10-494: The Leica II is a Barnack rangefinder camera introduced by Leica in 1932. They were the first Leica cameras with a built-in rangefinder. Several models were produced over the years, in parallel with the Leica III series from 1933. The Leica II uses a coupled rangefinder distinct from the viewfinder . The viewfinder is set for a 50 mm lens; use of shorter or longer lenses requires installing an alternate viewfinder on
20-724: The Leica Oskar Barnack Prize was awarded, endowed with 5000 euros, and awarded in July at the Meetings of Arles. An international jury awards the Leica Oskar Barnack Prize to professional photographers, whose powers of observation capture and express the relationship between man and the environment in the most graphic way in a sequence of a minimum of 10 to a maximum of 12 images. Input presentations must be an autonomous series of images in which
30-624: The Spring Fair of Leipzig in 1925 as the Leica I (Leitz camera). Barnack was also one of the first photographers to create news images in which people's relationship to their surroundings could be seen. In this style, he made the first news image made with a 35 mm camera, showing the flood caused by the Lahn River in Wetzlar . In 1979, on the occasion of the centenary of its birth,
40-682: The accessory socket. A mere four copies of the gold-plated Leica Luxus II were made. In 2013, one sold at auction in Hong Kong for $ HK4 million, after featuring on the BBC's Antiques Roadshow programme. The whereabouts of the other three models are not recorded. The popular Soviet camera, the FED 1, was a clone of the Leica II. Oskar Barnack Oskar Barnack (Nuthe-Urstromtal, Brandenburg, 1 November 1879 – Bad Nauheim, Hesse, 16 January 1936)
50-434: The best quality images. At the time, lenses for existing 35mm cameras covered the 18×24 mm frame format, so the larger Leica frame size was only partially covered. Existing Leitz and competing Zeiss lenses were either too large for the camera or would not cover the 24x36 frame. To achieve the necessary resolution for a satisfactory enlargement, the 24x36 mm format needed a specially designed lens. Leica's first suitable lens
60-476: The camera was named Leica , an acronym obtained from Lei tz Ca mera. It was released at the Leipzig Fair in 1925. Between 1913 and 1914, Barnack adapted 35 mm cinematic film for still-camera use with a larger negative than other 35mm cameras. The pronged-film rollers holding the perforated film allowed more precision than typical paper-backed roll film. His design was revolutionary because he transported
70-431: The film horizontally, allowing an extended frame size to 24×36 mm with a 2:3 aspect ratio, instead of the 18x24 mm of cameras that carried the film vertically. Negatives in this small format could be enlarged to obtain sharper positive images. For this to be effective, the camera also needed a high-quality lens capable of producing the larger format film's quality. Barnack tried various types of lenses, trying to find
80-437: The photographer perceives and documents the interaction between man and the environment with an acute vision and contemporary visual style: creative, breakthrough and innovative. Only one entry per photographer is accepted. In addition to these categories of " Leica Oskar Barnack Prize " and " Leica Oskar Barnack Award Newcomer Prize ", ten finalists will be awarded with a cash prize of 2,500 euros for their series. The winner of
90-420: Was a 50 mm f/3.5 design based on the " Cooke triplet "; this would later evolve into the famous Leica Elmar series of lenses. In 1923 Barnack convinced his boss, Ernst Leitz II , to make a series of 31 pre-production cameras for the factory and for outdoor photographers. Although the prototypes received a mixed reception, Ernst Leitz decided in 1924 to produce the camera. It was a success when presented at
100-479: Was a German inventor and photographer who built, in 1913, what would later become the first commercially successful 35mm still-camera, subsequently called Ur-Leica at Ernst Leitz Optische Werke (the Leitz factory) in Wetzlar . Barnack was an engineer at the Leitz company and suffered from asthma, so he proposed reducing the size and weight of cameras in order to be able to take photographs in his travels. In 1924
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