Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/01/03
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On Jan 3, 2009, at 11:22 AM, Mark wrote: > The rangefinder on the Leica body is really a pretty big deal. > As is the cloth shutter. Mark, I know you were taking poetic license. The ur-Leica didn't have a rangefinder. Neither did the Leica 1 marketed in 1925. Interchangable lenses didn't come about until 1930. The first rangefinder Leica appeared in 1932. Barnack didn't invent the Leica shutter as we know it. The shutter on the ur-Leica was a primitive affair that required capping the lens when the shutter was rewound. It was redesigned by :Leitz engineers to be self capping by 1923, prior to the manufacture preproduction prototypes. Give Barnack the credit for the concept of a slim, pocketable 35 mm camera taking full (double) frame exposures but many of the features in the Leica camera that we cherish, rangefinders, the LTM mount, the reliable variable speed, self capping shutter came from other minds. If we want to honor the 100th anniversary of the Leica idea, I feel we should stick to 100% Leica pictures. Leica camera, Leica lenses, perhaps even Leica enlargers although that would be almost impossible to verify. Larry Z