100 years Null-Serie

[derleicaman]

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I think it is important to realize when we speak of using a camera such as the Leica, we are speaking from a perspective almost 100 years removed from when the concept of such a revolutionary camera was new. Those of us who shot or still shoot film are used to such wonderful emulsions we have today, or even the revolution that Kodachrome was. We have no idea of the limitations those first 35mm emulsions imposed on the Leica, and also contributed to the response of photographers from those days that the Leica was a toy. To users of the original Model I Leica with its fixed lens, you would go out taking pictures with no light meter and no distance measuring device for focus. This was all a guess. The fact that you had to remove the filter and lens hood to change the aperture was another hurdle that never occurred to users back then.

Studying the evolution of the Leica and its accessories gives a wonderful insight into how the "small wonder" developed and changed the photographic world. It also shows that the people at Leitz and now Leica have always listened to their users, and improved the product over the years.

[beoon]

11 hours ago, Roland Zwiers said:

 

Hello Roland,

The earliest LECA instructions dated Jan 1925 List 2049 and LEICA of March 1925 List 2061 make no mention of film brand as such, the main text focuses on film handling & loading.

I could not find any early Leica literature where Toxo-Kino-Film is listed

The May 1925 Ogilvy & Co  Leica brochure List 2092 details

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (no brand specified) and uses Leitz codeword "Filmo"

The May 1926 Ogilvy & Co Leica brochure List 2208 details

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (no brand specified) and uses Leitz codeword "Filmo"

The November 1926 first Leica system brochure List 2238 details the following

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (AGFA brand now specified) and uses Leitz codeword "Filmo"

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (Perutz Kinofiln) and uses Leitz codeword "Firuz"

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (Perutz Fliegerfilm) and uses Leitz codeword "Flifi"

The May 1927 second Leica system brochure List 2270 details the following

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (AGFA brand specified) and uses Leitz codeword "Filmo"

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (Perutz Kinofiln) and uses Leitz codeword "Firuz"

Perutz Fliegerfilm is no longer listed

 

The September 1928 brochure List 2371 details the following

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (AGFA brand specified) and uses Leitz codeword "Filmo"

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (Perutz cinema film) and uses Leitz codeword "Firuz"

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (Now Perutz Leica Special film) and uses Leitz codeword "Flifi"

Note that Perutz Leica Special film now utilises the same Leica codeword "Flifi"from 1926 (was previously specified as Perutz Fliegerfilm)

 

The December 1929 brochure List 2334b details the following

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (AGFA brand specified) and uses Leitz codeword "Filmo"

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (Perutz Kinofilm) and uses Leitz codeword "Firuz"

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (Perutz Spezialfilm) and uses Leitz codeword "Flifi"

 

Regards

Alan

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 17, 2023 by beoon

[willeica]

9 hours ago, Roland Zwiers said:

The most inconvenient lens design for using a yellow filter must have been the 4,5/42 Summar.
This is the standard lens on the Ur-Leica of 1914.
But Oskar Barnack must have used a yellow filter on this lens as well, witness his orthochromatic work in the period 1914-1917 or so.

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The test cameras of 1923 ('Null-Serie') had a different solution for closing the lens while tensioning the shutter.
This greatly facilitated the use of push-on filters!

Of course, by modern standards a push-on filter is less convenient than a screw mount or a bajonet filter.
But one has to judge by the standards of the day.
The examples below are from the 1917 Lifa filter manual.

Roland

 

 

As I said in our various emails, Roland, there is no direct written evidence of Barnack using a filter on early prototypes, but some of his Black Forest photos ( c 1917) do show a good tonal range. They have a box of those negatives in the archive and I believe I have shown some of them here before. 

The LIFA type clip on filters, made by VERAX, and not Leitz, were still available in the late 1920s. This one from my collection is yellow.

The first Leitz filters came from 1925. The early push in ones will allow the use of a the aperture mechanism, but the slip on ones did not - my terminology may differ from Laney's. Using an early hood meant that you had to take off the hood to change aperture, at least until the much later VALOO came along. With the hood with a square front you also had to rotate it again after every focus, what were they thinking. These photos explain what I am talking about. The FIOLA is UV and later, but the principle is the same. In the second photo the filters are under the hood. 

 

I have yellow filters for later lenses by Leica and other manufacturers, even for a Dallmeyer. They were commonly used until film emulsions caught up, but I am not sure that they were universally used. Most early photos of Leica users I have seen show no filter or  hood. Indeed, the Elmar lens is very resistant to flare in my experience

What does seem to be true is that early experience of many users with the Leica camera was not encouraging and Barnack acknowledged this. The development of new panchromatic films helped as well as the experiments of Wolff and others. The Leica was not a huge success initially. With the I Model A, 1929 was the year when it really took off and the II Model D was another huge success in 1932. I agree completely with Bill Rosauer's comments above. 

William 

[Roland Zwiers]

11 hours ago, derleicaman said:

I think it is important to realize when we speak of using a camera such as the Leica, we are speaking from a perspective almost 100 years removed from when the concept of such a revolutionary camera was new. Those of us who shot or still shoot film are used to such wonderful emulsions we have today, or even the revolution that Kodachrome was. We have no idea of the limitations those first 35mm emulsions imposed on the Leica, and also contributed to the response of photographers from those days that the Leica was a toy. To users of the original Model I Leica with its fixed lens, you would go out taking pictures with no light meter and no distance measuring device for focus. This was all a guess. The fact that you had to remove the filter and lens hood to change the aperture was another hurdle that never occurred to users back then.

Studying the evolution of the Leica and its accessories gives a wonderful insight into how the "small wonder" developed and changed the photographic world. It also shows that the people at Leitz and now Leica have always listened to their users, and improved the product over the years.

To users of the original Model I Leica with its fixed lens, you would go out taking pictures with no light meter and no distance measuring device for focus. This was all a guess. 

Bill,

You are right that we have to keep the 100 year time difference in mind.
But your observation that early Leica users had to guess exposure times is disputed by primary sources.

In 1912, so even before the Ur-Leica, there were many exposure meters on the market.
In addition photo magazines published monthly exposure tables.
The examples are from January 1914 and can be found in the British Amateur Photographer & Photographic News and the German Die Photographische Industrie. 

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There were also many types of hand held exposure meters.
These were based on different technologies.
Optical exposure meters made use of a grey wedge.
When according to the photographer’s eye the brightness of the subject was equal to the selected grey tone,
then he could read the exposure settings from an engraved scale.
Chemical exposure meters used sensitive paper.
The photographer would expose this paper for a few seconds and compare the resulting grey tone to a built-in grey wedge.
Again, matching grey tones would give information on the right exposure settings.
A third category consisted of exposure calculators that combined the information of the monthly exposure tables in a compact mechanical device.
The most detailed exposure guide came in the form of a pocket book by Dr. Von Rheden.
All these exposure meters and exposure guides had their pros and cons.

In practise a photographer would acquaint himself to one of these exposure meters.
In the dark room he could still compensate for exposure errors by adjusting the development time.
With colour blind or orthochromatic emulsions the photographer could use a ruby safety light to oversee the result.

 

Roland  

 

 

  

 

[Roland Zwiers]

8 hours ago, willeica said:

As I said in our various emails, Roland, there is no direct written evidence of Barnack using a filter on early prototypes, but some of his Black Forest photos ( c 1917) do show a good tonal range. They have a box of those negatives in the archive and I believe I have shown some of them here before. 

The LIFA type clip on filters, made by VERAX, and not Leitz, were still available in the late 1920s. This one from my collection is yellow.

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The first Leitz filters came from 1925. The early push in ones will allow the use of a the aperture mechanism, but the slip on ones did not - my terminology may differ from Laney's. Using an early hood meant that you had to take off the hood to change aperture, at least until the much later VALOO came along. With the hood with a square front you also had to rotate it again after every focus, what were they thinking. These photos explain what I am talking about. The FIOLA is UV and later, but the principle is the same. In the second photo the filters are under the hood. 

 

I have yellow filters for later lenses by Leica and other manufacturers, even for a Dallmeyer. They were commonly used until film emulsions caught up, but I am not sure that they were universally used. Most early photos of Leica users I have seen show no filter or  hood. Indeed, the Elmar lens is very resistant to flare in my experience

What does seem to be true is that early experience of many users with the Leica camera was not encouraging and Barnack acknowledged this. The development of new panchromatic films helped as well as the experiments of Wolff and others. The Leica was not a huge success initially. With the I Model A, 1929 was the year when it really took off and the II Model D was another huge success in 1932. I agree completely with Bill Rosauer's comments above. 

William 

there is no direct written evidence of Barnack using a filter on early prototypes, but some of his Black Forest photos ( c 1917) do show a good tonal range.

William,

You are absolutely right that Oskar Barnack makes no reference to using a yellow filter on his early prototypes.
But then we have empirical evidence.
How could he have obtained colour correct black-and-white pictures in the period 1914-1917 without having used a yellow filter?
My empirical observation is that a yellow filter is necessary in addition to a photographic emulsion that has been made sensitive to the colour yellow.
Photographic literature from the period 1910-1930 (and even much later) is very clear about this.

Just look at these 1914 pictures that Oskar Barnack took with his Ur-Leica from a Zeppelin. 
In that year regular cine negative film was still colour blind.
So the green trees and the orange roofs would have appeared as either black or very dark grey.
This is not the case.

So he must have self-sensitised the colourblind 35mm film himself by bathing it in a solution with in an Eosine solution (or similar).
In contemporary photo literature there were many recipes for this.
The reference below is from 1911.
Other sources show that this procedure was also used for 35mm cine negative film.
The extra colour sensitivity would last only a few days.
But that was no problem, as Oskar Barnack had already booked the flight.
 

Empirical evidence shows that without a yellow filter the desired outcome could not be obtained.
So Oskar Barnack must have used a yellow filter!

This leads to the question: what lens was on his Ur-Leica when he took these Zeppelin pictures.
In Leica Literature it is suggested that he used the Kino Tessar.
This would explain the vignetting in the lower left corner on the picture on the left.  
After all, the Kino Tessar was not designed for a 24x38mm frame.

Why, then, would Oskar Barnack have used the Kino Tessar?
One explanation is that the Kino Tessar was more suitable for accomodating the required yellow filter.

Another explanation is that Oskar Barnack still used the f/4,5 f=42mm Mikro Summar, but that the required yellow filter was not properly centered on the lens. 
That would lead to vignetting as well.
Note that the picture on the right shows no sign of vignetting.
With the Kino Tessar this would have been unavoidable.  

Roland

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Roland Zwiers]

11 hours ago, beoon said:

Hello Roland,

The earliest LECA instructions dated Jan 1925 List 2049 and LEICA of March 1925 List 2061 make no mention of film brand as such, the main text focuses on film handling & loading.

I could not find any early Leica literature where Toxo-Kino-Film is listed

The May 1925 Ogilvy & Co  Leica brochure List 2092 details

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (no brand specified) and uses Leitz codeword "Filmo"

The May 1926 Ogilvy & Co Leica brochure List 2208 details

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (no brand specified) and uses Leitz codeword "Filmo"

The November 1926 first Leica system brochure List 2238 details the following

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (AGFA brand now specified) and uses Leitz codeword "Filmo"

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (Perutz Kinofiln) and uses Leitz codeword "Firuz"

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (Perutz Fliegerfilm) and uses Leitz codeword "Flifi"

The May 1927 second Leica system brochure List 2270 details the following

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (AGFA brand specified) and uses Leitz codeword "Filmo"

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (Perutz Kinofiln) and uses Leitz codeword "Firuz"

Perutz Fliegerfilm is no longer listed

 

The September 1928 brochure List 2371 details the following

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (AGFA brand specified) and uses Leitz codeword "Filmo"

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (Perutz cinema film) and uses Leitz codeword "Firuz"

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (Now Perutz Leica Special film) and uses Leitz codeword "Flifi"

Note that Perutz Leica Special film now utilises the same Leica codeword "Flifi"from 1926 (was previously specified as Perutz Fliegerfilm)

 

The December 1929 brochure List 2334b details the following

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (AGFA brand specified) and uses Leitz codeword "Filmo"

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (Perutz Kinofilm) and uses Leitz codeword "Firuz"

"3 x film strips in light proof tin" (Perutz Spezialfilm) and uses Leitz codeword "Flifi"

 

Regards

Alan

 

 

 

 

 

Hello Alan,

I am very grateful, again, that you are willing to share all these fascinating primary sources!
But we are talking about different time frames now.

Your sources start in January 1925 (the Leca manual).
In that month the first cameras (that were engraved at the end of 1924) were delivered.
Some of these are still test cameras; Curt Emmermann receives his Leica 'zur Begutachtung' in early February 1925.
But we can also speak in terms of the beginning of more or less regular series production of the Leica I.
More or less, as it is quite possible that Ernst Leitz II regarded work for the March 1925 Leipzig fair as a project with a deadline. 

My timeframe is about the Leica films in January 1923-March 1925.
This is the period of the test series Leicas.
In other terminology: the period of the Null-Serie and of the second test series.
What cine negative films were used by these very early Leica photographers?
What film quality had Ernst Leitz II to reckon with when he made his June 1924 go/no-go decision?

As far as I know there is no direct information on what make film was used.
Prof. Klute and Dr Paul Wolff only complain about the bad quality of these early Leica films in terms of high grain and low orthochromatism.
Prof. Klute makes the additional observation that these were German films of the period of hyper-inflation. 

Although we do not know what makes of 35mm were used, we can know what films were available at the time in Germany.
There is ample photographic and cinematographic literature on this.
In this period Agfa was gradually losing its war-time monopoly position to new entrants.
The table below makes this clear.
I owe this table to Manfred Gill of the Agfa Museum in Wolfen.

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The table ends on 2 July 1923, so in Null-Serie territory.
At that moment there are three suppliers on the German market of 35mm cine negative film: Agfa, Goerz and Lignose.
From contemporary literature is is clear that in 1923 other suppliers are also aiming to enter the lucrative market for 35mm film.
Nobel in Düren is succesful and produces in 1924 the Toxo-Kino-Film.
This is the film that is used by Willy Frerk in his very positive March 1925 Leica review.

Otto Perutz in München is not immediately succesful; the intended market introduction has to be postponed.
Perutz introduces its first 35mm orthochromatic cine negative film after the Leica has come on the market.
This first Perutz cine negative film is based on the famous Perutz Grünsiegel (green seal) emulsion. 
This high quality emulsion had been used for decades on glass plates. 
At the end of 1923 Perutz managed to combine this Grünsiegel emuslion with celluloid based flat film.

In the course of 1925 Perutz managed to combine the Grünsiegel emulsion with 35mm film as well.
Consequently it would quickly become a favourite film for Leica photography.
So in another early Leica review (1 May 1925) the reviewer explains that he prefers this Perutz film because of its very high orthochromatism.

It is difficult to say what film (Toxo, Perutz Grünsiegel) was the better film in May 1925 for Leica photography.
in 1926 there are several comparative tests, but these deal with cinematography.
Grain is not even mentioned as an important feature!

From the November 1926 Leica pricelist one can see that Leitz does not advertise the Toxo film.
Instead two Perutz films are mentioned, including the Perutz kino film of 1925.
So I infer that at that time Leitz preferred the Perutz Grünsiegelfilm to the Toxo-Kino-Film.
An alternative hypothesis is that by November 1926 the Toxo-Kino-Film was not available anymore.

Roland

 

 

   

 

 

 
 

 

[willeica]

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43 minutes ago, Roland Zwiers said:

there is no direct written evidence of Barnack using a filter on early prototypes, but some of his Black Forest photos ( c 1917) do show a good tonal range.

William,

You are absolutely right that Oskar Barnack makes no reference to using a yellow filter on his early prototypes.
But then we have empirical evidence.
How could he have obtained colour correct black-and-white pictures in the period 1914-1917 without having used a yellow filter?
My empirical observation is that a yellow filter is necessary in addition to a photographic emulsion that has been made sensitive to the colour yellow.
Photographic literature from the period 1910-1930 (and even much later) is very clear about this.

Just look at these 1914 pictures that Oskar Barnack took with his Ur-Leica from a Zeppelin. 
In that year regular cine negative film was still colour blind.
So the green trees and the orange roofs would have appeared as either black or very dark grey.
This is not the case.

So he must have self-sensitised the colourblind 35mm film himself by bathing it in a solution with in an Eosine solution (or similar).
In contemporary photo literature there were many recipes for this.
The reference below is from 1911.
Other sources show that this procedure was also used for 35mm cine negative film.
The extra colour sensitivity would last only a few days.
But that was no problem, as Oskar Barnack had already booked the flight.
 

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!

Empirical evidence shows that without a yellow filter the desired outcome could not be obtained.
So Oskar Barnack must have used a yellow filter!

This leads to the question: what lens was on his Ur-Leica when he took these Zeppelin pictures.
In Leica Literature it is suggested that he used the Kino Tessar.
This would explain the vignetting in the lower left corner on the picture on the left.  
After all, the Kino Tessar was not designed for a 24x38mm frame.

Why, then, would Oskar Barnack have used the Kino Tessar?
One explanation is that the Kino Tessar was more suitable for accomodating the required yellow filter.

Another explanation is that Oskar Barnack still used the f/4,5 f=42mm Mikro Summar, but that the required yellow filter was not properly centered on the lens. 
That would lead to vignetting as well.
Note that the picture on the right shows no sign of vignetting.
With the Kino Tessar this would have been unavoidable.  

Roland

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roland. You will get a chance to examine the negatives when we are in the Leica archive. Tim now has one of the negatives in a clear case, but there is a box of other negatives which he took out for me about 2 years ago. My only comment at the time was that they were very detailed and showed a range of tones. Do you have any documentation on what was common practice for military reconnaissance photography in World War I? I believe you may have mentioned this to me before.

1 hour ago, Roland Zwiers said:

To users of the original Model I Leica with its fixed lens, you would go out taking pictures with no light meter and no distance measuring device for focus. This was all a guess. 

Bill,

You are right that we have to keep the 100 year time difference in mind.
But your observation that early Leica users had to guess exposure times is disputed by primary sources.

In 1912, so even before the Ur-Leica, there were many exposure meters on the market.
In addition photo magazines published monthly exposure tables.
The examples are from January 1914 and can be found in the British Amateur Photographer & Photographic News and the German Die Photographische Industrie. 

 

 

There were also many types of hand held exposure meters.
These were based on different technologies.
Optical exposure meters made use of a grey wedge.
When according to the photographer’s eye the brightness of the subject was equal to the selected grey tone,
then he could read the exposure settings from an engraved scale.
Chemical exposure meters used sensitive paper.
The photographer would expose this paper for a few seconds and compare the resulting grey tone to a built-in grey wedge.
Again, matching grey tones would give information on the right exposure settings.
A third category consisted of exposure calculators that combined the information of the monthly exposure tables in a compact mechanical device.
The most detailed exposure guide came in the form of a pocket book by Dr. Von Rheden.
All these exposure meters and exposure guides had their pros and cons.

In practise a photographer would acquaint himself to one of these exposure meters.
In the dark room he could still compensate for exposure errors by adjusting the development time.
With colour blind or orthochromatic emulsions the photographer could use a ruby safety light to oversee the result.

 

Roland  

 

 

  

 

Now you are getting into a topic which I am exploring at present. Next month I am giving a talk in a fully preserved 19th Century darkroom https://strokestownpark.ie/victorian-darkroom/ . Not only do we have the darkroom, but we have the chemicals, the plates, papers, cameras, lenses, photographs/plates created and the handwritten photographer's notes on the images he created from 1890 to about 1920. He has various notes about the plates used and we have the boxes which contain sensitometer numbers and/or Hurter and Driffield (H&D) ratings. He also records the lenses used, Dallmeyer, Watson, Grubb and Goerz etc, but seems to have used f16 almost all of the time. He also notes chemicals used such as Quinol, but at times he seems to have just used soda cleaning powder! All of his photographs are very good to excellent. Some of his notebooks contain exposure tables, but, as you know, at that time many different exposure systems and the standardised systems of the 20th century ,e.g. DIN, ASA and ISO were far distant into the future. this table, from as late as 1952, shows how complex the exposure landscape once was.

Back in the period I am looking at there were many different systems, including Scheiner which came along in the mid 1890s. We will have to do a lot more research to establish which if any of these systems the photographer was using in this case. There are some pencilled calculations, but these will have to be compared with the images produced and the materials used and this will take some time. My initial talk next month will be for a non technical audience. We have identified some of the images as far back as the 1890s and the people in them who are mentioned in the photographer's notebook. This alone is of great local interest.

In researching some of the materials I have come across, I have looked at this video from the Eastman Museum. The young woman presenting here is clearly not an expert, but she has access to an immense amount of material about early exposure methods (4 minutes to 26minutes) and her talk does deal with the migration from plates to film in which Kodak was heavily involved. At one stage she shows the difference between orthochromatic and panchromatic black and white films  (Kodak examples , of course)

It took some time for photographic materials ( film, plate or paper ) to become reliable from batch to batch.  Photographers often tested clippings of material for speed and this, of course, was the reason for Barnack's  speed test camera M875 which had a set guillotine shutter speed (1/40th) if I remember correctly. Some believe that this was for testing 35mm film for use in cine cameras. To this day, many photographers do test strips before printing on a new type of paper. 

Exposure meters were not really standardised until standard systems of exposure, as mentioned above, came in. Among the more common meters used in Britain were the Watkins Bee Meter and the Wynne's Infallible Meter. The following is a video by our esteemed colleague at the Photographic Collectors' Club of Great Britain (PCCGB),  John Marriage, about Watkins Bee Meters - you can, if you wish, ignore the short piece at the beginning about 'ley lines' which are an unrelated topic, but some here might find that interesting.

I am currently cataloguing the collection of the now defunct Photographic Society of Ireland (founded 1854) at our National Photographic Archive. I have found boxes containing multiple Watkins Bee Meters and also this lovely Wynne's Infallible Exposure Meter, which resembles the one in your post above. 

All of this is by way of saying that, even in the 20 year period from 1910 to 1930, photography was undergoing pioneering development and multiple standards of speed rating and exposure measurement existed and experiments in photographic materials were ongoing and appearing on and disappearing from the market at regular intervals. It is not possible to apply today's standardised framework to what was happening back then. Shutters were also undergoing a lot of development back then and I have come across a focal plane shutter with a top speed of 1/1000th of a second which was made by Thornton Pickard in the 1890s in the collection which I have been cataloguing. How reliable that speed was is another matter, of course.  Leica did not have 1/1000th of a second in its range until the IIIa came along in 1935.

So, Barnack was operating in an era where a lot of guess work was left to the photographer and you are right to recognise that in your research. Using the early I Model As would have been even more difficult for photographers back then than it is today with modern films and exposure meters etc. Developments in film and other materials and exposure standards went a long way to making the Leica the success it eventually became. This is where Wolff and others made great contributions. 

After I give my talk in August I will be doing it again for PCCGB on a Zoom, which I hope you will attend. I also hope that it will be uploaded to YouTube and I will, of course, post the link on this forum. The discovery of this surviving early intact darkroom and the photos and photographer's notes provides an immense information and leaning opportunity. The RPS has expressed interest in this find and Michael Pritchard is very interested in seeing it.  

William 

[Roland Zwiers]

William,

You just prove my point.
From the 1890s onward many exposure testing systems appeared on the market.
Photo magazines like Amateur Photographer are full of competing advertisements.
By 1912 Oskar Barnack could chose beween a wide range of hand held exposure meters and exposure guides.

I would just like to add the Agfa exposure table that was introduced around 1912 as well.
By 1913 already 160.000 copies of this exposure table had been sold.

It had been translated in eight languages, also with different speed grading systems in mind.
The Agfa exposure table cost only 75 Pfennig so any photographer could afford one.

Roland 

 

 

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[willeica]

48 minutes ago, Roland Zwiers said:

William,

You just prove my point.
From the 1890s onward many exposure testing systems appeared on the market.
Photo magazines like Amateur Photographer are full of competing advertisements.
By 1912 Oskar Barnack could chose beween a wide range of hand held exposure meters and exposure guides.

I would just like to add the Agfa exposure table that was introduced around 1912 as well.
By 1913 already 160.000 copies of this exposure table had been sold.

It had been translated in eight languages, also with different speed grading systems in mind.
The Agfa exposure table cost only 75 Pfennig so any photographer could afford one.

Roland 

 

 

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All true, but the reliability of exposure guides and materials used were not what they are today. Also exposure systems were not standardised at an international level until much later. That also includes the aperture stops on lenses. In the 1890s there were also competing aperture ranges such as the RPS one introduced around 1895 which had an f11.3 setting which is on one of my lenses from the 1890s. In the 1920s and 1930s Leitz lenses had 'continental' settings such as f 6.3, 9, 12.5 which were later replaced by the 'international' standards, f5.6, f8, f 11 to which most later exposure meters related.  Watkins kept on issuing new exposure sheets until his system was overtaken by mechanical/electric/photoelectric devices. The existence of the Agfa tables is direct evidence that standardisation was some way off.

In the 1890s photographers still had to do a lot of guess work based on various systems and what they had were only guides and not definitive standards. Early dry plates were often quoted as being 'X 'times the speed of wet plates, whatever that might have been, as they were all 'homemade'. Different plate manufacturers used different rating systems on the side of a box. Some years ago when I successfully used modern 127 film rated at ISO 100 in a 1915 Vest Pocket Kodak I had to look at the original instructions for the use of the camera, which has no aperture ratings, just scene descriptions, and assume a rating of about 6 or 8 ISO for film materials at the time of the printing of the instructions- no speed rating for film is mentioned in the original Kodak booklet from around 1915. Dry Plates in the 1890s were perhaps from 1 to 4 ISO in modern parlance. Zebra, a company which makes dry plates today, says that its plates should be rated at ISO 2. In the 1890s dry plates were not consistent as regards their reaction to UV light, but photographers were able to figure out a way to use them. 

Oskar's work sits somewhere in the middle of all that. The fact that M875 exists is proof of some of that. 

All of these factors point to continuing formation of a technology that was less than 100 years old and evolving and did not reach maturity until sometime later. 

William 

Edited July 18, 2023 by willeica

[willeica]

1 minute ago, willeica said:

 

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by willeica

[Roland Zwiers]

Do you have any documentation on what was common practice for military reconnaissance photography in World War I? I believe you may have mentioned this to me before.

William,

There is a whole library on World War I aerial reconnaissance photography!
I have studied British, German, French, American and Dutch sources on this topic.

My original inspiration was the Perutz-Leica legend, which claims that Oskar Barnack oriented himself on a Perutz Flieger film.
'Flieger' is the German word for 'pilot'.
So in German terminology a 'Fliegerkamera' is a camera for aerial reconnaissance photography.
Similarly, Fliegerfilm stands for the film used in such a camera.

Now the primary sources of 1914-1918 clearly show that the war-time German Fliegerfilm was produced by Agfa in Wolfen.
[As indicated before, Perutz only began the production of 35mm cine negative film in the course of 1925.
At first (immediately after the introduction of the Leica) this concerned 35mm film based on the Grünsiegel emulsion.
The Fliegerfilm was the second orthochromatic cine negative film that Perutz brought on the market.
This film is included in the Leica pricelist of November 1926.]

During 1914-1918 Agfa 35mm film obtained a monopoly position on the German and Austrian-Hungarian market.
So the German airforce depended on Agfa for its new generation of aerial reconnaissance cameras.

The following anecdote is based on wartime documentation.
At the end of 1915 due to wartime conditions (mobilisation of experienced staff, confiscation of cotton and other crucial inputs by the army)
Agfa almost had to close down its film factory.
Just in time German high command intervened to prevent this outcome.
The Agfa annual reports mention four reasons why the film factory was allowed to continue production:

• the increased use of filmpack at the front (instead of heavy glass plates),
• a plea from the film industry to safeguard the supply of cine film (Agfa was its sole supplier),
• the increasing importance of propaganda films,
• the production of Fliegerfilm.

For the production and improvement of Fliegerfilm Agfa was even allowed to exempt a few specialists from military service.

The German specialist in this field is Helmut Jäger, who wrote the seminal work:
Erkundung mit der Kamera; die Entwicklung der Photographie zur Waffe und ihr Einsatz im 1. Weltkrieg.

The picture below shows how the German film-based aerial reconnaissance camera worked.
The German term 'Reihenbild' can be translated as an image that is build-up from filmstrips. 
In fact it concerns the first test flight of 26 May 1915.
Strips of film were exposed one after the other and pieced together so as to gain an overview.
In this way it was also possible to make military maps. 

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Early cameras used unperforated 35mm cine negative film in lenths of 60m.
In later models the film width was increased to 6cm or more.
For Agfa this was no problem; it was just a matter of adjusting the distance between the cutting knives.  

The surprising thing is that during 1914-1918 American, British and French film material was probably superior to that of Agfa.
On top of that came quality issues relating to the lack of quality inputs like cotton wool.
Still this innovative camera was in use by the German airforce and not on the allied side.

For this camera it was important to have orthochromatic Fliegerfilm in combination with a yellow filter.
Fine grain was obviously important for the registration of important details.
High speed was necessary to freeze the image when taking pictures from a fast flying airplane.

Against this background it is not surprising that Oskar Barnack was interested in this Fliegerfilm for Ur-Leica photography as well!
But so far I have not been able to find good examples.
Possible Ur-Leica pictures taken with an Agfa Fliegerfilm concern pictures from 1917 in the Black Forest.

Indeed, I hope the Leitz archive can show us some more examples.

Roland

 

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[Roland Zwiers]

16 minutes ago, willeica said:

All true, but the reliability of exposure guides and materials used were not what they are today. Also exposure systems were not standardised at an international level until much later. That also includes the aperture stops on lenses. In the 1890s there were also competing aperture ranges such as the RPS one introduced around 1895 which had an f11.3 setting which is on one of my lenses from the 1890s. In the 1920s and 1930s Leitz lenses had 'continental' settings such as f 6.3, 9, 12.5 which were later replaced by the 'international' standards, f5.6, f8, f 11 to which most later exposure meters related.  Watkins kept on issuing new exposure sheets until his system was overtaken by mechanical/electric/photoelectric devices. The existence of the Agfa tables is direct evidence that standardisation was some way off.

In the 1890s photographers still had to do a lot of guess work based on various systems and what they had were only guides and not definitive standards. Early dry plates were often quoted as being 'X 'times the speed of wet plates, whatever that might have been, as they were all 'homemade'. Different plate manufacturers used different rating systems on the side of a box. Some years ago when I successfully used modern 127 film rated at ISO 100 in a 1915 Vest Pocket Kodak I had to look at the original instructions for the use of the camera, which has no aperture ratings, just scene descriptions, and assume a rating of about 6 or 8 ISO for film materials at the time of the printing of the instructions- no speed rating for film is mentioned in the original Kodak booklet from around 1915. Dry Plates in the 1890s were perhaps from 1 to 4 ISO in modern parlance. Zebra, a company which makes dry plates today, says that its plates should be rated at ISO 2. In the 1890s dry plates were not consistent as regards their reaction to UV light, but photographers were able to figure out a way to use them. 

Oskar's work sits somewhere in the middle of all that. The fact that M875 exists is proof of some of that. 

All of these factors point to continuing formation of a technology that was less than 100 years old and evolving and did not reach maturity until sometime later. 

William 

Also exposure systems were not standardised at an international level until much later. That also includes the aperture stops on lenses.

William,

It seems to me that you are complicating things more than necessary.
In the 1910s German literature and German products were primarily aimed at the German market.
When products were exported to Britain, German manufacturers took care to adjust to British standards.

The same applied to British manufacturers when exporting to Germany.
When exporting abroad one must adapt to many local standards, like plate sizes, tripod screws, aperture systems, measurement in meters or feet, measurement in Scheiner/ H&D/ Watkins and so on.
Within major markets (Britain, Germany)  photographers spoke the same language and had not to worry about the lack of international standardisation.
[This worry was reserved for smaller markets like the Netherlands 🙂 ]

You are right that the speed of plates and films may not have been very reliable.
There was even the problem of exaggerated film speed for commercial reasons (Scheiner inflation). 
Partly for this reason it was recommended to expose on the safe side.
And with colour blind and orthochromatic material  the photographer could to some extent compensate for underexposure in the dark room.
Using a ruby safetylight he could oversee the process and adjust the developement time if necessary.

 

Roland 

 

 

 

[Roland Zwiers]

Of course, in the darkroom it was easier to compensate for over-exposure than for under-exposure.
That was an additional reason for exposing on the safe side.

[willeica]

2 hours ago, Roland Zwiers said:

Also exposure systems were not standardised at an international level until much later. That also includes the aperture stops on lenses.

William,

It seems to me that you are complicating things more than necessary.
In the 1910s German literature and German products were primarily aimed at the German market.
When products were exported to Britain, German manufacturers took care to adjust to British standards.

The same applied to British manufacturers when exporting to Germany.
When exporting abroad one must adapt to many local standards, like plate sizes, tripod screws, aperture systems, measurement in meters or feet, measurement in Scheiner/ H&D/ Watkins and so on.
Within major markets (Britain, Germany)  photographers spoke the same language and had not to worry about the lack of international standardisation.
[This worry was reserved for smaller markets like the Netherlands 🙂 ]

You are right that the speed of plates and films may not have been very reliable.
There was even the problem of exaggerated film speed for commercial reasons (Scheiner inflation). 
Partly for this reason it was recommended to expose on the safe side.
And with colour blind and orthochromatic material  the photographer could to some extent compensate for underexposure in the dark room.
Using a ruby safetylight he could oversee the process and adjust the developement time if necessary.

 

Roland 

 

 

 

I am not trying to complicate things, just trying to describe the environment before and during Barnack's work. Some of these factors explain why people initially had difficulty getting good pictures from the Leica. I believe that film characteristics were important in resolving those issues. Yes, people who did their own darkroom work had the possibility of making adjustments. Relying on third party development was always risky and is still so, even today. When we are together in Wetzlar we can discuss what the purpose of Barnack's 'film test' camera really was.

William 

[Roland Zwiers]

William,

I am making a presentation for the research meeting of the PCCGB of 27 August 2023.
This entire posting is preparatory work for this event 🙂
So my deadline is before our meeting in Wetzlar.

In the course of this posting a lot of interesting information has come to the fore that is not immediately relevant for the test cameras of January 1923 up to March 1925.
But especially Alan and Fabrizio have shared primary sources that do relate to this period.
All in all the additional primary sources point in the same direction as the early Leica reviews that I found in contemporary photo magazines.

New information for me is that Curt Emmermann received his test camera in early February 1925.
I assumed either very late in 1924 or very early in 1925.
 

New information also comes from Prof. Klute, who complains about the bad quality of German films of the inflation period 1923-1924.
This criticism closely mirrors that of Dr. Paul Wolff.

Especially interesting is to know that test Leicas were still being send to photographers like Curt Emmermann in February 1925!
One would expect that this is already the time of (regular) series production.
But it seems things have been more fluid than that.
Possibly the period of test cameras only ended on March 4 1925, when editor Willy Frerk received his Leica for the purpose of a review.  
That would chime with a market introduction at the Leipzig spring fair (1-11 March 1925).

In that hypothesis everything before the Leipzig fair was preparatory work.
Selling Leicas before 1 March 1925 may have occured, but was not an aim in itself.
Ernst Leitz II aimed at having as many Leicas ready before 1 March 1925.
In that case 1 March 1925 was also the deadline of a project.
But working to meet a deadline is not the same as the start of regular series production.

The stock/flow chart shows that at the end of 1924 many more Leicas were engraved (512-600x) than could be finished before 1 March 1925 (maybe 100-125x).   
So this bulk of cameras in various stages of assembly had to be absorbed during the rest of 1925.
That implies that regular/ steady camera production may have had to wait until 1926.

 

Roland
 
 

  

  

 

[beoon]

Hello Roland,

Here is the cover from The Leica Historical Society (British Newsletter 47 - June 1996).

It shows the Anastigmat lens dismantled during the full restoration of number 113 by George Gordon Carr in September 1969.

George Gordon Carr was a world renowned Leica mechanic and he lived only 15 miles from where I live just now, but I never had the chance to meet him.

Reproduced with the kind permission of The Leica Society

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[beoon]

In the first issue of The Leica Historical Society (December 1972) there is an article by Malcolm Taylor and George Carr entitled

A DESCRIPTION OF THE  "0" SERIES LEICA

Serial numbers 100 - 130 

They describe in detail the features & engineering of these cameras.

Camera number 104 and 116 are shown (one is shown partly dismantled, possibly number 116) since the viewfinder is directly above the lens axis.

The viewfinder on 104 is offset

Reproduced with the kind permission of The Leica Society

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[willeica]

3 hours ago, Roland Zwiers said:

I am making a presentation for the research meeting of the PCCGB of 27 August 2023.
This entire posting is preparatory work for this event 🙂
So my deadline is before our meeting in Wetzlar.

Thanks Roland. I expect to be on that Zoom. I hope that you will come on to my later PCCGB Zoom about the late 19th Century/early 20th Century darkroom. As for the group visit to the archive in Wetzlar, I have today received confirmation from Wetzlar that will be going ahead for our group. I will be in touch with yourself and the others soon by email about visiting times and what you want to see. We want to avoid duplicate requests for the same information and to organise the visit so that we can get the most out of it.

3 hours ago, Roland Zwiers said:

New information also comes from Prof. Klute, who complains about the bad quality of German films of the inflation period 1923-1924.
This criticism closely mirrors that of Dr. Paul Wolff.

 

This fits in with everything I have been saying already about early photographic materials. This started a long time before 1923 and continued for some time afterwards. 

3 hours ago, Roland Zwiers said:

That implies that regular/ steady camera production may have had to wait until 1926.

We are aware of 'normal sales' in 1925. What occurred is that there was an time overlap between retail sales through distribution channels and the distribution of some test cameras. The Leica camera was advertised commercially to the public in 1925 and there are examples of such advertisements to be seen in the book by Ruettinger.

There is nothing that can be done about the timing of the visit to the archive which comes after your PCCGB talk, but you will be visiting with the likes of Jim Lager, Lars Netopil, Ed Schwatrzreich and possibly Ulf Richter and Ottmar Michaely, as well as Bill Rosauer and myself 😇 and some others. Hopefully, you will get answers to most of your questions.

William 

[Roland Zwiers]

10 hours ago, beoon said:

In the first issue of The Leica Historical Society (December 1972) there is an article by Malcolm Taylor and George Carr entitled

A DESCRIPTION OF THE  "0" SERIES LEICA

Serial numbers 100 - 130 

They describe in detail the features & engineering of these cameras.

Camera number 104 and 116 are shown (one is shown partly dismantled, possibly number 116) since the viewfinder is directly above the lens axis.

The viewfinder on 104 is offset

Reproduced with the kind permission of The Leica Society

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, This is very interesting information again!

In my (revised) analysis there must have been a more or less steady production of test cameras between January 1923 and March 1925. 
It started with the 'Null-Serie"of 1923 and one of the original aims must have been to test the newly designed 5-element Leitz Anastigmat.

The test cameras were hand-made and distributed to two groups of well-known photograhers;
one group received a test camera on loan, the other more or less as a gift.
[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".] 
 

Both groups were expected to return feed-back to Oskar Barnack.
Because of this feed-back improvements could be made all the time.
This would explain differences between Null-Serie cameras.

A big improvement was necessary half way so as to solve the problem of the non-self-capping curtains.
Leica literature suggests this happened after feed-back from Anton Baumann. 
In my hypothesis Oskar Barnack then cancelled the Null-Serie numbers 123, 124 and 125 so as to reserve the precious material for a new test series with the new self-capping shutter.
In this way these test cameras could prepare for the patent application of June 1924.

In June 1924 Ernst Leitz II decided that the Leica would be taken in production.
In my hypothesis he aimed at market introduction at the Leipzig fair of 1-11 March 1925.
So he started a project, requiring the set-up of new production facilities, additional staff, additional skills, and so on.
This required a big up-front investment and so a serious financial investment risk.

In the analysis of Knut Kühn-Leitz (2014) Ernst Leitz II took this investment risk even though no suitable Leica film was yet available.
I have a different analysis.
In the period 1923-1925 the quality of 35mm cine negative films was increasing dramatically.
It is even possible that the quality of 35mm film had temporarily suffered in the inflationary environment of 1922-1924.
The contemporary producers of cine negative film (Agfa, Goerz and Lignose) may not have been able to maintain quality standards in this period.
At the same time the entry of an innovative competitor like Otto Perutz was postponed because of the inflationary environment and the French occupation of the Rhineland.

So in the course of 1924 traditional producers of 35mm film could increase their quality levels again.
In 1924 one new and innovative competitor (Toxo-film as produced by Nobel in Düren) arrived on the scene.
And Otto Perutz managed to combine its famous Grünsiegel emulsion on celluloid film, but initially only for flat film and roll film.

So by June 1924 the quality of 35mm cine negative film had increased dramatically!
And further improvements were in the pipeline as Otto Perutz had already stated its ambition to introduce 35mm cine negative film as well. 

All this explains that in my view Ernst Leitz II took no unneccessary risks by deciding in favour of Leica production in June 1924.
It is even possible that Ernst Leitz II had formulated a postcard-size condition before he would consider to take the Leica in production.
As long as a postcard-size print from a Leica negative is clearly inferior to a contact print from a 9x12cm negative, it is no use to introduce an expensive 35mm camera on the market.
 

After June 1924 everyone at Leitz was working on the March 1925 Leipzig project.
How to get as many Leicas ready as possible for sale by 1 March 1925?
This also had consequences for the new 5-element Leitz Anastigmat.

Feed-back from the 1923 test cameras must have shown that the lens was of excellent quality.
At the same time Ernst Leitz II must have found that this lens was very costly and elaborate to produce.
This would give capacity problems once he would give the go-ahead for series production.
And so he must have asked Max Berek to design a new 4-element alternative of equal (or even better) optical performance.
The final expiration of the Tessar patent may have been helpful as well.

After June 1924 additional test cameras were still produced, but for another reason.
The Leipzig project meant that Leitz also had to train his employees in assembly and disassembly (repair work!) skills.
The best way to do this was to keep producing test cameras.
In my original analysis this applied to the numbers 126, 127, 128 and 129.
Ottmar Michaely cannot distinguish these cameras from later series produced Leica I cameras.
That does not disprove my hypothesis.

Thanks to Alan I now know that Curt Emmermann received his test camera in early February 1925.
This implies that the period of test cameras did not finish at the end of 1924.
And so I must allow for the possibility that test cameras were being presented up to the Leipzig fair.
Even on 4 March 1925, so during the fair, editor Willy Frerk still received a test camera for his March 1925 Leica review!

 

Roland
 

   

 

 

 

 

     

 

 

  
  

 

 

 

 

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[Roland Zwiers]

11 hours ago, willeica said:

Thanks Roland. I expect to be on that Zoom. I hope that you will come on to my later PCCGB Zoom about the late 19th Century/early 20th Century darkroom. As for the group visit to the archive in Wetzlar, I have today received confirmation from Wetzlar that will be going ahead for our group. I will be in touch with yourself and the others soon by email about visiting times and what you want to see. We want to avoid duplicate requests for the same information and to organise the visit so that we can get the most out of it.

This fits in with everything I have been saying already about early photographic materials. This started a long time before 1923 and continued for some time afterwards. 

We are aware of 'normal sales' in 1925. What occurred is that there was an time overlap between retail sales through distribution channels and the distribution of some test cameras. The Leica camera was advertised commercially to the public in 1925 and there are examples of such advertisements to be seen in the book by Ruettinger.

There is nothing that can be done about the timing of the visit to the archive which comes after your PCCGB talk, but you will be visiting with the likes of Jim Lager, Lars Netopil, Ed Schwatrzreich and possibly Ulf Richter and Ottmar Michaely, as well as Bill Rosauer and myself 😇 and some others. Hopefully, you will get answers to most of your questions.

William 

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