Hotshoe of Leica I

[isunshine]

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For Leica I, there seems to be two different hothoes exist - square and round - as shown here:

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The round one is far more common than the square one and makes me wonder if the square one was the earlier version that got produced only for a short period of time before the production of round one. The Null Series also seem to have only the square one, so that leads me to that assumption. Does anyone know about this?

[hepcat]

Well, I can't speak specifically to the Leica I accessory shoe variants as I don't have the expertise, but both were called an "accessory shoe."   Since the introduction of the on-camera flash, the accessory shoe has also been called a"flash shoe."     More recently they have been renamed "cold shoes" since the invention of the "hot shoe" with flash sync contacts sometime in the 1970s.  And there have been a number of variations of the accessory shoe over its history.   The accessory shoe on these cameras would have originally been used for auxiliary finders or a rangefinder as shoe-mounted, miniature bulb flashes didn't hit the market until much later.  Leica didn't introduce flash-synchronized shutters until the IIIf in 1950.

Edited June 13, 2024 by hepcat

[romanus53]

The squere one came from the Leica II and was adopted to unify production, at least the Standard hase the squere one too.

[Pyrogallol]

I always thought the forgotten hero is the person who invented the accessory/flash/hot shoe. Why is it the size it is? etc

[earleygallery]

15 minutes ago, Pyrogallol said:

I always thought the forgotten hero is the person who invented the accessory/flash/hot shoe. Why is it the size it is? etc

It wouldn't happen now if it didn't already exist - every manufacturer would have their own unique accessory shoe to ensure more sales of their own accessories!

 

Edited June 13, 2024 by earleygallery

[hepcat]

25 minutes ago, Pyrogallol said:

I always thought the forgotten hero is the person who invented the accessory/flash/hot shoe. Why is it the size it is? etc

I would expect it was Leica... and maybe even Barnack himself.  It's the size it is because that's the largest size that would fit on the Barnack cameras.  Everyone else just copied it as a standard so their accessories would fit on Leicas... and then so everyone's accessories would fit on THEIR cameras.  The sole exception was Canon who, in the 1950s invented their own standard for flash connection; the side rail with contacts.  It was essentially the first hot shoe setup.