The nerds behind the red dot
The nerds behind the red dot
Article in cooperation with fotointern.ch
A little history
Everything at the Leica headquarters in Wetzlar breathes the history of photography: photojournalists have captured decisive moments in history using products from the brand with the red dot. And this year, Leica is celebrating its 100th anniversary. The story, however, began before 1925: In 1914, Oskar Barnack, then head of film camera development at Leitz, developed a "miniature camera." Due to his asthma, the passionate nature photographer was unable to carry around heavy plate and large-format cameras. So he tinkered with a lightweight, compact camera that he could load with perforated 24 mm film. He rotated the film 90 degrees to achieve the 36 x 24 mm format that is still familiar today. To compensate for the much smaller film format compared to large-format cameras, he invested in the quality of the lenses. To this day, the quality of Leica lenses is legendary.
After Oskar Barnack had constructed the original Leica in 1914, the "Leica 1" was introduced in 1925 (Leica press photos)
Ups and downs
Many internal discussions followed as to whether the company should dare to mass-produce this camera and bring it to market. The whole back and forth culminated in a meeting in June 1924 with Ernst Leitz II's legendary statement: "I hereby decide: We'll take the risk." And then, exactly 100 years ago – in 1925 – the first Leica was launched. It revolutionized photography. In one fell swoop, Leica (the word is a combination of Leitz and Camera ) became the technological and market leader in the camera sector. But it wasn't long before Japanese competitors copied the rangefinder camera concept. And in 1936, the first 35mm SLR camera was presented at the Leipzig Spring Fair: the "Kine Exakta" by the Dresden-based company Ihagee. This presented the rangefinder camera concept with serious competition, and sales of this camera design declined rapidly. The SLR camera had several advantages thanks to its design, which allowed the image to be seen through the lens (a kind of WYSIWYG). Leica struggled to enter the SLR world: It wasn't until 1964 that the company introduced the Leicaflex. And then Leica granted Japanese camera manufacturer Minolta access to the autofocus patent, giving it a competitive advantage. Things became even more difficult with the advent of digital photography: Due to the shorter flange focal distance, it was much more challenging to bring the Leica M cameras into the digital age without changing the design and iconic appearance.
Close to bankruptcy
At the beginning of 2000, Leica was facing financial difficulties, and without the courageous intervention of Dr. Andreas Kaufmann, the venerable company would almost certainly no longer exist. He acquired a majority stake and gave the company a drastic overhaul: Within a few years, the company caught up with its technological lag, and thanks to the skillful alliances forged by Dr. Kaufmann, the company, even as a niche player, is able to incorporate cutting-edge technology into its cameras.
Leica has always been undisputed as a lens manufacturer. I think it's no exaggeration to say that Leica is one of the best lens manufacturers in the world—for many, even the best.
The niche player with the market leader image
Without having had or still having insight into the internal processes, I assume that Dr. Kaufmann played a key role in shaping Leica's new strategy: The company flourished, and the Leica name once again became synonymous with top quality and outstanding solutions. The rangefinder camera line - the Leica M - is still the flagship in terms of image, but the fully manually operated camera without autofocus is definitely not for everyone. In my opinion, there would have been a risk that Leica would have remained a marginalized player if they had only relied on the M. But here too, Dr. Kaufmann and his team acted with vision: In addition to various compact and instant film models, Leica has launched three further camera lines over the past few years: The Leica Q - a compact camera with a fixed focal length, extremely simple operation and the highest image quality; The Leica SL – the mirrorless system camera that combines the highest quality, ease of use, and flexibility for the demanding and versatile everyday photographer's life; and the Leica S – the medium format system, which is Leica's flagship in terms of image quality. In terms of production volume, Leica is a niche player, but its name and products command the same esteem among photography enthusiasts as a market leader.
I've been shooting with the Leica SL system since 2015, and have since added the Leica Q and the Leica S. Over the years, I've developed a relationship with Leica's developers, and through regular exchanges, I try to provide useful feedback on their cameras, which can then be incorporated into the development of new camera models. Obviously, I'm just one of many voices, but the seriousness with which Leica takes the feedback from me and other dedicated photographers is both an honor and an obligation.
In September, I was able to take a look behind the scenes of the production facility with a small group at a meeting. Photography is normally prohibited, but I was allowed to take some photos to give you an insight into the world of Leica manufacturing. I shot them with the Leica SL3.
From this point on, photography is normally prohibited. However, I was allowed to take a few pictures to give you an insight into the world of Leica manufacturing.
Start of the factory tour
Everything here exudes history. Large-format prints documenting world events adorn the walls. In the foreground, a picture by Steve McCurry, one of my favorite photographers.
The Nerds
Every person I've met and continue to meet at Leica takes great pride in their work. Above all, the goal is to build a product of the highest quality. Every production step is inspected two or three times. Anything that isn't 100% flawless goes back for adjustment. There's no random sampling in Wetzlar; instead, every camera and lens from production is inspected. At the end, the person who performed the final inspection signs their name, thus guaranteeing a flawless product.
To outsiders, the meticulousness of production and inspection may seem almost pathological, but it's the only way to ensure that every product that leaves the Wetzlar factory meets Leica's standards. These nerds double- and triple-check everything, and I have great respect for that.
A little anecdote: Shortly before my visit to Leica, I bought an SL prime lens. These lenses are inspected by Grit Thümmler, among others, whom you can see in picture 8. We chatted for a while, and I found out that it's quite possible that she checked my lens before it left the factory. It turned out to be one of her colleagues, but the fact that there are real people with a name who perform the final inspection of every product is, at least for me, something that earns the Leica brand some bonus points ;-).
Photo graph
The word "photography" comes from "foto grafare," which translates as "to paint (or draw) with light." A wonderful description of what happens when we press the camera shutter. The lens captures the light, focuses it, and channels it for the film or sensor. This is, of course, a purely physical-optical process, but for me there's always something magical about imagining a large live scene condensed into a 36 x 24 mm field. The lens is one of the most important criteria for image quality and impact. Extensive tests that I conducted together with my friend Christian Habermeier (see "Test the best" ) show that the lens has a greater influence on the impact of the image than, for example, the sensor.
Leica works with over 50 types of glass to build the best possible lenses. To achieve this, the company pushes the boundaries of what is physically possible, sometimes going to an almost insane level of effort. We learned, for example, that some Leica cine lenses take an entire day to grind on a CNC machine just for a single lens—and a lens can easily have ten lenses. Each lens is ground and polished to an accuracy of 0.1 micrometers, or 1/1,000 of a millimeter (!). This precision is a major factor in giving Leica images that highly three-dimensional effect that photography enthusiasts call the "Leica look."
Some of the glass types used are so sensitive to air that they would quickly oxidize after grinding. Therefore, the ground lenses are coated with a protective layer if necessary (see Figure 3), which is then removed shortly before coating. After the coating process, the glass can no longer oxidize. Therefore, in certain cases, coating a lens not only improves image quality but also protects the lens. Figure 4 shows a stack of glass that is coated in the middle and uncoated on the outside. The difference is striking.
The outstanding lens calculations, the extreme manufacturing precision, the high quality of the materials used for both the lenses and the lens bodies, the willingness to push the boundaries of what is possible, and the thorough inspection of each lens are all responsible for the extremely high quality of Leica lenses. Once you've seen and understood this process, you can understand why these lenses carry a rather high price tag.
Individualization
Because Leica is a manufacturer, you can customize your camera if you wish – for example, with an engraving or custom leather trim. How about a custom leather trim in the color "Vamp," for example?
What’s next for Leica?
After our month of testing the Leica SL3-S in September 2024, Christian Habermeier and I personally returned our pre-production cameras to Wetzlar. Together with Urs Tillmanns, founder of fotointern.ch, we took the opportunity to discuss with some key Leica people what the future holds for the company with the red dot. Of course, Leica isn't spilling all the beans, but here are a few summary thoughts from the conversation:
In general, the interplay between hardware and software is something Leica pays great attention to. This means that an image is far from finished once the sensor saves its colored pixels. The processing of the image data and the import of this data to the computer influence the image file. Even a RAW image is already an interpretation of the captured photo. At Leica, we are giving a lot of thought to how this workflow might change in the future and how the familiar Leica look can be recreated in the digital age. Software capabilities (keyword: AI) are becoming increasingly sophisticated and offer more possibilities for combining with the hardware.
But the process always begins with the lens: As the first link in the chain, it plays a crucial role. Leica is constantly optimizing its lens calculations, the materials used, the autofocus technology, the precision of the production process, etc. This is necessary because the lenses have to keep pace with ever-increasing sensor resolutions: After all, what use is a 60 megapixel sensor if the lens has a resolution of "only" 40 megapixels? Furthermore, the demands on the autofocus are becoming ever higher. Only with precise focusing can the high magnification potential of the new sensors be truly exploited. The mirrorless systems give Leica engineers more freedom in lens design: Because with electronic viewfinders we never see a truly optically generated image, but always an image that has already been electronically processed, certain optical corrections can also be made computationally. This allows, for example, lenses with the same performance characteristics to be built more compactly. The Leica M is also a mirrorless system, because a rangefinder camera never directly shows an image produced by the lens.
Further in-camera functionality would also be conceivable. One example is the perspective correction feature introduced by Leica in 2020, which allows you to correct converging lines directly in the camera. The advantage is that I can see immediately how much of the image I'm losing due to the perspective correction. I know that Leica is putting a lot of thought into other very exciting features in this area.
The development of the four lines – Q, M, SL and S – continues
The Q version with the 43 mm lens was recently released, and I speculate that new Q Monochrom models will follow at some point.
For the M, the M11 was presented at the beginning of 2022, followed by the M11 Monochrom a good year later. There's wild speculation online as to whether the M12—whenever it arrives—will feature a hybrid viewfinder. This would make sense, as it could increase the precision of manual focusing for high-end sensors. "No comment" was the response in our meeting.
In the SL line, Leica has updated both SL model series with the SL3-S. The SL3-S in particular demonstrates that Leica is taking the often-addressed problem of autofocus performance seriously and has it under control. The further development of autofocus will continue to be a high priority in the future – whether through firmware upgrades or with more powerful processors and AF technologies when launching new camera models. Furthermore, the SL3-S demonstrates that the Wetzlar company values the topic of "filming with a DSLM" highly. Various software and hardware solutions are under development, but it's still a bit early to talk about them. I think Leica will surprise us positively in this area (as well) in the near future. Whether there will ever be a "pure" film camera in Leica's upper quality segment is a secret. Sony and Canon offer corresponding cameras, and Fuji has also announced a film camera – for the GFX system, no less. It wouldn't be unreasonable for Leica to establish itself in this area, but that's just my personal opinion and speculation.
The Leica S3 is currently no longer in production. From a production perspective, it was clear from the outset that there would only be a limited number of S3 cameras. This limit was already reached in the course of 2023. Leica – including Dr. Kaufmann himself – confirmed that they are working on a successor model. Leica officials have remained largely silent on this matter. Following logic, I will simply state that the camera will be called the S4, that it will be a mirrorless camera with a resolution of approximately 100 megapixels and a massively improved autofocus compared to the S3. High compatibility with the M and SL lens lines would also be desirable. The task for the developers of the next S camera is not easy, because the S3 set the bar very high in terms of image quality. But here too, I trust the brand with the red dot to make the almost impossible possible – always and with all camera lines, with the goal in mind of providing us with great instruments in the future with which we can perfectly capture the light of world events or even the most banal things that are only important to us, on the sensor.
You sometimes read that the images taken with a Leica, even the cameras themselves, have a soul. A look behind the scenes reveals that so much passion goes into every camera and every lens that it could well be true...
Family photo, which also shows the size ratios (from left to right): Leica Q3, Leica M11, Leica SL3-S, Leica S3 (Press photos Leica)
This article also appeared in an abridged version with slightly adapted text on fotointern.ch .
