The Most Special Cameras, Lenses, and Photos in Leica’s Archives

Leica counted down the days to Christmas in style, delivering daily videos that showcase “the most special things” in the company’s archives. As is tradition, the photographic advent calendar of sorts concluded yesterday, Christmas Eve, and we thought a nice little Christmas present to our passionate readers was a recap of Leica’s Christmas countdown.

Leica kicked things off on December 1 with a look at a Leica camera that was never released to market. The Leica 110 was made for Kodak’s once-new Kodacolor II 110 color negative film. This 13x17mm format was made for small, compact film cameras, and Leica wanted in on the action. Ultimately, Leica abandoned the 110 camera, and all parts and prototypes, save for the one in the video below, were destroyed.

Did you know that Leica built an underwater camera? No, we don’t mean the beautiful underwater housing Sub13 makes for Leica cameras, but a full-blown underwater Leica made by Leica itself. The Leica XU was a real underwater camera, and it actually isn’t even that old. Leica announced it in 2016, but it flew way under the radar (and presumably under the sea, too).

On day six, Leica busted out incredible pieces of history, Leica cameras and lenses that survived the Hindenburg disaster in 1937.

Now you may have known about the Leica XU, but what about a Leica Lesitungbeweis? These prints are proof of performance test shots that photographers capture using Leica cameras and lenses. The example on display was captured in 1958 by acclaimed photographer Thomas Höpker using a Leica MP and Summicron 50mm prime. Sometimes test shots are so much more than that, they’re art in and of themselves.

111 years ago, Leica inventor Oskar Barnack captured photos on the very first prototype of the Ur-Leica camera. These negatives still survive in the Leica archives, and as the video below shows, it remains possible to make beautiful prints from them. Will our digital files today have this sort of longevity?

Speaking of digital cameras, the very next day, Leica dug the S1 out of its archives. The Leica S1 is a hulking beast and the first-ever digital Leica. Created in 1996 for digitally reproducing documents, the beast of a camera captured 26-megapixel square photos via its CCD sensor, but don’t try to use it handheld, as it took over three minutes to capture a single shot!

The next item up is one we’ve actually seen before, Leica’s biggest lens ever made. The Leica 1600mm f/5.6 for the R System was made to order for a customer, and only three copies were produced. One went to the customer, Sheik Saud Bin Mohammed Al-Thani, the former Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage in Qatar. One was destroyed. The final copy is the one in the video below, which lives in the archive.

While Leica’s über-popular rangefinders are celebrated for their manual focus experience, Leica actually invented autofocus. The company began developing an autofocus system in 1963, and it debuted the system, the Leica Correct system, at Photokina many years later in 1976. Ultimately, Leica didn’t actually release this product, and the Konica C35 AF was the first mass-produced autofocus camera the following year.

While the Leica 1600mm f/5.6 for the R System is wild, it might not be the craziest R System lens Leica made. Leica made an 800mm lens for the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. What makes the lens special, beyond its then-unique focal length, is that it can be detached into three parts. There is the primary lens body, a lens, and a focusing back.

As we have already seen, Leica has many rare photos in its collection. It isn’t all just cameras and lenses. Day 18 focused on the last photo ever taken of photojournalist Evgenia Lemberg. The striking portrait was captured by Russian artist Alexander Rodchenko. The photo, “Girl With a Leica,” is famous in part because Lemberg died from an accident very shortly after the picture was taken. The print in the collection was made by Rodchenko himself.

Getting back to the camera gear side of Leica’s archive, Day 19 featured a Leica I prototype from 1926. This camera, the so-called Compur Leica, has a central shutter, so the shutter is built into the lens itself. The shutter enabled exposures as long as one second. Neat!

A zoom lens for Leica M? Blasphemy! But yes, Leica really did make a zoom lens for Leica M-Mount, it’s just that it did not make it beyond the prototype stage. The 28-75mm prototype below failed to meet Leica’s quality standards, and it was shelved.

As is only fitting, Leica concluded its 24 Days of Christmas celebration in style, taking a holiday-themed look back at how Oskar Barnack created the Ur-Leica. The very first prototype remains in the Leica archives to this day and is the ancestor of every Leica camera ever made.

These are just some of the 24 amazing videos Leica shared this month, each focused on different special things in the company’s illustrious, expansive archives. The full slate of videos is available on Leica’s YouTube channel, and watching them all is a great gift photographers can give to themselves this Christmas.

Image credits: Leica