Leica I

A 1927 Leica I in original condition, with its collapsible 50mm Elmar lens pulled out ready to shoot. This is the camera that put 35mm film into a still camera small enough for a jacket pocket. Oskar Barnack, a Leitz employee, built it around 35mm cinema film, enlarging the frame to 24x36 mm, the size now called full frame. Leitz showed it at the Leipzig Spring Fair in 1925. There is no coupled rangefinder yet, so you judged the distance and set it on the lens, which shows how much the later cameras in this gallery had to solve.