BARNACK USHERS IN THE AGE OF
PHOTOJOURNALISMS WITH A HIGH RESPONSIVE CAMERA
World war I put a halt to Barnack’s progress, and it was not until 1925 that leica 1 camera was introduced (the name standing for Leitz camera). According to one historian, old school photographers regarded the new camera as toy like, but over the next seven years almost 60,000 of them were sold.
Not everyone has their own award name after them. The Oskar
Barnack award, given annually to photo journalists, was initiated in 1979 to
mark the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the man who invented the 35-mm
still camera. Barnack (1879-1936) had the idea for it back in 1905, but it was
not until 1913-1914, while he was working as a head development at the German
camera company Leitz, in Wetzlar, Hesse, that he was able to transform his idea
into reality
Tradition heavy
plate cameras were cumbersome to use and required significant preparation
before each shot. It was impossible to take a “quick snap” of anything.
Barnack’s camera was a tough metal box that could fit in a jacket packet and
used a new kind of film, adaptor from Thomas Edison’s 35-mm cine film. In 1914
Barnack took picture of the Soldiers who had just put up the imperial order for
mobilization. This was new kind of picture spontaneous and capturing a new
camera film and stretched his arms out. The length of the film between his arms
contained thirty six frames, and this has been the number of negatives on a
standards 35-mm roll of film ever since.
The first commercial
available 35-mm camera was the Leica I, manufactured by Leitz of Germany in
1925.
This 1937 advertisement
shows the model of the Leica III series, which include an integrated
rangefinder.
No comments:
Post a Comment