100 years Null-Serie

[willeica]

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10 minutes ago, pgk said:

Thomas Grubb described a helicoid focus system for 3" x 3" format stereo lenses to be used on what were then 'miniature' cameras in 1858; in the Journal of the Photographic Society (later the RPS) Vol 4 p130 dated 21-07-1858. He intended this to enable focus to be achieved with one lens and this setting then accurately transferred to a second lens via an engraved scale on it. Producing such helicoids was almost certainly expensive and would have required considerable engineering design and machining skill which, for the relatively low number of lenses sold, was probably not economic. Few such lenses have survived as few were made and most of the surviving stereo lenses by Thomas Grubb do not use a focusing helicoid, suggesting that they were too expensive to market successfully.

I would suggest that if Barnack used helicoid focussing it was for the same reason as Grubb; it gave precise and repeatable focus on short focal length lenses which covered relatively small formats. Barnack had most likely appreciated that this system had the advantages he sought for a truly miniature camera and he applied it appropriately.

As Grubb openly described his idea in the photographic press, effectively putting it into the public domain, it would have been known to anyone interested and as no patent was taken out, could be freely used. I do not know whether other helicoid focusing lenses were produced by other manufacturers after Grubb but it would not surprise me, especially for stereo or other technical purposes where cost was not of absolute importance. Such equipment undoubtedly would have been costly, would not have been mainstream and so, of the few examples which might have been made, fewer are likely to have survived. That precise engineering is costly is surely bourne out by the price of early Leicas.

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Thanks Paul. I have mentioned this a few times here already. My YouTube video on this is here.

I am grateful to Roland for his points about the Goerz Anschutz . I had consulted many experts, but nobody had mentioned the Goerz before.

William 

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[Roland Zwiers]

6 minutes ago, willeica said:

And the box shape of cameras went back to the time Daguerre and Fox Talbot. Bellows were almost ubiquitous from 1860 to 1940, but Leitz and others broke away in the 1920s and others followed. Spools were an obvious way of gathering material in long strips and were used long before the VPK. I am currently cataloguing a camera collection that goes back to 1854 and all of the above are obvious as I work my way through it. I recently catalogued a long box shaped Kodak from 1890/91 which used spools for roll film. 

I regard the similarities in negative dimensions for the VPK and the Leica as being coincidental. Barnack was attempting to adapt to a medium which already existed, 35mm cine film. 

To use the term ‘copied’ in respect of Barnack is a huge overstatement. What he used were commonplace in the industry at the time eg. spools and the tubular shape of closed folder cameras. I have taken photos with both the VPK and the I Model A and they are quite different cameras to use. I would like to ask Roland whether he has done the same.

William
 

 

I regard the similarities in negative dimensions for the VPK and the Leica as being coincidental.

William,

Here we may disagree.

Oskar Barnack (1931) states that he adopted the 24x26 format (so 2:3) without much thought as he regarded this as a very pleasing format.
But how do you then explain the 24x38mm negative size of the Ur-Leica?

• Is it a coincidence that this format prints very well on the 9x14cm paper that was also used for the VP Kodak?
• Is it a coincidence that the Ur-Leica has a similar film loading system (apart from the use of spools!) as the VP Kodak?
• is it a coincidence that the Ur-Leica has the same streamlined tubular shape as the VP Kodak? 
  See the very similar advertisements.

We are grown-up people and we may very well disagree on this 🙂

Roland

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[Roland Zwiers]

13 minutes ago, pgk said:

Generally speaking I would say that it is the utilisation and coalescence of existing mechanisms that makes a new design work. Get all these right and the design may well be outstanding. But new designs rarely rely on absolutely new ideas, especially when they are (relatively) complex.

Paul,

I fully agree!
The develiopment of the Leica is a very good example.
It took a very long time before the Ur-Leica was perfected in the Leica I.

And, as William observes, the Leica I with the 5-element Anastigmat was not perfect immediately as well.

Compare this to the Kodak Ektra of about 1940 or the Contarex of about 1960.
These were incrediby ingenuous cameras, but the designs had fatally weak spots.
Because of the Leica's long march, also known as problem child (Sorgenkind), Ernst Leitz II and Oskar Barnack could present a complex, but very reliable camera.

The 1925 reviews show time and again how impressed the reviewers were that such quality and precision was possible in such a small camera!

Roland  

 

 

[pgk]

11 minutes ago, willeica said:

Thanks Paul. I have mentioned this a few times here already. My YouTube video on this is here.

 I had consulted many experts, but nobody had mentioned the Goerz before.

William 

In your video you query about why the helicoid was not in use between the 1850s and 1920s. From what I can see using a quick web search it seems that the Anscütz camera illustrates, as Thomas Grubb had found, that helicoids were used in 'specialist circumstances'. The press camera clearly quickly folded out, which enabled it to be quickly opened, but then required an independent focus system, and this was provided by the helicoid. It would, I think, result in a curtailed focus range (lacking closer focus abilities) which would not be a problem for most press requirements ('specialist'), as is indeed not a problem on Leica cameras either.

So again it probably comes down to cost/specialism. In Barnack's case he may well have realised that the helicoid focus was ideal for his design requirements of needing precise focus control of a short focal length lens on a small format. In other words he had specific needs and helicoid focus provided the best solution.

[Roland Zwiers]

4 minutes ago, pgk said:

In your video you query about why the helicoid was not in use between the 1850s and 1920s. From what I can see using a quick web search it seems that the Anscütz camera illustrates, as Thomas Grubb had found, that helicoids were used in 'specialist circumstances'. The press camera clearly quickly folded out, which enabled it to be quickly opened, but then required an independent focus system, and this was provided by the helicoid. It would, I think, result in a curtailed focus range (lacking closer focus abilities) which would not be a problem for most press requirements ('specialist'), as is indeed not a problem on Leica cameras either.

So again it probably comes down to cost/specialism. In Barnack's case he may well have realised that the helicoid focus was ideal for his design requirements of needing precise focus control of a short focal length lens on a small format. In other words he had specific needs and helicoid focus provided the best solution.

So again it probably comes down to cost/specialism. In Barnack's case he may well have realised that the helicoid focus was ideal for his design requirements of needing precise focus control of a short focal length lens on a small format. In other words he had specific needs and helicoid focus provided the best solution.

Paul,

I fully agree!
Oskar Barnack must have done a lot of testing with the Mikro Summar on his Ur-Leica!

The usability of a (miniature) standard lens critically relies on the accuracy of its engraved values.
When a photographer wants to take a picture with aperture f/10 at a distance of 5 meters, then these settings must do what they stand for.
In 1913 this was no new insight.
This concept was already embodied in the revolutionary Anschütz focal plane camera of the 1880s.
The challenge for Oskar Barnack was to realise the same idea in a miniature camera with a miniature lens.

The importance of calibration also follows from the photographer’s need to know what he or she is doing without having access to a ground glass.
So when one wants to focus at 5 or 10m, then the lens must have a precise and reliable helicoid focus with engravings for these positions.

Roland  

 

 

[Edward Schwartzreich]

Most seminal inventions IMO can be seen in retrospect as the culmination of various objects, thoughts, and devices -- all floating in the zeitgeist.   There is an amazing amount of serendipity to many inventions and their twins or cousins, as it were. 

I agree totally with how Roland appears to see this: that Barnack did not operate in any vacuum.   He had such a keen analytic mind that any new invention, or part of it, would become embedded in his thinking.  Tinkerers and inventors are simply like that.  Barnack was not one to set a new paradigm, but rather one who very much perfected concepts within the old paradigm.    That his invention of the Leica still holds today is testament to how perfectly he perfected this concept.

 

Ed

[Roland Zwiers]

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Ed,

Thank you so much for this reply.

Still I have one remark.
The second miniature revolution, that was initiated by the Leica in 1925, did cause a paradigm shift in photography.
Even though this was not done by Oskar Barnack himself.

The second miniature revolution caused a technological paradigm shift, as the new guard had to acquire new skills so as to get the most out of the tiny negative.
In itself the concept 'Small negative, big enlargement' was not new.
It was already practised before 1914 with negatives of 4x6,5 and 4,5x6cm.
But when you reduce the negative further to 24x36mm, then you really create a technological challenge.
And this had to be overcome by a new photographic approach by photographers such as Curt Emmermann, Dr Paul Wolff and Fritz Vith.
[That Dr Paul Wolff and Curt Emmermann had very different approaches, is another subject.]

The second miniature revolution also caused a cultural/ artistic paradigm shift, as the Leica, the Rollei and the Contax made possible new ways to interact with situations of daily life;
candid photography, new perspectives, joy de vivre.
We then talk about photographers like (again) Dr Paul Wolff, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walther Heering, Otto Croy and Lancelot Vining.

In traditional photo magazines the old guard was still pressing 'pictorial photography'. 
You can imagine the resulting conflict.

Roland

 

 

[Edward Schwartzreich]

Agree Roland.  

 

Ed

[pgk]

2 hours ago, Edward Schwartzreich said:

There is an amazing amount of serendipity to many inventions .....

Right person, right knowledge and understanding, right project, right time and right place. The fact that he was able to bering everything together to produce the 'right' camera is quite extraordinary and this has probably has helped produce cameras which still evoke such fascination. If I may add that I actually think that the second most important development of the Leica was the standardised mount, which almost inevitably followed on from the initial development of the camera. I would suggest that this was the 'right' improvement to make to the fundamentally sound initial iteration. 

[Roland Zwiers]

Paul,

I fully agree.
But I would like to add to this the combination of inventor (Oskar Barnack) and entrepreneur (Ernst Leitz II).

In the history of innovations we often see two persons with complementary skills that in combination achieve something extraordinary.
In photography we also have the combination of Paul Franke and Reinhold Heidecke (Rolleiflex), of Johan Steenbergen and Karl Nüchterlein (VP Exakta, Kine Exakta).
In other fields there are many more examples.

A second observation is that the entrepreneurs Ernst Leitz I and II were also innovative in the sense of corporate social responsible behaviour.

• They employed Oskar Barnack in a stable job even knowing of his poor health.  
• They provided a safe home for him in Wetzlar that was out of the cold wind, they took him on holidays in the Black Forest. 
• They gave Max Berek a second chance after his misadventure with the 1920 Leitz Anastigmat.
• In the period of hyperinflation they used their export earnings for emergency money so that Leitz employees could buy food.

When you take your employees so seriously, then they will go for it!

A third observation is that Ernst Leitz II was no passive bystander while Oskar Barnack was tinkering on his Ur-Leica. 
It is just too coincidental that prior to his June 1914 visit to the USA, many products in the 35mm sphere were either ripe for production or in an advanced prototype stage.
He even made sure that in his absence Oskar Barnack would prepare another prototype for the 1914 patent application.

So also at Leitz Oskar Barnack did not work in a vacuum.
At his side was a responsible and visionary entrepreneur!

Roland 

 

 

 

 

[willeica]

6 hours ago, Roland Zwiers said:

I regard the similarities in negative dimensions for the VPK and the Leica as being coincidental.

William,

Here we may disagree.

Oskar Barnack (1931) states that he adopted the 24x26 format (so 2:3) without much thought as he regarded this as a very pleasing format.
But how do you then explain the 24x38mm negative size of the Ur-Leica?

• Is it a coincidence that this format prints very well on the 9x14cm paper that was also used for the VP Kodak?
• Is it a coincidence that the Ur-Leica has a similar film loading system (apart from the use of spools!) as the VP Kodak?
• is it a coincidence that the Ur-Leica has the same streamlined tubular shape as the VP Kodak? 
  See the very similar advertisements.

We are grown-up people and we may very well disagree on this 🙂

Roland

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I'm not really pushed about the numbers. Barnack was using a different film format and was creating a negative size which suited that. He has trying to make a kleinfilmkamera. If he had decided to go the same route as the VPK design we would not be discussing this matter today as his camera would have also become obsolete very quickly.

 

6 hours ago, pgk said:

In your video you query about why the helicoid was not in use between the 1850s and 1920s. From what I can see using a quick web search it seems that the Anscütz camera illustrates, as Thomas Grubb had found, that helicoids were used in 'specialist circumstances'. The press camera clearly quickly folded out, which enabled it to be quickly opened, but then required an independent focus system, and this was provided by the helicoid. It would, I think, result in a curtailed focus range (lacking closer focus abilities) which would not be a problem for most press requirements ('specialist'), as is indeed not a problem on Leica cameras either.

So again it probably comes down to cost/specialism. In Barnack's case he may well have realised that the helicoid focus was ideal for his design requirements of needing precise focus control of a short focal length lens on a small format. In other words he had specific needs and helicoid focus provided the best solution.

Whatever about' specialist circumstances', one example in a period of over half a century does not really create a paradigm of any kind. 1860 to 1940 were the bellows years. Barnack  was attempting to create a compact precision camera and his camera is quite distinct from the Goerz Anschutz. The first real breakaway of any substance from the bellows cameras were the box designs of the 1880s which then fed into a number of different designs, falling plate, detective style etc. Other than those box designs, the vast majority of cameras at the time that Barnack produced the Ur Leica were bellows type, many of them folding. Barnack was stepping away from the crowd with his helicoid design. Another factor here has to be the miniature focal plane shutter. He went the 'hard route' with the problem child. I did another Zoom for PCCGB ( I think Roland may have missed part of it) on the 'easy formula' which existed in the German camera industry in the 1920s/ 1930s whereby a Compur type shutter and a bellows with a 'film back' could create a new model very easily. Willi Kerkmann's book 'Deutsche Kameras' 1900-1945 has hundreds of examples of such cameras. Many of these had the tubular look of a Leica when folded. Leica supplied this trade with lenses for a while, but withdrew quickly. It also produced the Compur B models for a short while in order to fill a particular market gap. That model had the then rare combination of a helicoid and a leaf shutter, most others still went the bellows route.

The question that needs to be asked is whether Barnack got some things right which others missed? The fact that an M6 being produced in 2023 has a lot in common with a Leica I Model A from 1925 as a device for creating 35mm images proves that he got it right. The M6 also uses lenses with helicoids, 165 years after Mr Grubb's design, but the causal link only goes back to 1913/14 .

One thing I have not seen being discussed here is the use of cameras for microphotography. Helmut Lagler will have studied anything which Leitz may have done in that regard. The relevance here is the use of the Mikro Summar in the Ur Leica.

William 

Edited August 4, 2023 by willeica

[pgk]

19 minutes ago, willeica said:

Whatever about' special circumstances', one example in a period of over half a century does not really create a paradigm of any kind.

Indeed not. I am sure that there are examples of other pre-Leica lenses which used helociod focus (actually some sort of did use a somewhat basic version in as much as a few certainly used a simple curved slot in a tube and engaging pin in order to focus; such a mechanism is if anything a very crude form of helicoid even though it remains in use in many zoom lenses today). But I would say that the helicoil focus could probably have been thought of as a costly and over engineered solution to a problem for which bellows were a much cheaper and very effective alternative, when larger formats were in use that is. To provide good enough negatives from 35mm film, and the short focal length lenses it entailed using to obtain a useful angle of view, would have required a higher degree of focus precision than would have been effectively available from a bellows system and undoubtedly the helicoid was the appropriate solution. The helicoid mechanism was no doubt well appreciated as a highly engineered focusing solution, but before the Leica had almost certainly been too costly for most applications, as Thomas Grubb no doubt appreciated having made lenses in helicoid mounts early on.

[Roland Zwiers]

1 hour ago, willeica said:

I'm not really pushed about the numbers. Barnack was using a different film format and was creating a negative size which suited that. He has trying to make a kleinfilmkamera. If he had decided to go the same route as the VPK design we would not be discussing this matter today as his camera would have also become obsolete very quickly.

 

Whatever about' specialist circumstances', one example in a period of over half a century does not really create a paradigm of any kind. 1860 to 1940 were the bellows years. Barnack  was attempting to create a compact precision camera and his camera is quite distinct from the Goerz Anschutz. The first real breakaway of any substance from the bellows cameras were the box designs of the 1880s which then fed into a number of different designs, falling plate, detective style etc. Other than those box designs, the vast majority of cameras at the time that Barnack produced the Ur Leica were bellows type, many of them folding. Barnack was stepping away from the crowd with his helicoid design. Another factor here has to be the miniature focal plane shutter. He went the 'hard route' with the problem child. I did another Zoom for PCCGB ( I think Roland may have missed part of it) on the 'easy formula' which existed in the German camera industry in the 1920s/ 1930s whereby a Compur type shutter and a bellows with a 'film back' could create a new model very easily. Willi Kerkmann's book 'Deutsche Kameras' 1900-1945 has hundreds of examples of such cameras. Many of these had the tubular look of a Leica when folded. Leica supplied this trade with lenses for a while, but withdrew quickly. It also produced the Compur B models for a short while in order to fill a particular market gap. That model had the then rare combination of a helicoid and a leaf shutter, most others still went the bellows route.

The question that needs to be asked is whether Barnack got some things right which others missed? The fact that an M6 being produced in 2023 has a lot in common with a Leica I Model A from 1925 as a device for creating 35mm images proves that he got it right. The M6 also uses lenses with helicoids, 165 years after Mr Grubb's design, but the causal link only goes back to 1913/14 .

One thing I have not seen being discussed here is the use of cameras for microphotography. Helmut Lagler will have studied anything which Leitz may have done in that regard. The relevance here is the use of the Mikro Summar in the Ur Leica.

William 

Barnack was using a different film format and was creating a negative size which suited that. He has trying to make a kleinfilmkamera. If he had decided to go the same route as the VPK design we would not be discussing this matter today as his camera would have also become obsolete very quickly.

William,

In my opinion you keep missing my point.
I did not say that Oskar Barnack went the VP Kodak way by adopting the 127-film format.
Of course not.
Oskar Barnack went his own way by combining several features of several cameras,
including features from the VP Kodak (but not the 127-size),
including the 35mm film format that was already in use,
so as to arrive at his precision Ur-Leica.

Leica literature overlooks the fact that in 1912 Oskar Barnack was in the middle of the first miniature revolution.
My point is that Oskar Barnack was not blind to this and did not create the Ur-leica in a vacuum.

 

Roland

 

[Roland Zwiers]

William,

Maybe I caused confusion with my observation that the proportions of the Ur-Leica negative are similar to those of the VP Kodak.
Let me explain so as to remove this confusion.

The negatives of the Vestpocket Ensignette and the VP Kodak(4x6,5cm) have proportions that approach the golden ratio of 1: 1,618.
Ensignette and VP Kodak negatives were printed on postcard size photo paper (9x14cm, 3½ x 5½“) with similar proportions.
These proportions are more rectangular than the 1:1, 2:3 or 3:4 ratios that were used for other miniature cameras (6x6 and 6x9cm roll film, 4,5x6cm plate cameras).

Now it would have been very easy for Oskar Barnack to have settled for the 2:3 proportion (24x36mm) straight away.
But he simply didn't do so!
Van Hasbroeck (1987) mentions that the curtain-opening (window) of the Ur-Leica measures 25x40mm.
This proportion is almost identical to the golden ratio.
Van Hasbroeck further observes that the window was later reduced to a width of 38mm.
Likewise, Ulf Richter (2009) observes that the film gate of the Ur-Leica is 38mm long.

How to explain?
38mm corresponds to eight perforations of 35mm film.
This means that with a negative of 38mm in length there is no free space between two consecutive frames. 
Why would Oskar Barnack have accepted this inconvenience?
Barnack could have reduced the window from 40 to 36mm straight away.
Van Hasbroeck (1987) notices that an additional 2mm reduction (so from 38 to 36mm) still took place at a later stage by other means.
Because of this the middle of the negative was no longer in the optical axis of the lens!

All this empirical evidence shows that Oskar Barnack decided in favour of the 2:3 ratio (24x36mm) at a later stage.
This differs from his 1931 account that he settled on the 2:3 ratio right away and without much thought.
The reason for his originally 38mm long negative must have been his desire to print on the same postcard size paper as was popularized by the VP Ensignette and the VP Kodak.

So in this analysis, one of the features that Oskar Barnack adopted from the VP Kodak for his Ur-Leica were the relatively rectangular proportions (24x38 instead of 24x36mm) of the negative.

 

Roland   

 

 

[pgk]

Out of curiosity I've had a quick look into 19th/early20th century cameras which featured a helicoid to focus them and the earliest lenses to use this mechanism seem to be from Grubb (1858) although I'm sure that I've read that other makers used a helicoid but cannot find any information on them

Then there seem to have been a very few although no doubt research would reveal more. Strut type designs clearly found the use of focusing lenses beneficial and the helicoid probably offered a suitable and  robust mechanism for this type of camera.

The Shew Eclipse (1881?) featured Helical Focusing - http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/site/entry_C273.html#C857

Ernemann Tropical Klapp ~1900

Klippa ~1913 from Thornton-Pickard Manufacturing Co
 

Edited August 4, 2023 by pgk

[Roland Zwiers]

Paul,

The subject of heloicid focussing is very much on topic for early Leica photography.
Oskar Barnack had to make use of it for a precision camera without a focussing screen.

Now most cameras that used helicoid focussing before the Ur-Leica seem to have had a focussing screen.
This means that the lens did not need (precise) engravings for setting the distance.
AFAIK the Anschutz camera of the 1890s was the first camera where the distance in meters was precisely engraved.
In this way the press photographer could estimate the distance (say 5 meters) and turn the helicoid to the corresponding 5m.
The press photographer could theoretically check the focus on the ground glass as well, but in practise there was no time to do so.   

Oskar Barnack was faced with a similar situation.
He had no ground glass to fall back on.
So he had to make sure that he could rely on the engravings in meters on the Mikro Summar.

I agree with Ed that a tinkerer like Oskar Barnack would have a whole library of technical solutions in his head.
These were the solutions/ features of the cameras that were available in 1912.

With these features he would make his own combinations.
Or with regards to William, he used a combination of these features so as to arrive at his Kleinfilmkamera.

 

Roland

 

 

[Edward Schwartzreich]

It probably should be mentioned that the E. Leitz company made mostly microscopes and the like.  These focus by a rack and pinion mechanism mostly, but I think by a helicoid for fine adjustment.  However, both of these iare more precise means of focus than many others.  Barnack chose a helicoid mechanism for his Ur-Leica lens, much the way that the lenses on (at least most military) binoculars focus.  

The Leitz company was used to making lenses and their accoutrements that were, of necessary, very precise.  They, and Barnack, could only have produced a miniature camera like the Leica utilizing their inherent knowledge and practice of precision miniature optics.  While it is true that lenses for 35mm film have great DOF, it would have been sloppy not to have made the Leica with as much precision as a Leitz microscope.  It was only that precision that allowed really giant enlargements from 35mm negatives once the film stock and emulsions had improved enough.  IOW it was visionary of Barnack and Dr. Leitz to do what they did.  And they knew they had the ability to do this; they only did not know how it would be accepted.

If Barnack had been working for George Eastman, I doubt all this would have happened.

Ed

 

[pgk]

1 hour ago, Roland Zwiers said:

AFAIK the Anschutz camera of the 1890s was the first camera where the distance in meters was precisely engraved.

Roland

I think that what was happening was what could be termed 'convergent evolution' and that the use of helical focus was inevitably leading towards a more precise way of ensuring accurate focus and all that goes with it. Barnack extended this to what we might well think of as its logical conclusion and doing helped enable him to produce an iconic design in which the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. I have my suspicion that anyone familar with a 1930s Barnack carmera will be able to use a current Leica M with very little explanation because they are fundamentally similar. Few items are so good in the infancy of their manifestation.

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[willeica]

7 hours ago, pgk said:

Indeed not. I am sure that there are examples of other pre-Leica lenses which used helociod focus (actually some sort of did use a somewhat basic version in as much as a few certainly used a simple curved slot in a tube and engaging pin in order to focus; such a mechanism is if anything a very crude form of helicoid even though it remains in use in many zoom lenses today). But I would say that the helicoil focus could probably have been thought of as a costly and over engineered solution to a problem for which bellows were a much cheaper and very effective alternative, when larger formats were in use that is. To provide good enough negatives from 35mm film, and the short focal length lenses it entailed using to obtain a useful angle of view, would have required a higher degree of focus precision than would have been effectively available from a bellows system and undoubtedly the helicoid was the appropriate solution. The helicoid mechanism was no doubt well appreciated as a highly engineered focusing solution, but before the Leica had almost certainly been too costly for most applications, as Thomas Grubb no doubt appreciated having made lenses in helicoid mounts early on.

Thanks Paul. I went to some of the greatest experts in the world, John Wade, John Marriage, Jim Lager etc, etc and got nothing on this until Roland suggested the Goerz Anschutz. I still don't believe that this was the inspiration source for Barnack's mount for the Ur Leica. Grubb was definitely not an influence, but he was almost the only one talking about this as far back as the 1850s. My first Grubb had a helicoid, but I was surprised to find out later that most of his lenses had a 'portable mount' which relied on a bellows for focus. Barnack was still testing his mounts and focal lengths into the 1930s and we had, of course, the famous numbers behind the infinity knob. 

5 hours ago, pgk said:

Out of curiosity I've had a quick look into 19th/early20th century cameras which featured a helicoid to focus them and the earliest lenses to use this mechanism seem to be from Grubb (1858) although I'm sure that I've read that other makers used a helicoid but cannot find any information on them

Then there seem to have been a very few although no doubt research would reveal more. Strut type designs clearly found the use of focusing lenses beneficial and the helicoid probably offered a suitable and  robust mechanism for this type of camera.

The Shew Eclipse (1881?) featured Helical Focusing - http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/site/entry_C273.html#C857

Ernemann Tropical Klapp ~1900

Klippa ~1913 from Thornton-Pickard Manufacturing Co
 

Thanks Paul for adding a few more to the list, particularly the Shew Eclipse which (drum roll) had a Goerz lens!  However, the use of the helicoid by Barnack was innovative, particularly in such a small camera. He wasn't choosing any well trodden path. 

3 hours ago, Roland Zwiers said:

AFAIK the Anschutz camera of the 1890s was the first camera where the distance in meters was precisely engraved.

An important point which only became more important when ground glass screens were dropped, but, then, a few years later rangefinders were built in. The first camera that I know of with a built in rangefinder was the Kodak 3A Autographic Special of 1916. It all goes around in circles.

5 hours ago, Roland Zwiers said:

William,

Maybe I caused confusion with my observation that the proportions of the Ur-Leica negative are similar to those of the VP Kodak.
Let me explain so as to remove this confusion.

The negatives of the Vestpocket Ensignette and the VP Kodak(4x6,5cm) have proportions that approach the golden ratio of 1: 1,618.
Ensignette and VP Kodak negatives were printed on postcard size photo paper (9x14cm, 3½ x 5½“) with similar proportions.
These proportions are more rectangular than the 1:1, 2:3 or 3:4 ratios that were used for other miniature cameras (6x6 and 6x9cm roll film, 4,5x6cm plate cameras).

Now it would have been very easy for Oskar Barnack to have settled for the 2:3 proportion (24x36mm) straight away.
But he simply didn't do so!
Van Hasbroeck (1987) mentions that the curtain-opening (window) of the Ur-Leica measures 25x40mm.
This proportion is almost identical to the golden ratio.
Van Hasbroeck further observes that the window was later reduced to a width of 38mm.
Likewise, Ulf Richter (2009) observes that the film gate of the Ur-Leica is 38mm long.

How to explain?
38mm corresponds to eight perforations of 35mm film.
This means that with a negative of 38mm in length there is no free space between two consecutive frames. 
Why would Oskar Barnack have accepted this inconvenience?
Barnack could have reduced the window from 40 to 36mm straight away.
Van Hasbroeck (1987) notices that an additional 2mm reduction (so from 38 to 36mm) still took place at a later stage by other means.
Because of this the middle of the negative was no longer in the optical axis of the lens!

All this empirical evidence shows that Oskar Barnack decided in favour of the 2:3 ratio (24x36mm) at a later stage.
This differs from his 1931 account that he settled on the 2:3 ratio right away and without much thought.
The reason for his originally 38mm long negative must have been his desire to print on the same postcard size paper as was popularized by the VP Ensignette and the VP Kodak.

So in this analysis, one of the features that Oskar Barnack adopted from the VP Kodak for his Ur-Leica were the relatively rectangular proportions (24x38 instead of 24x36mm) of the negative.

 

Roland   

 

 

There is a lot of literature on this already. Is there anything extra about this development process that we need to ask about at the Leica archive? The eventual 24x36 ratio chosen by Barnack became the 'industry standard'. 

3 hours ago, Edward Schwartzreich said:

If Barnack had been working for George Eastman, I doubt all this would have happened.

Absolutely true, Ed. Barnack got a lot of leeway from the Leitz family. Leitz was a high class craft industry compared to Kodak which was a mass production conglomerate. The latter did produce some fine cameras, though, which had far wider impact on the market than Leica did in the early days. However, Barnack's creation had a much longer shelf-life than anyone could have dreamed possible in 1925. 

2 hours ago, pgk said:

'convergent evolution'

This is what happened time and again in the camera industry. 'Big bangs' rarely happened.

William 

[Roland Zwiers]

'convergent evolution'
This is what happened time and again in the camera industry. 'Big bangs' rarely happened.

Wiliam,

I am happy that you now also agree that Oskar Barnack did not create the Ur-Leica in a vacuum.
That he made use of the information that was available in 1912. including the features of the many 'Liliput' cameras that by then were already on the market.
By 'convergent evolution' he created his own way to the Kleinfilmcamera.
This insight has been missing in Leica literature so far.

It realates to the question:
why would Oskar Barnack still want to add another Liliput camera when there were already so many good miniature cameras on the market?
For this discussion I made the following table.

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When one compares the advantages and the disadvantages one wonders why Oskar Barnack began with his Liliput project at all!
Why take all this trouble with a tiny negative given the technological limitations of the day?
The Ensignette and the VP Kodak combined a smaller camera with a much bigger negative size.
Inexpensive and easy to use enlargers allowed for high quality postcard size prints with 4x6,5 or 4,5x6cm negatives before 1914.
It was much more difficult to arrive at this result with a 24x38mm (later reduced to 24x36) negative.
And why should one in 1912 voluntarily give up the advantages of daylight loading?

His persistence against all the odds in the period 1912-1914 shows that he wanted to design a camera for perforated 35mm cine film anyway.
He was inspired by the roll film solution of the Ensignette and the VP Kodak.
But he decided against paper backed roll film and aimed at a design based on
perforated 35mm cine negative film in combination with a focal plane shutter.
For a precision miniature camera he had no choice but to combine this with a helicoid focussing mechanism with accurately engraved distance settings.                                                   

In the history of photography downsizing is not uncommon.
This had happened before with folding cameras (whole plate, half plate, quarter plate, all the way to the Ernemann Heag XV and the Hüttig Atom).
Moreover, some 20 years later Karl Nüchterlein would take a very similar step when he decided to reduce the VP Exakta to the Kine Exakta!

Roland