- I'm gonna test drive what I think
is the most beautiful camera ever made.
(upbeat music)
(camera clicking)
A camera has to be good at taking pictures,
of course it does,
but there is something special about a camera
that simply looks beautiful.
One that inspires you.
The kind of camera that you hang around your neck
and know that before you take even the first image,
somebody will have stopped you in the street
and asked to look at your camera.
Design, function and history.
During The Second World War,
the top German fighter pilot, Adolf Galland,
was asked what he required
in order to break down the British resistance.
"I should like", he said, "an outfit of Spitfires."
See an E-type Jaguar parked in any street in the country
and I guarantee you'll see people staring,
because it's admired, it's desirable,
it's always fashionable,
and above all, because it's beautiful.
There are literally thousands of classic designs
still living in our 21st century
and one of those is the Barnack Leica.
Barnack's a casual name given to the early Leicas
that came before the M mount series.
The lens is attached to the body with a screw thread.
Sometimes they're called LTM cameras
and that stands for Leica Thread Mount or L39 lenses.
So called because the thread is 39 millimeter.
And these Barnacks are iconic.
They were the birth of modern, 35 millimeter photography.
So why're they called Barnacks?
Well, Oskar Barnack invented them
and he made the first Leica 35 mil camera,
a Leica-Ur, at the Ernst Leitz factory in Germany
and took the first 35 mil photo with it in 1913.
It was a photo of the local marketplace,
the Eisenmarkt in Wetzlar in Germany.
And today there's a plaque on the floor there
so you can actually go there on a photographic pilgrimage.
You can stand on the plaque
and you can take the same image
of the black and white building you can see in front of you
that Oskar Barnack did over a hundred years ago.
I'll be using this Leica 2F from 1959.
I believe my son's coming out on the shoot with me
and he owns a Leica 3C from 1947.
The first thing you'll notice is the weight.
For such a small camera body,
these Leicas pack a real punch in the weight department.
But you have to remember that Oskar Barnack
designed these as pocket cameras
when huge plate cameras were the norm.
These were tiny compared to what people were used to
at the time.
And he really thought about how much of a pocket camera
this would be,
because he designed the lens to push back into the body
when it was not in use.
(lens clicking)
Nobody would have seen a camera this slim ever before.
One thing to note is when you see a Barnack for sale
you might look at the shutter speed dial and think,
"Oh, only goes down to 20th of a second,
that's not slow enough for me."
Well, they've actually got a separate dial
for high shutter speeds and low shutter speeds.
If you want to go slower
you simply jump on to the slower speed dial.
One idiosyncrasy is that the shutter speed dial rotates
as you wind the film on,
and so the film has to be wound on first
and be ready to take a picture
before you can set the shutter speed,
otherwise you'll think you've got the right speed set
and it'll be completely the wrong one.
Ah, and that reminds me, talking of the film being ready,
loading a Barnack Leica is quite unlike
loading any other camera I've ever had.
The base plate is removable and the cassette goes in here
and the film leader is attached on the other side
to a loading spool.
But be warned, it's not that simple.
As the film is dropped into the slot
running across the back of the camera and it's pushed down,
it's leading edge can easily catch the cloth shutter inside.
To prevent this from happening we're gonna have to cut
an extra long leader in the film.
Four inches or so, in fact,
so that the film falls short of the shutter cloth
when you press it down.
Just to remind you,
Leica have put an easy to understand diagram on the bottom.
If you'd like to see a film
about how to load a Barnack Leica then,
my son and I have done a video of us doing just that.
I'll put the link on the screen right now.
The shutter counter moves on after every frame is taken,
but it doesn't auto back to zero
when the film back is removed like modern cameras.
So, remember when you do load a film you must reset
the frame counter to zero.
There are no built-in light meters
so it's either experience, guesswork or modern kit required,
a light meter.
You can continue in the retro vein with an old Weston meter,
but I've cheated and just put an app on my phone,
although I have to admit, I use guesswork mostly
unless it's very complicated lighting.
All Barnacks, except the very early one series,
have rangefinders for focusing,
and this works by having a dedicated rangefinder window
next to the viewfinder.
You look through the rangefinder magnified window
and you'll see two images,
and you simply turn the focusing ring,
align the two images so that they appear as one
and you're focused.
It's as simple as that.
So, let's venture out into the snow and take a few images
and see how we get on.
And as soon as that's done, I'll make part two of this video
where I'll tell you exactly what I think it was like
shooting with this classic old camera
and I'll share some of the images as well on that film
so you can have a look.
Once that film's done, I'll put a link to it on the screen
right now, up here,
and you can jump straight to it
and have a look at the results.
As always, thank you for watching
and if you've enjoyed and you feel you've gotten any value
from the video, please consider subscribing.
It helps grow the channel
and it helps me make more photography videos.
Oh, and if you have got a little time to spare,
a like, or maybe a comment, that would be fantastic too.
In the meantime, enjoy your photography, grab your camera
and stay focused.
(camera clicking)
(upbeat music)