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The first and second miniature revolutions

In my thread on 100 years Null-Serie I include the development of the Ur-Leica of 1914.
The Ur-Leica was created in the middle of a miniature revolution with an increasing flow of Liliput cameras.
This miniature revolution already began in the 1880s – 1890s on the back of the new gelatine-based light-sensitive silver emulsions.
One direction was (French) miniature cameras for dry plates with formats like 4,5x6cm.
The other direction started with the Kodak roll film cameras.
During his work for Zeiss Palmos and ICA (1902-1910) Oskar Barnack was in the middle of this miniature revolution.

It is fair to mark the introduction of the Leica I in March 1925 as the beginning of the second miniature revolution.
This second miniature revolution was not only a 35mm revolution.
One can see a divergence of miniature formats (miniature inflation) and a later convergence to the formats 24x36mm on 35mm film and 6x6cm on 120-film.

It follows that the Rolleiflex of 1929 must be regarded as the second standard bearer of the second miniature revolution.

In the 35mm realm the success of the Leica format also benefitted from the contributions of Agfa, Perutz and Kodak (producers of 35mm film).
Similarly, competitors like the Contax, the Kodak Retina, the Kine Exakta and the Agfa Karat helped to establish the Leica format as one of the dominant standards for miniature photography for the remainder of the 20th century.

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The Leica and the second miniature revolution – twelve perspectives

In the next slides I will share twelve different perspectives on the second miniature revolution,
often eye witness accounts, that put the prominent role of the Leica in perspective.
It concerns in chronological order:

1930: Leica and Rolleiflex as the leading miniature cameras
1931: Leica invades the American film studios
1932: Miniature inflation in Germany
1933: Why are there no British miniature cameras?
1933: Agfacolor for Leica and Contax
1934: Leica-Rollei competition for the front cover of Amateur Photographer

1935: German miniature camera exhibitions in the USA
1937: An overview of the British camera market – the German miniature invasion
1937: An Oscar for 35mm Agfa film
1943: Your Contax, your Leica for the RAF
1946: Two complementary film standards: 24x36mm and 6x6cm

1947: Europe hunts for Leicas – American soldiers are served first

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1930 – Leica and Rollei as the leading miniature cameras

When discussing miniature formats of the 1920s and 1930s, one cannot escape the competition or rather the complementarity between the Leica and the Rollei.
There are surprisingly early examples of this!

The German photographer Dr Walther Heering initiated a series of year books that ran between 1930 and 1942.
His aim was to write a pocketable guide that was useful for all users of a hand camera, regardless of size, make, price or sophistication.
He, therefore, also took care to discuss the possibilities of simple 6x9 cameras.

The text is from Das Photo-Jahr 1931, published in December 1930.
I first show the original text, that I have assembled from five different pages.
In the next slide I provide the translation in English.

 

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December 1930, Dr. W. Heering on the Leica and the Rolleiflex (Translation Roland Zwiers)

We mentioned the Leica. Let's have a look at her first.
She is produced by Ernst Leitz in Wetzlar, i.e. by people who already understood everything about of micro and projection devices, that is about precision.
It is the only photo camera manufactured by Leitz (design by 0. Barnack).
People were already working on the idea before the war, in 1919 they were ready to continue, in 1924 the Leica came out, and in 1930 around 50,000 units had been sold - at a price of between 220 and 300 marks that is a remarkable achievement!
She is tiny, three-quarters the size of a dozen pack of 9/12 plates, she weighs a single pound and doesn't look like a photo camera at all.
Add a suede bag and - slip – she is in your pocket.
The weight and size already include negative material for 40 exposures - that's what you call convenient and really "more from life".
Then there is an aperture of 1:3.5 and a focal plane shutter up to 1/5oo sec., a mechanism that automatically makes double exposures impossible and at the same time shows the number of exposures, a rangefinder that determines the exact distance in an instance, an excellent viewfinder and the possibility of changing the lens for some others with a shorter or longer focal length - and we have the Leica in a nutshell.

 

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December 1930, Dr. W. Heering on the Leica and the Rolleiflex (continued)

By the way, do you have any idea what changing the lens for another one means?!
You have just photographed a church, from the churchyard wall to the tower cross.
Now you swap the 5cm focal length lens for a 13.5cm lens and zoom in on a single window with all the architectural details and bring it full size onto the film, of course from the same point of view.
Or think about portraiture. To get big heads just take this 13.5 cm lens and become the best portrait photographer. These are things for gourmets.


A soldier needs attitude, an airplane needs a propeller, and a Leica needs fine-grain film and fine-grain developer.
Without it, nothing right will come of it.
You take the Fliegerfilm from Perutz and the “Emofin” developer from Tetenal and develop it in the Correx tank - this is the ideal material that belongs to the Leica.
The Leitz enlarger is also a necessary part of it and - if you still have enough money - the copy frame with adjustable mask straps.
But then you will achieve striking things, under all circumstances 13/18 enlargements, which can hardly or not be distinguished at all from contact prints!
And that with the very satisfying knowledge of not only having had the sun on your back and more out of life, but also saving 27 pfennigs with every shot.
Because a Leica photo only costs 3 pfennigs.
The purchase, of course, has something to do with the wallet and, apart from that, mostly with a birthday or Christmas present.

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December 1930, Dr. W. Heering on the Leica and the Rolleiflex (continued)
The Leica works quickly, incredibly quickly.
You get brilliant series images, series images on such a Leica film.
You use standard cinema film, the same film on which the UFA film studio shoots its cultural film kilometres - but you still don't film!
Now please think about it: filming, really filming, i.e. movement, speed, events in the picture - what that means!
Not just isolated documents like in photography, not just individual images, just clues for memory, but the past itself.
Natural, fresh, alive, with all the trimmings.
Not just a smiling face like in the photograph, but the laughter itself, the posture, the change of expression, the movement, the lively pace.
A few films and you can see the most beautiful hours, the sunniest days come back to life, shine brightly on the screen, while the wind whistles outside and the rain slaps against the window panes.
Films - that means the past preserved on celluloid!
And filming is something you won't want to do without once you've tried it - it's that beautiful!

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December 1930, Dr. W. Heering on the Leica and the Rolleiflex (continued)

Leica here, Leica there, Leica everywhere: I have her and wouldn't be without her for the world.
Sometimes you get annoyed: when you have to enlarge a lot of Leica negatives and then you can't get through them.
Enlarging takes a little longer, and with the Leica everything has to be enlarged.
Especially for people that do not like to enlarge, there is a shiny roll film camera - the roll film camera, the RoIIeifIex from Franke & Heidecke.
These people also have a tradition and have always built the best stereo cameras.
And now they came up with the brilliant idea of building a precise roII film camera with a focusing screen.
Short profile of the Rolleiflex: high aperture, precise roll film camera for negatives of 6x6 cm with a constantly visible focusing screen on top of the camera.

There is also a patented built-in magnifying glass for the most precise and yet fastest focusing on this focusing screen.
Not much heavier, but significantly larger than the Leica: 8.5 x 9 x 12.5 cm; 700g., Compur shutter up to 1/300sec., Tessar 3.8 or 4.5.
The negative format is sufficiently large so that you can usually just manage without enlargement.
Price 198 or 225 marks. So, the medium format camera for the photographer, for travel, for hiking - in short, for convenience when taking photos and for convenience in the darkroom.

 

Let's take a closer look: it's a roll film reflex camera.
And to be more precise: a roll film camera with a mirror device on top that has its own lens.
So, there is a separation between the viewfinder camera and the photo camera.
What that means?! Firstly, this means that you can see the screen image constantly, even while taking the picture.
Secondly, this means that the mirror image always remains bright, even when the recording lens is stopped down!
The viewfinder lens has a high aperture of 1:3.1 and is therefore even brighter than the taking lens.
This high light intensity also comes with a very shallow depth of field (only for the screen, not for the film!) and, together with the built-in magnifying glass, this enables safe and quick focusing.
With a roll film camera, a bright, upright and constantly visible screen image at the top: that achievement is only incorporated in the Rolleiflex.

The most comfortable camera, the one in your pocket, the one with the cheapest material consumption and the ability to take series photos in quick succession, but also with the need to enlarge each image:
that is the Leica.
- The roll film camera with the bright screen image, light, but no longer easy to store in your coat pocket, the camera that thanks to the 6/6 format it is also convenient for the darkroom:
that is the Rolleiflex.

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1930 – Leica and Rollei as the leading miniature cameras (continued)

Now, Dr Walther Heering is not known as a Leica photographer.
Still, his Leica review comes close to a declaration of love.
One has to keep in mind, however, that his 1930 Rolleiflex must still have been of 1929 vintage.
Later Rolleiflex models would be much more competitive!
That may be the reason that from 1932 onwards he would become the leading author of several Rollei manuals.

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1931: Leica invades the American film studios

From 1928 onwards I come across the Leica in American literature as a 'still' camera for the film industry.
An English dictionary gives 'still' the following description: an ordinary static photograph as opposed to a motion picture, especially a single shot from a cinema film.

A 'still' is therefore a photograph printed from a 35mm film frame of 18x24mm.
But how could such a 'still' produce a good advertising photo? It was therefore important to use a separate camera for single images.

By 1931 the quality of cine negative film must have improved to such an extent that the Leica could be used during the actual filming of the scenes, using the very same cine negative film.

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1932 – miniature inflation in Germany

In his edition for 1932, published in October 1931, Dr Walther Heering looks back on developments in the past year.
He is really surprised that so many German manufacturers had jumped on the same 3x4cm bandwagon.
He speaks of miniature inflation.
This not only refers to the avalanche of cameras in the 3x4cm format, but also to the multiplication of miniature formats in general.
In one remark he describes 24x36mm and 6x6cm as the boundaries of the playing field, with too many formats in between.

Below I reproduce the original text.
In the next slide I will provide the translation in English.

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The photo novelties in 1931 (Translation Roland Zwiers)

They seemed to have forgotten everything else and were mainly concerned with the problem of "miniature cameras" in camera construction.
So, over the course of the year a few first-class and - compared to the Leica model - also new types of miniature cameras came out in the first place the small Rolleiflex and the Pupille and in addition, as the main representative of the inexpensive "hits", the Ikonta 3x4.
One new miniature camera chased another, and every factory that wasn't already making one felt compelled to rush out with a new model.
Only Voigtländer remained proudly aloof.
Of course, a lot of worthless stuff came out of this miniature inflation, 70% of which can disappear again because it's bad or imitation or both - or has still to be calmly upgraded to a higher quality.
A miniature camera - this is where the mistake often lies - is by no means a usable miniature camera!
And then embarrassing details like the stupid A8 spool, the brittle film and a good pressure plate actually caused quite a few headaches.
What is permanent in all this rapid development is the new 3x4 format.
Is the development not already heading from 24 x 36 mm to 3 x 4 cm to 4 x 6 ½ and 6 x 6 cm?
Many believe that the peak of the miniature wave has just passed.
We don't believe that. The miniature camera is necessary and irreplaceable (…).
A critical overview of the miniature cameras - as was planned for the "photo year" of 1932 – had to be advanced given the 100 km pace of development.
A lot still needs to be clarified. Today only a list is possible, which we have given on pages 56 and 57 and which already includes extensive criticism.
We are convinced that this almost complete overview (we don't know of any similar one) will be new and surprising to most people:
there are so many miniature cameras today - and even more tomorrow!

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1933: Where are the British miniature cameras?

 In June 1933 the editor of Amateur Photographer has a problem with how to define a modern miniature camera.
One approach is everything smaller than 6,5x9cm.
In this way he can include the 6x6 Rolleiflex, that by another approach (vest-pocket cameras, 127-film or smaller) would not be considered a miniature at all.
In this way he arrives at a list of 14 German manufacturers (offering 24 different cameras) with one classic, but increasingly old-fashioned representative from Britain.

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1933: Where are the British miniature cameras? (continued)

The list would give rise to angry replies from British subscribers.
They do not choose between one miniature format or the other.
Instead, they observe that almost all miniature cameras on the British market are of foreign (read: German) origin.
The one British exception is based on a pre-1914 design.
The subscribers are angry that British producers benefit from high import duties, but still completely misjudge the changing preferences of photographers on their home market.

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1933: Agfacolor for Leica and Contax

In the 1910s and early 1920s the available 35mm cine negative film was colour-blind or only weakly orthochromatic.
This was a relative handicap for Ur-Leica and Null-Serie Leica photography; other miniature cameras could make use of highly orthochromatic roll film and/or dry plates.
With panchromatic dry plates it was even possible to make colour pictures via three separation negatives for the colours red, green and blue (RGB).
This is covered in my article The colour of black-and-white, which is situated in 1914.

In 1933 the Leica and the Contax were suddenly ahead in terms of colour photography; the new Agfacolor lenticular film was only available in the 35mm format.
With the lenticular technique the colour information was printed on the black-and-white film by means of a striped RGB-filter in front of the camera lens.
A similar filter in front of the projector lens would reproduce the colours on a projection screen.

Leica and Contax would also benefit from the new generation of colour slide films as introduced by Kodak and Agfa in 1936.
Originally, these films were only available as 35mm film.
With the aid of a Rolleikin adapter these 35mm colour films could also be used in a Rolleicord or Rolleiflex. 

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1934: A Leica-Rollei competition for the front covers of Amateur Photographer

In my article: Rollei, the 6x6 format and 120-film I use the Leica as a reference point.
One can observe the growing prestige of both the Leica and the Rollei by looking at their competition for the front cover of Amateur Photographer in the 1930s.

In order to give some indication of the intensity of this 1930s advertisement drive, I limit myself to the first half of 1934.
In this period half of the available front covers of the magazine Amateur Photographer were claimed by either the Rollei or the Leica.

On top of that came several full-page advertisements and additional smaller ones.
And one should not forget that in the second half of the 1930s Leica and Rollei also advertised in half a dozen other British periodicals.

The additional Leica-cover is from 13 September 1939.
At that time Britain and Germany were already ten days at war!
The Leica picture is from the 1937 book ‘Snow canvas’ by Prof. Stefan Kruckenhauser.
During a PCCGB research meeting William was kind enough to draw my attention to this book.

This publicity drive gives rise to several observations.
A magazine like Amateur Photographer must have been very happy with the fierce competition for its advertisement space.
Consequently, the outbreak of war in September 1939 must have been a financial nightmare.

In the second place, import duties of 50% did not prevent the Leica and the Rollei from becoming hugely popular on the British market.
And last but not least, German camera exporters in general must have made a substantial contribution to the hard currency export earnings of Nazi Germany.
In an article on the pre-war 6x6 Exakta I even relate that in 1939 German camera manufacturers were exporting newly designed cameras before they were fully tested on the home market.

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