Photographing Decay with the Leica Camera

Introduction

Long-time readers know I used (and still use!) film cameras, and especially Leicas, for decades. Here is a short review (note: no urban decay in this article, just Leica history and photo notes).

Background

The Leica Camera was invented by a brilliant technician, Mr. Oskar Barnack, at the optical firm of Ernst Leitz Optische Werke, in Wetzlar, Germany, in 1913. He wanted a compact camera to use on outings in the woods and mountains and decided to use the newly-introduced 35mm movie film with sprocket holes. By advancing the film sideways in the camera, he used an image area of 24×36mm, introducing a standard that has remained in use for over a century. Leica cameras were a sensation and were soon used by correspondents, spies,  and wealthy amateurs around the world. Mike Johnston, former editor of Camera & Darkroom magazine, wrote an excellent summary about Leica on his blog, The Online Photographer.

Rare 1920s Leica advertisement (Courtesy of Dan Tamarkin, Tamarkin Camera, Chicago, Illinois)

This a 1932 advertisement for the Leica model D camera from Central Camera in Chicago. By the way, Central is still in business, and I stopped by their store on Wabash Avenue only a month ago. (Update May 31, 2020: Central Camera was burned and looted during the George Floyd riots on the night of May 30, 2020.) 

Leicas were always expensive. In 1932, an engineer (then considered a relatively prosperous profession) earned about $2500/year or about $200/month. So this Leica D with lens was about one half or one third of a month's salary. I listed some 1960s prices in Appendix A.

Ernst Leitz based its success on precision manufacturing with almost no expense spared (similar to its German competitor, Zeiss). The Leica and its lenses were superior to any 35mm cameras from American manufacturers before and during World War II. During the war, some Leicas were smuggled through Sweden for use by Allied intelligence services (and an occasional general and wealthy industrialist?).

My Dad's Leica IIIC

My father had wanted a Leica for years but was only able to afford one in 1949. It was a model IIIC and is still in use. The one he bought had a coated 5 cm ƒ/2.0 Summitar lens. The coatings on these post-war lenses were soft, and many were badly scratched over the years, but our example is pristine. I use it on my digital cameras occasionally because the coma and aberrations produce interesting effects. Surprisingly (or not so surprising after all), stopped down to ƒ/5.6 or ƒ/8, it is almost equal to many contemporary lenses.

This is an example of a Kodachrome taken with this camera in 1952 or 1953. Guess the location.

This is the famous Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon, Burma, a Kodachrome from 1957 taken with this IIIC.

Lenses and Clever Accessories

Leitz sold many of their earlier screw-mount Leicas with the 5cm ƒ/3.5 Elmar lens, which was similar to the Zeiss Tessar lens. The Elmars were in production until the early 1960s and then re-introduced for a few years, an amazing, long-lasting optical design. Tessar-type lenses had a characteristic of emphasizing edge contrast, so black and white photographs look contrasty and sharp. The one I had was a coated post-war model. The hoods and filters had a clamp arrangement (Leica was famous for making hundreds of semi-unique hoods, clamps, filters, and other profitable gadgets, all of meticulous craftsmanship.). 

Leica M3

Leica M3 with 50mm ƒ/2.8 Elmar-M lens

Leica M3 with 35mm ƒ/2.0 Summicron-RF lens

One of the most sophisticated and brilliant mechanical Leicas was the M3, introduced in 1954. It had a larger and much brighter finder than the older screw-mount models. Many people say this was the brightest and clearest finder that Leica (or any company) ever made. This finder included the rangefinder patch in the overall viewing scene along with white frame bars that showed the coverage for 50mm, 90mm and 135mm lenses. It also introduced the new Leica M bayonet fitting for quick lens attachment. Many experts still consider the M3 to be the finest M camera ever made. Mike Eckman wrote a fine summary of the M3 and its history. 

I had always wanted one of the M models, and in 1981, I saw this well-used late 1950s example in Optica Lutz Ferrando in Buenos Aires. Argentina was going through one of its bouts of devaluation, so three $50 bills efficiently arranged for transfer of the M3 to its new owner, along with two lenses. This M3 was a late dual-stroke model which Leica in New Jersey converted to single stroke. It had the newer geometric progression of shutter speeds, like all 1970s and 1980s cameras. 

Spanish instruction manual for the Leica M3

Leica marketed their products worldwide. They supplied advertisements and instruction manuals in most European languages. I am not sure about Asian sales in the 1950s and 1960, but in recent decades, Japanese photographers have been major buyers.

Leica M lenses

The lens on the M3 in the above photograph is the superb first generation, 8-element 35mm ƒ/2.0 Summicon-RF lens. The one I had was specifically for the M3 camera. The finder of the M3 has frame lines to show the field of view for 50mm, 90mm, and 135mm lenses. If you mounted a wide angle lens on the M3, the photograph field was larger than shown by the bright lines in the finder. Therefore, you could not frame accurately. To mitigate this problem, Leica made the 35 Summicron in a version with goggles. The goggles fit over the camera's finder and reduced the magnification. In this way, the former 50mm frame bars now showed the correct field of view for the 35mm lens. It was a bit complicated but quite effective. Note that some of Leitz' best lenses, like this 35, were made in Midland, Canada. The Midland factory supplied some of Leica's most famous lenses as well as special optics for military use.

For many years, I used a 50mm ƒ/2.8 Elmar-M lens. This was a post-war refinement of the original ƒ/3.5 Elmar with lanthanum glass to improve performance. Notice the round iris. At ƒ/2.8, it was a bit soft and perfect for portraits. I bought it at a swap meet in Houston, Texas. That was one of those social events where old geezers rented tables in a hotel for a weekend, opened trunks full of camera odds and ends, gossiped, talked camera, and maybe made some money (and maybe drank a bit?). The Internet and eBay largely killed off these meets.

One of the finest lenses from the 1950s was the 50mm ƒ/2.0 Dual-Range Summicron (the Type 2 Summicron). Rangefinder lenses could only focus down to about 3 feet. So once again, Leica developed goggles to adjust the field of view. Mount the goggles on the lens, and it would push a release button, allowing the helicoid to focus to about 1.5 feet. I still use this lens. Mine has pristine coating.

This is a Type 2 50 Summicron without the close-focus mechanism. You will never see more meticulous mechanical finishing and craftsmanship. They were heavy because the mounts were chrome-plated brass. The optical quality is almost as good as any 50mm lens today.

These are Series VI filters for black and white film. I still use them on my M2, a Rolleiflex, and on a 4×5" camera. Series filters do not have threads. You place them into an adapter holder, which is threaded for the appropriate lens. Many older Leica lenses were E39 size, and you can buy E39 filters that screw in directly. I wonder why Leica did not make bayonet mount filters, like Zeiss and Rollei? 

This is the Leitz polarizer filter. Because you can not see the effect through the lens, as with a single-lens reflex camera, this filter was designed with a pivot. Swing the filter out, view through it, adjust the amount of polarization desired, then pivot it 180° in front of the lens. Brilliant.

This is the folding metal hood for the Summicron lens. It was beautifully made but bulky. Note that cinematographers use larger barn door hoods with their $100,000 lenses. (You can always tell an amateur photographer or internet warrior; he is the guy who will argue vehemently in forums that he does not need a hood because he thinks his kit zoom lenses have some sort of magic modern coatings rather than spend 2 seconds and simply attach the hood.)

Leica-Meter

The Leica rangefinder cameras before the M5 of 1971 did not have built-in light meters. So for models M3, M2, M4, and MP, Leica marketed these elegant little CDS meters that fit into the flash shoe and coupled with the shutter speed dial. Another clever design, and more proof that Leica was a master of inventing unique accessories. Problem: the meter used mercury PX625 batteries, which are now banned. But hearing aide batteries work at the correct 1.35 volts. Unfortunately, many of these meters suffered battery leakage and are now ruined. 

Leica M2

This is the Leica M2 camera. It was similar to the M3, but the viewfinder had a wider-angle view and could mount a 35mm lens without the goggle attachment. I bought this gorgeous example from a friend here in town. A 1980s-vintage Type 4 50mm ƒ/2.0 Summicron lens is on the body. 

1958 advertisement for USA market announcing the new Leica M-2 camera

E. Leitz introduced the M2 in 1958 at a cost of around $280 in the US market. Recall that in those days, so-called "fair trade" (i.e., price-fixing) laws often fixed the price of an item among all retailers. Fair trade laws were fought in the courts, and by mid-1975, fair trade had been eliminated in 25 states. 

Photojournalists around the world used Leicas. Cuban photographer Alberto Kordahe took this iconic photograph of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara with a Leica M2 and 90mm lens. The title is Guerrillero Heroico ("Heroic Guerrilla Fighter"). The Wikipedia article is an interesting read. Hmm, even the anti-capitalists liked Leicas.

This is my second M2 body. My stepdad bought this one (and the Dual-Range 50mm lens in the previous pictures) in 1966. He lived in Greece, and at that time, such luxury goods were taxed at over 100 percent. So a friend bought it in Germany and brought it back. 

This is the 90mm ƒ/2.8 Tele-Elmarit lens from the early-1980s, a compact and handy 90 for travel use. I used it for 25 years. The rubber hood included a holder for Series 5.5 filters, which were quite rare. 

This is the ground-breaking Russar 20mm lens, made in the Soviet Union. This was a symmetrical super-wide lens with a deeply-protruding rear lens element. It was only a ƒ/5.6 lens, but was contrasty and had great color. The original patents were from Michail Rossinov in 1946. In 1951, Zeiss modified the design for their legendary Biogon super-wide lens. Lomography has re-introduced this 20 (now made by Zenit) with M-mount to use with modern film or digital cameras. I am not sure how well it will work on digital, but the fact that it is still in production after 60 years is pretty amazing. And Zeiss still makes Biogons in mounts for various cameras. The famous Hassselblad SWC camera used a 38mm Biogon lens.

Some people claimed that Leica lenses were tailored for the color response of Kodak's famous Kodachrome film. That is probably just hyperbole, but properly exposed Kodachrome slides were brilliant.

Closing Notes

Leica film cameras and lenses are among the few photographic products that hold their value for decades. There is still an active market for film Leicas on auction sites. If you could afford the initial cost, any lens lasted for decades and often could be sold at a profit. 

Leica still makes cameras, both film and digital models. Leica Camera AG may be one of the few  camera companies that is profitable today. The digital models resemble the classic rangefinder bodies but are somewhat thicker. They are expensive, and the lenses, still the best in the world, are breathtaking in cost seriously expensive. 

As a result of the cost of entry, the internet world is full of Leica-haters, mostly the jealous "photographers" who post on forums about how their brand xyz camera is so much better because it has more functions and more buttons and is equipped with a super-duper zoom kit lens. Dpreview attracts the most toxic of these fanbois and photo-frauds. As Roger Hicks writes in his amusing personal photographic journey, Leicaphilia, "Leica-haters may refuse to believe it, but Leicas are cameras for people who take their photography seriously."

On the opposite note, there are fans who blather on about their Leicas. On blogs, they write nonsense such as "I can really see the Leica heritage and century of precision and lens crafting in these jpegs taken handheld with my new Leica xyz." "My (digital jpeg) pictures have that Leica glow." Time to gag or retch. Leicaphilia wrote about deconstructing the Leica mystique. 

But the M Monochrom is tempting: a digital camera with an 18 pixel CCD monochrome sensor - yes, black and white only. The haters on the camera sites scoff, but obviously many never used black and white film (and it is clear many of them know almost nothing about photography anyway). But it is $8000 - hmmm, maybe I'll ask my daughter to buy me one. Phase One sells a monochrome back and camera for about $55,000. Maybe I will order that one.....

If you are interested in a rangefinder camera, the 35MMC blog has a handy article on what is a rangefinder and how it differs from a focus system that projects the image on a frosted glass or plastic (the single lens reflex type of camera). 

If you are serious about improving your photography, Mike Johnston from The Online Photographer recommends The Leica as a Teacher. "I suggest shooting with nothing but a Leica and one lens for a year. Shoot one type of black-and-white film (yes, even if you're completely devoted to color and digital, and hate film and everything it stands for. You don't have to commit to this forever; it's an exercise). Pick a single-focal-length 50mm, or 35mm, or 28mm. It doesn't have to be a "good" lens—anything that appeals to you and that fits the camera will do. Carry the camera with you all day, every day. Shoot at least two films a week. Four or six is better (or shoot more in the spring and fall and less in the dead of summer and winter). The more time you spend shooting, the better." 

Mike Johnston also wrote a short history of the 24×36mm format, first used by Ernst Leitz's Oscar Barnack in his UR-Leica experimental camera, and how this format has lingered into the digital era as a semi-standard size for the sensors (so-called "full-frame," which was formerly known as the miniature format). 

Update August 25, 2014 - Famous Leica Users

Here is Brigitte Bardot in Cannes in 1953 with her Leica IIIF IIIC (similar to the same as my dad's IIIC, but she was not his friend).

Here is Elvis with his Leica. He was not a family friend, either. He has his left index finger on the viewfinder window.

Queen Elizabeth with her Leica M3. Sigh, also not a family friend.

Erwin Rommel had one, too.

Update February 28, 2015 - Some Tri-X Examples

On my 2014 trip to Burma, (Myanmar), I took Kodak Tri-X 400 film in my Leica M2. 

This is a scene from the waterfront of Mandalay, with the Irrawaddy River in the background, taken with my 35mm ƒ/2 Summicron lens (pre-aspherical model) with yellow filter. The contemporary Tri-X is amazing and has slightly finer grain that the version of a few decades ago.

This is the unused Pegu Club in Rangoon, the former exclusive English officers' club once patronized by notables like George Orwell and Rudyard Kipling.

This is the central train station in Rangoon (Yangon), also with the 35mm Summicron lens.

Update January 2016

The Online Photographer blog had an interesting description of a visit to the treasure vaults at the George Eastman House. The vaults contain 16,000 significant cameras. The author described how Kodak was a pioneer in digital technology and had predicted the fall in film sales, but was unable to make money on digital hardware. 

Update March 2017

This is the cover of the Japanese journal, Photographic Industries, showing a Leica M3 with an unusual reflex-viewing attachment and a long-focus lens.  

A 1960s advertisement for the Leica M4 emphasizing the essentials  of photography. Better not show this to the contemporary crowd who insist that photography is not possible without 10⁸ megapixels, autoexposure, enormous penile stabilized zoom lenses, equivalence, their "workflow" with Lightroom, and, most important of all, autofocus. Oh, the the horror of it all.

Update Sep. 24, 2020

I found a price list for Leitz products from January 15, 1974, from E. Leitz in Rockleigh, New Jersey. These are "official" prices. Retail at the discount venders was probably 10 or 15 percent lower. Note how a Leicaflex SL with 50mm ƒ/2 lens was $1197.00. At that time, you could buy a Nikkormat with 50mm ƒ/2 for around $250. So yes, the Leicaflex was "better," but would you really ever see the improvement on a photo print? Using the U.S. Inflation Calculator, that $1197 in 1974 equates to $6311 in 2020, so a half or less than an equivalent modern digital Leica M or SL with lens. 

Appendix A

From an old email from the Leica Users Group forum with USA prices for the M2 camera in the 1960s (in US $ Dollars):

Catalog 35, FEB 60:

M2 body 216.00

M2 w/35mm f/3.5 Summaron 298.50

M2 w/35mm f/2.8 Summaron 321.00

M2 w/35mm f/2 Summicron 390.00

M2 w/50mm f/3.5 Elmar 267.00

M2 w/50mm f/2.8 Elmar 276.00

M2 w/50mm f/2 rigid Summicron 345.00

M2 w/50mm f/2 DR Summicron 384.00

M2 w/50mm f/1.5 Summarit 315.00

M2 w/50mm f/1.4 Summilux 414.00

Catalog 38, JAN 65:

M2 body 264.00

M2X body (no S/T) 225.00

M2 w/35mm f/2.8 Summaron 384.00

M2 w/35mm f/2 Summicron 441.00

M2 w/50mm f/2.8 Elmar 333.00

M2 w/50mm f/2 rigid Summicron 423.00

M2 w/50mm f/2 DR Summicron 465.00

M2 w/50mm f/1.4 Summilux 474.00

Catalog 39, JAN 66:

M2 body 249.00

M2X body (no S/T) 214.00

M2 w/35mm f/2.8 Summaron 372.00

M2 w/35mm f/2 Summicron 412.50

M2 w/50mm f/2.8 Elmar 318.00

M2 w/50mm f/2 rigid Summicron 399.00

M2 w/50mm f/2 DR Summicron 438.00

M2 w/50mm f/1.4 Summilux 447.00

Some 1968 USA prices from a Leitz USA catalogue:

M2 no lens  $214

M3 no lens  $288

M4 no lens  $288

Leicaflex SL no lens  $465

Not a Kodak Moment - Demise of an Industrial Empire

Kodak boxes for mounted medium-format 6x6 cm transparencies (as per Rolleiflex or Hasselblad use).

Dear readers, those of you who were photographers before 2005 or so remember Eastman Kodak Company, the industrial Goliath that dominated the photographic world during the film era. The name "Kodak" and the yellow box color were ubiquitous symbols of American industrial might throughout the world. You could see the Kodak logo on shop signs and film packages everywhere, from the local WalMart to a mom and pop store in San Jose, Costa Rica, to a kiosk in Athens, Greece. Everyone knew that Kodak's products were high-quality and reliable. The "Kodak Moment" symbolized how easy it was to capture a moment in your life and share the moment with friends and family.

But in the early 2000s, Kodak faltered. Digital cameras using charge-coupled devices (CCD) began to appear at a price suitable for general consumers. Kodak's well-funded research laboratories invented much of the mathematics and technology for digital imaging. Their professional-oriented digital cameras were based on Nikon or Canon bodies. But they never successfully made the transition to mass-market digital imaging and kept hoping that film sales would persist. In January of 2012, the company filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection. People were shocked - how could this possibly happen? How could management have so totally fouled up an astonishing legacy?

There had been plenty of warnings. In 2011, a Forbes Magazine contributor wrote about How Success Killed Eastman Kodak. On January 4, 2012, the Wall Street Journal wrote:

Was it a failure of imagination? Was it entrenched convictions and provincial thinking? Was it one restructuring too far?   

For Kodak—perhaps the iconic American brand of the 20th century—it was all those things.

In an age when global competition has radically altered business overnight, when companies have had to be fleet of foot, Eastman Kodak was the unblinking deer in the headlights. Wednesday, the extent of the roadkill became fully apparent, with the news that Kodak is readying its papers for Chapter 11.

This company failed long ago. Kodak, based in Rochester, N.Y., claims to have invented digital photography but ceded that market to competitors such as Nikon, Sony and Canon. It hung onto its identity, film, and watched it fade before its eyes.

Then there were the restructurings, one after another, a thrashing-about that found Kodak selling unrelated products and finally pitching headlong into the savagely competitive printer business. It got savaged.

An analysis in Forbes underlined the real issue:

Answer:  The organization overflowed with complacency. I saw it, maybe in the late 1980s. Kodak was failing to keep up even before the digital revolution when Fuji started doing a better job with the old technology, the roll-film business. With the complacency so rock-solid, and no one at the top even devoting their priorities toward turning that problem into a huge urgency around a huge opportunity, of course they went nowhere. Of course strategy sessions with the BIG CEO went nowhere. Of course all the people buried in the hierarchy who saw the oncoming problems and had ideas for solutions made no progress. Their bosses and peers ignored them.

I recommend this article from the ieee usa's today's engineer, titled, "The Kodak Moment is Dead; Long Live the Kodak Moment" for a short summary of George Eastman's pioneering brilliance in popularizing the photographic process for the ordinary consumer and then how the great Kodak corporation missed the conversion to the digital era.

Examples

Let us take a short walk through photographic history and see some examples of how Kodak changed all our lives. Here are some professional examples.

Atlantic City, New Jersey, March, 1920.  From U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey

This is a  photograph of Atlantic City, New Jersey, part of a pioneering aerial photographic survey of the coast of New Jersey, performed by pilots from the Army Air Corps for the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in March of 1920. Aerial photography had proven its worth during World War I, and the early-1920s were a period of great experimentation in the new and exciting form of remote sensing. Many people had never seen their homes from an aerial view, and had no idea how they fit in relation to surrounding neighborhoods and topographic features. Kodak was a pioneer in high-resolution roll film and lenses for aerial photographic surveying. I scanned this frame from a paper print in the archives of the US Army Corps of Engineers' Beach Erosion Board, now at the Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory in Vicksburg, Mississippi. (To consider: will your descendants be able to read your your digital files in 9 decades? You know that answer....)

According to the metadata:

From the Annual Report of the Director, U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey June 30, 1920 (p. 88): "In March 1920, the Army Air Service photographed the coast line of New Jersey from Cape May to Seabright. A single flight was made, using the k-1 camera. The plane flew at an altitude of 10,000 feet, and under very good air conditions. The camera was mounted in gimbals, with a lead weight at its lowest point to assist in maintaining the optical axis of the camera in a vertical position. Level bubbles were placed on the camera to aid in keeping the camera in the proper position. The photographs are being used to revise the charts of the coast of New Jersey. The individual photographs are 18 x 24 cm. in size, and the approximate scale is 1:10000. The photographs are mounted in strip mosaics, for convenience sake, not over 4 feet in length. The length is generally determined by the position of control points. This composite photograph is compared with the topographic sheet of the same area and control points identified. The scale of the photographic mosaic is determined, and by means of pantograph the data are reduced to the scale of the chart and transferred from the photographs to tracing paper."

"The photographing of the 120 miles of coast line took less than 2 hours time in the airplane. The development of the films and printing took 2 days’ time of one man. Two rolls of film were used, a total of 183 photographs. The work of interpreting the photographs, assembling mosaics, comparison with topographic sheets, and reduction to the scale of the chart of the outside shore line required 15 days office work by one engineer."

Hurricane damage, Atlantic City, New Jersey, Sep. 15, 1944. From Beach Erosion Board archives, US Army Corps of Engineers.

Damage of the boardwalk at Atlantic City, New Jersey, Sep. 15, 1944. From Beach Erosion Board archives, US Army Corps of Engineers.

Aerial photography also was invaluable to document storm damage along the coasts. The 1944 hurricane caused significant damage along the Jersey shore, Long Island, and Rhode Island. This was during World War II, and Kodak was manufacturing an astounding amount of aerial film for the Allied military forces to use in the war effort. 

Kodak also made film for "miniature" cameras, meaning 24×36mm frames on 20 and 36-exposure rolls. My father took this photograph of the Daughters of the American Revolution's Memorial Continental Hall on 16th Street in Washington, DC, in 1939. The film was nitrate-based but is still stable. He used a Perfex Camera, made by the Candid Camera Corporation of Chicago, Illinois (at that time, he could not afford a Leica).

Time Magazine cover, November 2, 1953.

In late 1945, the war was over. America prospered. The Great Depression had ended with the war, Americans were working, the Middle Class was growing as never before, and everyone was taking photographs. Time Magazine prepared this cover for its November 2, 1953 cover, Vol LXII, No. 18. A Kodak yellow box (probably Kodachrome) is supporting a Leica IIIC rangefinder camera, with eyeballs in the finder windows.

Book describing use of the German-made Retina camera.

Kodak never succeeded in matching the superb Leica and Zeiss Contax rangefinder cameras. But Kodak's better cameras, the Retina series, also came from Germany and were equipped with Carl Zeiss or Rodinstock lenses.

In the 1940s and 1950s, GAF, Ansco, Dupont, and 3M competed with their own films, but Kodak continued to dominate the market. Overseas, Agfa, Ilford, Orwo, and Adox rebuilt from the war and offered excellent black and white emulsions. But for personal use, Kodachrome was Kodak's crowning achievement in color photography. Kodachrome slides had brilliant color (maybe not "natural," but vivid). The early Kodachrome was only ASA 10 speed, and later 12, but photographers managed. I laugh when fanboys on camera forums complain that brand xx digital camera "only" works up to ISO 6400 or so. Obviously they never practiced photography with film.

Personal Photographs

On a  personal note, my family's early photographs were almost surely taken on Kodak film and printed on Kodak paper. We would not have had access to German or French products then.

Revere Beach, Massachusetts, approx. 1911. Photographer unknown. Scanned from a paper print.

The family in an open touring car, approx. 1915. Scanned from a paper print.

My father also used Kodak film in the post-war era. 

At the Parthenon, Athens, Greece, 1952 or 1953. Kodachrome transparency.

Harbor of Genoa, approx. 1954. Kodachrome transparency.

The frame above shows an early trip to Italy with Leica in hand. He used his Leica IIIC camera with 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens, exactly like the model in the Time cover. Some photographers said Leica tailored the color response of their post-war lenses to Kodachrome, although I doubt you could verify this. I still use that camera and Summitar lens.

Ctesiphon, Iraq, 1957. Kodachrome film.

My father took this Kodachrome of the ancient ruins at Ctesiphon, Iraq, during a work assignment in Baghdad. Our family never moved to Iraq because of a coup or revolution - a familiar story in that part of the world.

Shwedagon Pagoda, Rangoon, Burma, 1957 or 1958.

Bangkok, Thailand, 1957

Kodachrome followed us to Asia. Processing Kodachrome was a challenge. In the 1950s, Kodachrome came with a mailer that represented the cost of developing and mounting in cardboard mounts. Because of the complex and precise chemical nature of the process, the laboratories were in the United States, France, and England. International mail service was often undependable, so my father would give the exposed rolls to a coworker or friend who was returning to the USA. He would send the films to Kodak and collect the developed rolls. Then he or another American on the way back to Greece or Asia would bring us the films. Turn-around time: about 4 or 6 months. It was a treat to see what we had photographed so long before. There was no instant gratification back then.

Vendor on a beach, somewhere in Attica, Greece, 1963

Waiting at Ellinikon International Airport, Athens, Greece, 1964.

Black and white film recorded other family moments. Notice how much data is still in these frames. Will digital files last 5+ decades? (You know the answer, certainly not.)

New York harbor, 1967

This is a frame from New York in December of 1967. The technician at L&L Photo scanned it from Kodacolor 100 film, badly faded but effectively recovered via Photohsop. Many of these early color emulsions have faded, but at least the image data are still present.

The railroad cut from Belmont Street, Vicksburg, Mississippi, 2002. 4x5" Tri-X film.

Tri-X sheet film, commonly 4×5" or 8×10", was a standard for US landscape photographers for decades. Many fine art photographers used it exclusively, developing it in Kodak's HC110 developer. Both sizes are still sold.

Residence room, St. Francis Convent, Vicksburg, Mississippi, 2003. Kodachrome 25 film.

This is a 2003 photograph from one of the residence rooms in the St. Francis Xavier Convent and Academy in Vicksburg (now the Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation). The room was dark, and I used a tripod to support a Leica M3 with 35 mm f/2 Summicron-RF lens. Kodachrome 25 was not a usual media for this type of scene, but the unique palette and extra fine grain worked well for architecture.

Shotgun shacks, Vicksburg, Mississipi. Ektar 25 film, Rolleiflex 3.5F camera.

I thought Ektar 25 color negative film was one of Kodak's amazing products. With good lenses, the detail was astonishing. It was contrasty, but perfect for overcast days. I took this view of shotgun shacks with a Rolleiflex 3.5F camera with 5-element Zeiss Planar lens (tripod-mounted).

Camel in Üçhisar, central Cappadocia, Turkey, taken with a compact Kodak LS743 digital camera.

Kodak's early consumer-oriented digital cameras were decent. The jpeg compression was too great, but all manufacturers were experimenting in those days. I am not sure why Kodak could not compete with the other electronics companies.

Kodachrome 25 packages, last production before discontinuation.

I used Kodachrome 25 until the last processing in 2010. To its credit, Kodak supported processing of Kodachrome for 65 years. The 25 required slow and methodical work, but the color palette and fine grain suited me, and Leica lenses brought out its best characteristics. For decades, National Geographic magazine's photographers used Kodachrome almost exclusively.

1950s and 1960s Kodak film cans

Kodak's packaged 35 mm film in these high quality cans. In the 1950s, the cans were steel, with different color paint inside versus outside. The lids had a rubber gasket to keep the film dry and fresh until use. This was top-quality packaging. Later, the cans became aluminum, and finally plastic around 1975. People found innumerable other uses for these little cans.

Super-8 Tri-X film packages.

Kodak also made many emulsions in movie formats. Home movies were largely replaced by video recording in the early 1980s. Unlike still photography, the quality of each movie frame was low, and video was more than suitable for most casual home use. But if you are a film-maker, you can still buy Kodak color negative and black and white films in Super-8, 16mm, 35mm and 65mm sizes. Amazing.

Final Thoughts

Some of Kodak's great new ideas were so poorly conceived, you wonder what corporate talking mouth approved them. The Instamatic camera and film system of the 1960s was a great success, with millions and millions sold. Then they tried 110 - a smaller format film that produced mediocre optical results unless you used top-quality lenses. Then they introduced the disk, with an even smaller size film. Consumers were even less impressed. And finally, there was APS (Advanced Photo System but really the Amateur Photo System), which had a smaller film size then traditional 35mm but minimal benefit in equipment size. Ken Rockwell has a scathing article on the APS fiasco. As Mr. Rockwell wrote, "APS gave crummier results, cost more to buy the film, and there were fewer places to get it developed. Who cared? No one did, so it died on the vine." Do major corporations develop boneheads in-house? But the term APS lives on as the size of the smaller sensors in digital cameras (now you know where the name comes from).

The good news for still photographers: you can still buy excellent black and white film from Kodak, Fujifilm, Fomapan, and Adox. Adox is the world's oldest film company, in production since 1860. Some of the emulsions are derivatives of the classic Dupont thin-emulsion films from the 1940s and 1950s. For many years, they were produced in Yugoslavia/Croatia by Fotokemika via a complicated set of transfers and licenses, but Fotokemika ceased production in late 2012. The Adox web page will provide information.

I still occasionally use 4×5" Tri-X in a wood Tachihara view camera and 120-size Panatomic-X film in a Fuji GW690II rangefinder camera. The Panatomic-X is 30 years expired but has been frozen and is just fine. I develop it in Agfa Rodinal developer. Those of you who have never used film: buy a used camera and go analog - that will be the most educational thing you can do to improve your photography. You can't call yourself a photographer if you have never used film.

This was written on December 31, 2013.  Happy New Year to all readers, and thank you for reading!

Update Dec. 2014

During a recent trip to Rangoon, Burma, I decided to use Tri-X to match the old-fashioned ambiance of the setting. I exposed it in my 1966-vintage Leica M2 and developed the rolls in Kodak HC110 developer. The current Tri-X is finer-grain than before, but it still retains the classic Tri-X look. A coworker even thought these were vintage photographs until I showed her that they were only a month old.

My advice once again:  Buy and use film!

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Appendix A.
Excerpts from a Kodak article in Forbes Magazine, September 7, 1998. 
(Added Feb. 6, 2014)

Eastman Kodak Co. Chief Executive George Fisher, 57, leans back in his chair, relaxed. Kodak has just announced its second-quarter earnings, which far exceeded analysts expectations.  Wall Street responded by picking up the stock 17% in just three days, to over $86.  Earnings per share rose 43%, to $2.20.  Though the 1998 showing is impressive, it comes as a bounce-back from terrible 1997, when earnings went from $3.82 a share in 1996 to only one penny a share after charges for all of 1997.

Is it for real this time?  Few big companies have disappointed investors more in recent years than this Rochester, N.Y.-based $15 billion (revenues) photographic giant. His biggest move was simplicity itself.  Almost afraid to compete in its basic business-photography-pre-Fisher Kodak had diversified all over the place--into pharmaceuticals, office equipment, batteries.  Fisher told employees that images, not aspirin, were their business, and that long-feared digital imaging was an ally-not an enemy.  He pointed to the huge potential of emerging markets like China and India... Out went such businesses as Sterling Drug, clinical diagnostics and household products, like Lysol.

The Kodak company Fisher took over was very much in the hold of the older U.S. blue chips: it was heavily integrated, preferring to make as many components of its products as possible.  Fisher is slowly changing the mold, mainly through joint ventures:  with Intel, to produce sensor chips for digital cameras; another with AOL, to send processed photos to customers and digital form over the Internet.

Kodak has introduced digital cameras ranging in price from the below $1000 to $15,000, as well as a host of consumer and professional films in the last year. Fisher says Kodak has improved cycle time in some product areas tenfold in the past four years.

To improve coordination at top, Fisher created the chief operating officer. Joining him is Daniel Carp, president and chief operating officer.  Carl Kohrt and Eric Steenberg serve as assistant chief operating officers. Kohrt is responsible for the Asia-Pacific region-particularly China, where Kodak has scored big against its Japanese rival Fuji.

With almost 11,000 jobs still slated for elimination and, according to Steenburgh, plenty of costs still to cut, you can look to Kodak to continue to improve profit margins rather than build revenues for the immediate future...

Maybe Fisher wasn't the miracle man everyone expected him to be.  Though it took longer than people thought it would, he's definitely turned the super tanker around.

(Well, no, he did not turn the super-tanker around.)


UPDATE Jan. 2016: The Online Photographer blog had an interesting description of a visit to the treasure vaults at the George Eastman House. The author described how Kodak was a pioneer in digital technology and had predicted the fall in film sales, but was unable to make money on digital hardware. 

Update June 2019: The Online Photographer blog featured an interesting article in 2012 about Kodak filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Read some of the comments from readers who shared their experiences with Kodak products or customer representatives. 

The Economist magazine wrote about how Fujifilm was more nimble during the tumultuous switch to digital imaging.