Why Does Everyone Talk About Leica?

 I saw a discussion on the Negative Positive Film Photography Podcast group on facebook that spoke of the quality of film cameras. Mario Piper posted this perfectly reasonable question; “Are Leicas, Nikon F’s, Canons, Olympus OM’s and the like truly substantially better than the likes of Minolta SRTs, or Konica Autoreflex’s, or the Working Man’s Pentax’s? Am I missing something? Everyone talks about Leica’s.” Being of an engineering turn of mind, my thoughts began a long road that had to be travelled and was way too long to post on facebook. Here’s my thoughts on why “everyone talks about Leica’s”.

Leica is a premium brand for one simple reason. Excellence. The excellence is in the attention to detail during design and production of their camera's that stems from the very early days of the company and the principles of Oskar Barnack. Ask any Leica user about Barnack Leica’s and their eyes glaze over with love and off they go, converting you to the cause. Hamish Gill wrote an excellent article on his 35mmc website that goes into why he loves Barnack Leica camera’s and I will link to it below. The principles of design that produced those early Barnack Leica rangefinder camera’s still underline the company to this day.

Leica are basically hand made camera's built from precision engineered parts that have a tolerance of, to all intents and purposes, zero. Quality is Assured. Every Leica is built to the same standard, perfect. They wont accept anything less. There is no such thing as Pro and Consumer grade Leica's and is the reason Leica camera's cost so much new. High quality means even a Leica from the 1930’s will still work as it was intended as long as it is given the correct service and maintenance. Old cameras get sloppy with use, even the much lauded Leica and regular servicing is essential to their longevity. However it is not just Leica that are built to a high standard.

Pro grade camera's from the big Japanese manufacturers are also built to fine tolerances yet have a common parts supply to consumer grade cameras. The larger the production volume, the quicker the need to produce. Consumer Grade Camera's are perceived to be of lesser quality, but that doesn’t mean the build quality is inferior to their professional grade siblings. Often the difference is in the specifications, consumer grade cameras tend to have less features making them simpler to use.

My Pentax SP500, The bottom of the Pentax range, has a highest shutter speed of 1/500th of a second marked on the shutter speed dial, yet you can select a higher speed not marked on the dial. All other Pentax Spotmatic camera’s had a top speed of 1/1000th of a second. The only difference with the SP500 was the number 1000 was not printed on the dial. It’s also built like a tank. My SP500 has new career as a deadly weapon should it ever break, which isn't going to be in my lifetime. Pentax has a reputation of being “The Working Man’s” camera and are solid and dependable. It's fair to say all other manufacturers have the same high standards.

Canon and Nikon went for the high end of the market first. Nikon stole the market with the Nikon F and the high standards they set with the original Nikon F and Nikon S cameras continue to this day. Canon hit the ground running with the Canon F-1 and became the system of choice for many photographers thanks to its durability. Then there's Hasselblad, the bastion of the studio photographer. The quality of a Hasselblad lies in its simplicity, it has all it needs to take a great photograph, nothing more, nothing less. As with Leica's they too hold a high premium and are still an aspirational item for folks like myself.

To give you an idea of how Olympus go it right, my OM-1 is 50 years old soon and still works like new today. Yoshihisa Maitani knew the company needed to be better and set about designing camera's to rival Leica. The Olympus Pen F started it all with it’s innovative sideways mirror arrangement, but soon his attention turned to the conventional SLR and the Olympus OM-1 was born. I had mine serviced a few months after buying it as it was struggling a bit. My investment was worth every penny as it is working perfectly again. A little maintenance was all it took. I am merely its custodian until I am no longer able to use it and it passes on to another film photographer.

This is true of all film camera’s whose custodians care for them correctly. We have a responsibility to ensure those who join our community have decent camera’s to produce images with. This is why I like to support Camera Rescue and PPP Repairs. Juho and friends and Pierro are the youth the film photography community needs to survive and they have taken the steps to making sure it happens. They are not alone as there are many people around the world for whom Film camera’s have been a constant source of income, even through the Digital revolution. I know Film Camera sales, servicing and repair is in good hands.

There's no denying that Leica make excellent camera's that stand the test of time, but so do the companies I have mentioned here and there are plenty more that I haven't who also do the same. One day I would like to use a Leica, but there are also several other makes that I would also like to try too from Konica, Minolta and Zorki. Photographers are a fickle bunch, we enjoy our craft yet have differences of opinion over the best tools to use and that is a good thing. Given the proliferance of camera's over the last century and a half, there is a camera out there for everyone and variety is the spice of life. Here's a few of my photographs taken with my "Not Leica's" that I am particularly happy with for lots of reasons.

Hamish Gill's excellent article can be read at https://www.35mmc.com

Olympus OM-1 50mm f/1.4
Ilford FP4

Olympus OM-1 50mm f/1.4
Ilford FP4

Olympus OM-2 28mm f/3.5
Ilford FP4

Nikon F801 50mm f/1.8
Kodak ColorPlus 200

Nikon F801 50mm f/1.8
Kodak ColorPlus 200

 

 

Pentax SP500 Tamron Adaptall 2 28mm f/2.5
Agfaphoto Vista 200