture is taken with an ordinary bulb at a shutter speed of 1/20 of a second.

 

Roland 

 

 

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!

It was on the way, I would say. Leitz would have been following the trends among other German manufacturers. You may recall my Zoom for PCCGB about the German industry, centred in Dresden in the 1920s and 1930s, built around leaf shutters like the Compur. Leitz took some time to catch up as its focal plane shutter needed a fully specced lens. They did succeed eventually with the Summar. Films were also important. Are you going to look at August Nagel and the Kodak link up?  The Retina and the Kodak cassette were also very important in the whole story of 35mm. That development actually helped Leica. 

William 

[Roland Zwiers]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

1 hour ago, willeica said:

It was on the way, I would say. Leitz would have been following the trends among other German manufacturers. You may recall my Zoom for PCCGB about the German industry, centred in Dresden in the 1920s and 1930s, built around leaf shutters like the Compur. Leitz took some time to catch up as its focal plane shutter needed a fully specced lens. They did succeed eventually with the Summar. Films were also important. Are you going to look at August Nagel and the Kodak link up?  The Retina and the Kodak cassette were also very important in the whole story of 35mm. That development actually helped Leica. 

William 

The Retina and the Kodak cassette were also very important in the whole story of 35mm. That development actually helped Leica.

William,

Unfortunately, this story about the Retina and the Kodak cassette keeps coming back.
The Kodak Retina cassette was not the first 35mm cassette!
I don't know what source introduced this narrative, but it can be found in Van Hasbroeck (1987) as well.

In March 1932, at the Leipzig spring fair, Agfa introduced a 35mm cassette especially for the Leica!
Agfa announced the new cassette in its in-house publication Agfa Photoblätter of March 1932, see the announcement below.
The cassette is also mentioned in 1932 in the magazine American Photography.
So this is not information that can only be found in German language literature.

In my article 'Karl Nüchterlein in 1932; the Eureka moment for the Kine-Ekakta' (published in Dutch, English, German and French) 
I show how the several 35mm innovations of 1932 inspired Karl Nüchterlein to change course.

At the end of 1931 and the beginning of 1932 there was an avalanche of innovations in the 35mm sphere: 

• the Leica II with coupled rangefinder
• the Contax
• the 35mm Agfa cassette
• the Agfa announcement that a new colour film would be made available for 35mm photography only
• the very fast Agfa superpan black-and-white film for 35mm
• the possibility to use fast lenses with fast films (e.g. the new Leitz 1,9/73 Hektor with the Agfa superpan film)
• the possibility to take colour pictures with fast lenses and very slow 35mm colour film (e.g. the 1,9/73 Hektor with the promised Agfacolor film)

In March 1932 Karl Nüchterlein was still working on the VP Exakta, the first miniature single lens reflex camera.
This camera was designed for the 127-film of the VP Kodak.
When in March 1932 he was witness to all these innovations in the 35mm sphere, he must have had his Eureka moment.  
A single lens reflex for 127-film was betting on the wrong horse.
Now 35mm film had the future, it was time for a Kine Exakta!

Roland
 

The German announcement reads: 'A surprise for the Leica owner!'

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!

 

 

 

 

 

[beoon]

12 hours ago, Roland Zwiers said:

[Nr. 116 was a loaner camera in the hands of Mr. Lehr, possibly an employee at Leitz.
So after use Lehr must have returned this camera to Oskar Barnack.
Note that Nr. 116 is not linked to a name in the delivery book 'Kamera".] 

Hello Roland,

I have managed to locate a Mr Albert Lehr who was an employee at Leitz (1918- 1937) and is a possible candidate for camera 116 in Oskar Barnack's work book.

This primary source also details lots of other Leitz employees and other information which might help put a person to each camera (once we know more names of people that cameras were assigned to)

Alan

 

 

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!

[beoon]

Hello Roland,

Here is Rudolph Zak (Optical manager at Leitz) he was assigned two Null Series cameras number 108 and 128

Regards

Alan

 

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!

Edited July 19, 2023 by beoon

[willeica]

1 hour ago, Roland Zwiers said:

Unfortunately, this story about the Retina and the Kodak cassette keeps coming back.
The Kodak Retina cassette was not the first 35mm cassette!
I don't know what source introduced this narrative, but it can be found in Van Hasbroeck (1987) as well.

In March 1932, at the Leipzig spring fair, Agfa introduced a 35mm cassette especially for the Leica!
Agfa announced the new cassette in its in-house publication Agfa Photoblätter of March 1932, see the announcement below.
The cassette is also mentioned in 1932 in the magazine American Photography.
So this is not information that can only be found in German language literature.

We have been through this a few times before, Roland. I have an Agfa-Leitz cassette and it is reloadable. There is a lengthy thread on this forum about FILCA A, B, C where's D , which I started. The general conclusion was that the D became the Agfa - Leitz cassette.  Are you talking about a non reloadable cassette? That is what I am talking about. I know you have a leaning towards Agfa, whereas in the US and the UK (and Ireland 😀 ) there is a leaning towards Kodak. The design of Nagel and Kodak is the one which became popular throughout the world and is still there today. This was produced for the Retina - Hartmut Thiele's book on the Retina is good on this topic. I'd be happy if you can show me a non reloadable Agfa film which was produced before the Kodak item and also show what impact it had on the worldwide market for 35mm film .

I'm aware of all of the other items which you mention and I have a 7.3cm f1.9 Hektor etc. I have also written on a thread on this forum concerning the Summar with the f2.9 mark for the Agfa-Leitz colour system, which was a commercial failure, resulting in some very fancy colour filters for the system which are now very rare and fetch extraordinary prices in the collector market. The major breakthrough for colour photography was Kodachrome in the late 1930s, which made the Agfa-Leitz colour system with its special apertures and filters redundant. I have no particular bias towards Kodak and I have used many types of film including Agfa, Ilford, Fuji, Kodak and smaller manufacturers such as Fomapan etc 

Another topic for our discussions at PCCGB and in Wetzlar 🎓?

William 

[Roland Zwiers]

10 hours ago, willeica said:

We have been through this a few times before, Roland. I have an Agfa-Leitz cassette and it is reloadable. There is a lengthy thread on this forum about FILCA A, B, C where's D , which I started. The general conclusion was that the D became the Agfa - Leitz cassette.  Are you talking about a non reloadable cassette? That is what I am talking about. I know you have a leaning towards Agfa, whereas in the US and the UK (and Ireland 😀 ) there is a leaning towards Kodak. The design of Nagel and Kodak is the one which became popular throughout the world and is still there today. This was produced for the Retina - Hartmut Thiele's book on the Retina is good on this topic. I'd be happy if you can show me a non reloadable Agfa film which was produced before the Kodak item and also show what impact it had on the worldwide market for 35mm film .

I'm aware of all of the other items which you mention and I have a 7.3cm f1.9 Hektor etc. I have also written on a thread on this forum concerning the Summar with the f2.9 mark for the Agfa-Leitz colour system, which was a commercial failure, resulting in some very fancy colour filters for the system which are now very rare and fetch extraordinary prices in the collector market. The major breakthrough for colour photography was Kodachrome in the late 1930s, which made the Agfa-Leitz colour system with its special apertures and filters redundant. I have no particular bias towards Kodak and I have used many types of film including Agfa, Ilford, Fuji, Kodak and smaller manufacturers such as Fomapan etc 

Another topic for our discussions at PCCGB and in Wetzlar 🎓?

William 

 

The general conclusion was that the D became the Agfa - Leitz cassette.  

William,

This 1932 Agfa cassette was not reloadable.
So it has little in common with FILCA A, B, C or D.
The material could not be reused. 
It was designed for the Leica years before Kodak/Nagel introduced the Retina and the Retina cassette.

In 1932 the magazine American Photography refers to this Agfa 35mm cassette as well. 
So there is even pre-war documentation in English.

This Kodak/ Retina cassette seems to be yet another example of 'common wisdom' that is hard to correct.
Very much like the legends on Dr Paul Wolff and the Perutz Fliegerfilm.

There is much more to say about this 1932 Agfa-Leica cassette, but that is for a future article.
I am collecting additional information, but I can do only one thing at a time.
My focus is now on the technological bottlenecks for Leica photography in the period 1910-1927.
This gives rise to many research questions already.
That's why I look forward so much to our coming visit to the Leitz archive! 

Roland

 

 

[Roland Zwiers]

11 hours ago, beoon said:

Hello Roland,

Here is Rudolph Zak (Optical manager at Leitz) he was assigned two Null Series cameras number 108 and 128

Regards

Alan

 

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!

Alan,

Thank you for this confirmation!
I recognized the names 'Lehr' and 'Zak' on page 115 of Oskar Barnack's work notes.
Other names in Oskar Barnack's handwriting that could have been Leitz employees, are 'Freund' and 'Neumann/ Naumann".
The Leica review of 1 May 1925 is signed by 'N-n'.
So I would really like to know whether this 'N-n' had been able to use a 1923 Null-Serie Leica before. 

Some names on page 115, however, are still very hard to read.
As it is plausible that many names concern relatives or employees of Leitz,
knowlegde of more names could help me to decipher Oskar Barnack's handwriting!

Rudolf Zak may have even have re-lend a test Leica (either a loaner camera or Nr. 108/128) to other photographers.
The delivery book 'Kamera' mentions 'Zak für Bozen', which suggests that he received Nr. 128 on behalf of a photographer in Bozen.

 

Roland

 

[beoon]

10 minutes ago, Roland Zwiers said:

Other names in Oskar Barnack's handwriting that could have been Leitz employees, are 'Freund' and 'Neumann/ Naumann".
The Leica review of 1 May 1925 is signed by 'N-n'.
So I would really like to know whether this 'N-n' had been able to use a 1923 Null-Serie Leica before. 

Hello Roland,

I am at work now so don’t have access to my books, but for sure I will be able to get a photo of Leitz employee “Freund” and will check for “Neumann/Naumann”.

It will perhaps be easier to identify names if we get to see Oskar Barnacks work book at the archives.

I also have a name for the Leitz employee who was in charge of Null series assembly and which department / location where they built them.

I will look into this further.

Alan

[willeica]

35 minutes ago, Roland Zwiers said:

 

The general conclusion was that the D became the Agfa - Leitz cassette.  

William,

This 1932 Agfa cassette was not reloadable.
So it has little in common with FILCA A, B, C or D.
The material could not be reused. 
It was designed for the Leica years before Kodak/Nagel introduced the Retina and the Retina cassette.

In 1932 the magazine American Photography refers to this Agfa 35mm cassette as well. 
So there is even pre-war documentation in English.

This Kodak/ Retina cassette seems to be yet another example of 'common wisdom' that is hard to correct.
Very much like the legends on Dr Paul Wolff and the Perutz Fliegerfilm.

There is much more to say about this 1932 Agfa-Leica cassette, but that is for a future article.
I am collecting additional information, but I can do only one thing at a time.
My focus is now on the technological bottlenecks for Leica photography in the period 1910-1927.
This gives rise to many research questions already.
That's why I look forward so much to our coming visit to the Leitz archive! 

Roland

 

 

Thanks Roland. It would be worthwhile looking at how Nagel might have followed the non reloadable Agfa cassette in terms of design. As I said, the Agfa - Leitz cassette which I have is like the FILCA and is reloadable. It even comes in an aluminium container with the Agfa logo. I accept that I am following the 'common wisdom' on this matter, but there are many reasons to admire the work of Nagel. The reason why non reloadable cassettes would have helped Leica is that many people would not have liked messing around with bulk film and FILCAs. It would be interesting to see the sales figures for the new Agfa and Kodak cassettes both inside Germany and also worldwide.

William 

[Roland Zwiers]

32 minutes ago, willeica said:

Thanks Roland. It would be worthwhile looking at how Nagel might have followed the non reloadable Agfa cassette in terms of design. As I said, the Agfa - Leitz cassette which I have is like the FILCA and is reloadable. It even comes in an aluminium container with the Agfa logo. I accept that I am following the 'common wisdom' on this matter, but there are many reasons to admire the work of Nagel. The reason why non reloadable cassettes would have helped Leica is that many people would not have liked messing around with bulk film and FILCAs. It would be interesting to see the sales figures for the new Agfa and Kodak cassettes both inside Germany and also worldwide.

William 

William,

It is in no way my intention to disregard the enormous contribution of Dr. August Nagel and the Kodak Retina for the popularisation of 35mm photography!
It is just that 'common wisdom' keeps saying that the 35 mm daylight cassette was invented by Dr August Nagel. 
That is simply not true, witness the 1932 daylight loading Agfa cassette that was designed for Leica photography in the first place.

In the course of this thread we have come along several 'common wisdoms' that are not based on primary sources.
Once a legend has been promoted to 'received wisdom/ common knowledge' it is very difficult to get rid of it.
I have even experienced angry exchanges with authors of 'legends' that have been promoted to 'common knowledge', 
who keep defending a legend that is obviously at odds with reliable primary sources.

Fortunately, you are not one of those!
Thank you again for your openmindedness!   

After 1932 many manufacturers, including Aga and Kodak, had follow-up designs.
Even Ihagee designed a 35mm cassette for the Kine Exakta!
But I would not consider this as Ihagee's greatest contribution to 35mm photography 🙂

Roland

 

 

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!

 

[willeica]

33 minutes ago, Roland Zwiers said:

William,

It is in no way my intention to disregard the enormous contribution of Dr. August Nagel and the Kodak Retina for the popularisation of 35mm photography!
It is just that 'common wisdom' keeps saying that the 35 mm daylight cassette was invented by Dr August Nagel. 
That is simply not true, witness the 1932 daylight loading Agfa cassette that was designed for Leica photography in the first place.

In the course of this thread we have come along several 'common wisdoms' that are not based on primary sources.
Once a legend has been promoted to 'received wisdom/ common knowledge' it is very difficult to get rid of it.
I have even experienced angry exchanges with authors of 'legends' that have been promoted to 'common knowledge', 
who keep defending a legend that is obviously at odds with reliable primary sources.

Fortunately, you are not one of those!
Thank you again for your openmindedness!   

After 1932 many manufacturers, including Aga and Kodak, had follow-up designs.
Even Ihagee designed a 35mm cassette for the Kine Exakta!
But I would not consider this as Ihagee's greatest contribution to 35mm photography 🙂

Roland

 

 

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!

 

I will invite Ottmar Michaely to join our group. If he comes you can ask him about the special cassette for the 0 Series. He told me that No 105 had a Model A rewind knob because it had been altered to take a   FILCA. By the late 1920s the cassettes for the 0 Series had become scarce.  All roads lead back to the Leica cassette line which included the FILCA. Kodak, of course, wanted a much cheaper construction for its cassettes which include some features which originated in the FILCA. When we are inside the archive I will show you details for many changes to the FILCA which occurred in 1931 and which are written inside the front cover of the delivery book for that year. I have an English translation for that which came from a fellow collector. The pace of change was staggering, but they eventually went back to the FILCA B which is the most common one around today. 
 

You are right, I am open minded, but I will always question any assumptions, just as you do 😀. 

William 

[Roland Zwiers]

Even Ihagee designed a 35mm cassette for the Kine Exakta!

This sentence was formulated too quickly.
A safer formulation would be:

Even Ihagee advertised a 35mm cassette for the Kine Exakta!

It is very likely that Ihagee used a cassette that was designed by a third party.
And advertised this third party cassette as the Kine-Exakta-Kunstharzkassette. 
This is a subject for future research.

It also shows how difficult it is to keep formulating coorectly all the time.
Some legends are based on a combination of such inaccuracies, typos, misunderstandings  , misinterpretations and so on. 
 

Roland

[Roland Zwiers]

3 minutes ago, willeica said:

I will invite Ottmar Michaely to join our group. If he comes you can ask him about the special cassette for the 0 Series. He told me that No 105 had a Model A rewind knob because it had been altered to take a   FILCA. By the late 1920s the cassettes for the 0 Series had become scarce.  All roads lead back to the Leica cassette line which included the FILCA. Kodak, of course, wanted a much cheaper construction for its cassettes which include some features which originated in the FILCA. When we are inside the archive I will show you details for many changes to the FILCA which occurred in 1931 and which are written inside the front cover of the delivery book for that year. I have an English translation for that which came from a fellow collector. The pace of change was staggering, but they eventually went back to the FILCA B which is the most common one around today. 
 

You are right, I am open minded, but I will always question any assumptions, just as you do 😀. 

William 

William,

Thank you again.
I really look forard to meeting Ottmar Michaely.
His empirical observations on

• the Handmuster of 1920
• the nickel-plated pre-Null-Serie Leica
• the Null-Serie,
• the second test series (the existence of which he disputes),
• the 5-element Anastigmat,
• the Schäfer camera
• and so on 

are crucial pieces of the puzzle! 

A funny anecdote is that my first experiences with screw mount Leicas (IIIb, IIIf, IIIg) all showed negatives sinking through the perforations.
I addressed this problem in another posting.
The root of the problem is that screw mount Leicas were still designed for FILCA cassettes.

The 1932 Agfa was designed for Leica photography, so would have been based on FILCA dimensions.
But later daylight loading cassettes used slightly different dimensions.
And so my negatives sink through the lower perforations.

Once I knew about this problem there were two obvious solutions:

• Use the FILCA cassettes again
• Add some material on the base plate so as to raise the cassette by 1-2mm

Using the FILCA cassettes is a longer term project.
In the short term the second solution has already solved the problem 🙂

Roland

 

   
 

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!

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[willeica]

2 hours ago, Roland Zwiers said:

• the Handmuster of 1920
• the nickel-plated pre-Null-Serie Leica
• the Null-Serie,
• the second test series (the existence of which he disputes),
• the 5-element Anastigmat,
• the Schäfer camera
• and so on 

That is a lot of questions. I suggest that, if you meet him, you should engage Ottmar in a conversation and what he knows will come out. He probably knows more than anyone still alive about the insides of what were always test cameras. I'm always surprised when people say this or that was changed on a particular 0 Series camera as that is what they were there for.

To use a modern cassette in No 1661 I had to make the following change of a clip beside the 'film chamber'. 

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!

The following is the FILCA which contained a roll of film used in 1950 by a person unknown and processed by me, 70 years later, in 2020 (second image is an example of a 1950 image from the roll). The only damage to the film was caused by people opening the cassette, myself included. The film was Perutz bulk film with no speed indication. The processing was done following the advice of a photographer/darkroom owner friend of mine who is a genius at this sort of thing. The FILCA is like a tomb. You could lock precious 'Dead Sea Scrolls' material in a FILCA and it would still be the same after a few hundred years. Over-engineering at its finest. I would love to see what the Pre-FILCA 0 Series cassette actually looked like. 

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Roland Zwiers said:

A funny anecdote is that my first experiences with screw mount Leicas (IIIb, IIIf, IIIg) all showed negatives sinking through the perforations.
I addressed this problem in another posting.
The root of the problem is that screw mount Leicas were still designed for FILCA cassettes.

The 1932 Agfa was designed for Leica photography, so would have been based on FILCA dimensions.
But later daylight loading cassettes used slightly different dimensions.
And so my negatives sink through the lower perforations.

Once I knew about this problem there were two obvious solutions:

• Use the FILCA cassettes again
• Add some material on the base plate so as to raise the cassette by 1-2mm

Using the FILCA cassettes is a longer term project.
In the short term the second solution has already solved the problem 🙂

 

Your issue may have arisen from using an IXMOO instead of a FILCA. See this thread which includes contributions from our colleague Nitroplait.

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/leica-filca-and-ixmoo-reloadable-film-cassettes.186364/

There is a lot more to the Leica film cassettes than initially meets the eye.

Here are the 1931 entries on the FILCA alterations in the 1931 delivery book. We can have another look at this in October. I have no doubt that in-house tests lay behind these changes. 

William 

 

[Roland Zwiers]

That is a lot of questions [to Ottmar Michaely] . I suggest that, if you meet him, you should engage Ottmar in a conversation and what he knows will come out. 

William,

Fortunately it is not so bad.
The examples that I gave concern answers that Ottmar has already given with his empirical evidence in this field 🙂
But you are right: there are always additional questions to ask!

One problem with the brass Leica film cassettes is that they require a lot of expertise to operate.
This is easier with colourblind and orthochromatic film since then you can still use a safety light so as to see what you are doing.
But when panchromatic film material became available, many Leica users must have panicked.
Just try to do everything right in total darkness!

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!

So my hypothesis is that in March 1932 Agfa introduced the Agfa-Leica-cassette after complaints by Leica users.
The new high speed Agfa-Leica-Superpan-Film, that had been introduced only a few months before,  was preferably handled in total darkness.
[One could use a green safetylight as the increased sensitivity for red came at the expense of green.
But that was not a fool-proof procedure.]

Agfa did supply this panchromatic film in daylight refills (Tageslichtspulen), but that was per meter film much more expensive than bulk-loading.
So it was good advertisement to deliver this film in cheap expandable daylight cassettes as well.

Roland