A century ago Oskar Barnack, an optical engineer working at microscope maker Leitz Werke Wetzlar in Germany, revolutionised photography. On the side, Barnack was a keen but sickly photographer who struggled with carting around the huge plate cameras of the time and wanted something more serious than the Box Brownie that was just appearing in the States. He spent years trying to develop a more portable but high-quality camera before coming up with the Ur-Leica, the first record of which appears in March 1914. The first 35mm camera, it used film normally associated with motion pictures. It would be another 10 years though before the launch of the Leica 1, a mass-produced 35mm camera. It and its upgrades were soon adopted by enthusiasts and a new generation of photography professionals alike and over the next century, through the introduction of its M series Rangefinder cameras, Leica became legend and the most premium of premium brands……

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