Everyone with an interest in the development of photography will observe with dismay the struggling of Kodak to survive in whatever form. The chance that Kodak will continue to produce silver-halide products is slender. One could see for years the writing on the wall: first printing papers were gone, then Kodachrome, then film rolls were bundled in bulk packs to save transport costs, low-selling products were discontinued. A certain optimism could be noted when Kodak introduced improved T-MAX 400 film, indeed an outstandingly good film, but still in the shadow of the classical Tri-X film, the best selling product in the Kodak monochrome range for amateurs. Kodak itself is betting all cards on the movie film products with the excellent color Vision-3 emulsions, but with a massive switch within movie theaters to digital projection, one may wonder how long this range will survive. It is positive that in this domain there seems to be a sprinkle of research within Kodak, but here too the end of the line is in sight: see the new Canon offerings and the active turnaround to digital capture at Arri.
Some observers point to the revival of vinyl LP discs as an option that could happen to silver-halide too, but this is walking on very thin ice. It is however true to note that black-and-white emulsions offer an unparalleled visual experience, but as it happens to many beautiful products, the cost (selling price, darkroom installation and so on) is much higher than the rewards for anyone except the most ardent believer. You can dispose of all chemicals in an environmentally friendly manner, but this again is an additional burden. (No one seems to think about the effects of the piles of batteries and electronic recording media on the environment!).
Not everything is lost by the way: Ilford offers a broad range of products and chemicals and while HP5 + is not a real substitute for Tri-X it comes close. We also have the niche players like Spur and Adox, but these emulsions, excellent in their niche, do not have a broad appeal.

The hybrid way, promoted by the late Geoffrey Crawley as the best of both worlds, has its charm, but when Nikon stopped making the excellent Coolscan products, one could fathom the extent of the niche.

At the end of the day we are faced with a stark choice: even if we would buy lots of films from Kodak, the market in the long run will vanish, sad but true. Ilford may survive as will the niche players, but the practice will be that every photographer for 95% of its pictures will go digital and when money and time permits will produce a handful of analog pictures, as long as the experience and knowledge exists, that can sell for a higher price.

When I visited some months ago a fine art exhibition in Germany, most visitors were approaching or over 60 years old. There are a few younger photographers who explore the silver-halide medium, and they are now thinking about buying lots of film to secure supply for the future.

Perhaps the remarks of Sebastao Salgado (once a Tri-X user and a Leica analog photographer) on the site of DxOoptics where he notes the advantages of digital capture and a Tri-X representation of digital images with the DxO Filmpack3 are insightful.

There are hundreds of thousands of film-loading high-quality cameras floating around, a substantial portion being Leica CRF and SLR models. But the hope that the owners will massively start using film cartridges is futile. If the technique of silver-halide recording will fade in the next decade or so, then we all are responsible for its demise. Perhaps nobody cares and when discussing this topic with the photographers I know I am afraid that will be the case. We all lamented the death of Kodachrome and its unique qualities of representation. Now that it is gone, nobody does mind.

I am convinced that silver-halide technology offers qualities that no other medium can match. There are thousands of photographers around the world who agree by actually using film and there are tens of thousands who agree in principle, but have stopped using film.

If this proportion does not change soon, we know where it will end: very high cost for a roll of film and a very limited choice.

I am asked quite often what three or four lenses I would select that best represent the Leica philosophy.
For this moment in time I would propose the following set:
Super-Elmar-M 3.4/21mm ASPH
Summilux-M 1.4/35 mm ASPH (latest version)
Summicron-M 2/75 ASPH
Here are the arguments:
(1) These lenses offer the best image quality one can get from a Leica lens and each one is the best of class in the current world of optics.
(2) Every one of these lenses is as compact as can be, given the performance and fits seamlessly into the Leica approach of small but potent lenses that can fit into the pocket.
(3) These lenses have a focal length that almost doubles for the next one: 21 - 35 - 75. The spread allows the photographer to select a significantly different point of view and depth of focus.
(4) These focal lengths make optimum use of the inherent capabilities and strengths of the rangefinder concept as implemented by Leica.
(5) This selection gives you a high-speed lens (1.4) and a very high definition aperture (3.4).

If I were to add a fourth lens it would be the Apo-Telyt-M 3.4/135mm. Then you have a span of 21 - 135 or a range of 1 : 6.5.

The selection presented here is my optimum choice for the M9 version. They can be used on the film loading Leica M cameras as well as on the M8 and M8.2 and in this respect are very flexible indeed. Many famous Leica pictures have been made with one of these focal lengths and one might say that especially the 21 and 35 are the iconic focal lengths for the Leica CRF system.
The late Eve Arnold noted that when she photographed people she only had the small black box and herself when taking pictures and the description ‘simple and effective’ that she used to describe her photographic approach might fit the selection of lenses above. The essence of Leica photography is encapsulated in these three lenses and if you have these three and a Leica body the challenge to produce a masterpiece is yours to accept.

Below is a part of the text in a press report of The European Cultural and Creative Industries Alliance
“The European luxury sector is a key driver of sustainable growth and is of particular significance to Europe by contributing to its overall economic health, competitiveness, creativity, innovation and employment.
Consumers agree: a survey carried out in September 2009 (TNS Sofres), showed that 69% of European consumers believe that the luxury sector plays an important role in the health and competiveness of the European economy.
European brands account for about 80% of the worldwide luxury market and among the top 25 worldwide luxury companies, 17 are from the European Union.
The personal luxury goods market remains a key driver of growth for Europe accounting for more than €137 billion of the worldwide luxury goods consumption, in Europe, and employing, in 2010, approximately 800,000 people.
More than 70% of the luxury goods produced in Europe are exported outside the region; the European luxury goods sector continues to design and manufacture in Europe.
Its sustainable business model and drive for innovation and excellence has proven the sector‘s resiliency in the financial crisis.”

One might question the relevance of this initiative for the position of the camera maker Leica.
But one of the forty companies that since october 2011 is a member of the Meisterkreis is Leica, in addition to the watchmaker Lange & Söhne and the Porsche Design Group. To become a member one needs to have excellent reputation, highest quality, best design, innovation and service and offer limited availability in luxury stores.
The luxury market is growing by almost 10% a year, even in this crisis period.
The focus of the group is luxury export to China, because in Europe the luxury market is shrinking. The underlying thought behind this initiative is the development of a new German design culture like the Bauhaus or the Ulmer Schule.
One of the bigger companies in the Meisterkreis is the fountain pen company Montblanc with a turnover of some 700 Million Euro and an Ebdit of 16%.

If you pick the essential elements of this initiative (focus on luxury and exclusivity, design and export to China), you will note that these are exactly the elements that Mr. Kaufmann has talked about in recent interviews about the new strategy for Leica for the next five years. Nowhere in all reports about this Meisterkreis and the membership of Leica is there any reference to photography or cameras. The focus is luxury, design and the establishment of a new culture of luxury consumerism.

Let us wait and see what new products will emerge from Solms and Wetzlar when we put things in this perspective.

The new Nikon D4 has just been announced and confirms the trend that has been sketched out by Canon, as usual the trend setter in the market. With a 16.2 Megapixel 24x36mm CMOS sensor, full video capabilities and ISO speeds up to 204,800 it follows closely the specs of the Canon 1Dx. I have remarked in the past that Canon and Nikon do share many development details ro ensure that both stay on top of the market. The naive idea that two fully different design teams can create fully identical camera models can not be supported. Of course one can say when comparing the features one by one that there are many differences, but basically and strategically the two cameras have the same task.

In a recent comparison between the 24 Megapixel and the 10 Megapixel sensors of the Sony cameras. it was noted that even on a double page spread the quality differences are negligible. And my own comparison between the M8 versus Hasselblad 39 Megapixel or M9 versus S2 show that at least an A3 or better A2 print is needed to show significant and visible differences.

What you see in the high quality segment is a split between 20 Megapixel high-frame-rate, high-sensitivity, video-capable cameras and 80+ Megapixel slow-frame-rate, low-sensitivity studio-based cameras.
Below this flagship segment, you will find 20+ megapixel APS-C models in traditional SLR or mirror-less outfit battling for supremacy with often fanciful claims. It is interesting to see whether the rumored D800 and 5D III will offer the claimed 30+ megapixel sensors. If the Canon/Nikon combine will offer these models is uncertain and at least the improvement in image quality will be technically unnoticeable, but there will be reviewers who see advantages, but what you want to see, you will see.
The Leica M system cannot be fitted in this scheme, but then the M-series has since the M6 been the odd man out and follows its own route hors concours. If we interpret correctly what high level managers in Solms claim this position might end when Leica is heading for the mainstream waters.
In 2012, according to one prediction, 201,287,607,638 digital pictures will be made, that is 6383 pictures for every second or 382967 pictures per minute. Most major photographers in the past produced from 100,000 to 300,000 negatives in their whole life. In other words: globally every minute more pictures are made than a photographer can produce in his/her lifetime.
Now that picture taking is gratuitous and cameras are almost self-governing recording instruments, the picture tsunami is unstoppable since everyone is photographer and model at the same time.
It used to be said that one needs 10,000 hours of training to become a master in a field. It has also been claimed that one can learn the basics of photography in one hour. Currently one needs only the time to read the Quick Install Guide to become a full-fledged photographer. Even the Nikon D4 has face detection. The same feature one finds in the Apple Aperture program.

It is intriguing to see that the modern flagship cameras do not compete with medium-format systems but with movie systems like Red One and Arri.

Interesting as the Vulcan would comment and look what happens next.

Hardly noticed in the Leica world is the decease of two import ant persons in the field of Leica information. Dennis Laney died in 2010 and recently I learned that Franz Steimer of the Steimer Fotoliste collection of CDs had died also. Facts and figures about the Leica range of products are abundantly available, but not always reliable and often incomplete, and these two individuals did their best to fill in gaps and stick to the known knowns as one famous person once noted. There is so much confusion about the facts and figures because the official historical records are sometimes inconclusive or even unreadable (legend has it that Germans are experts in meticulously accounting every part and action, but this allegedly teutonic attitude is overtrumped by human nature), a state of affairs that promotes interpretation and therefore dispute. Another source of confusion is caused by the tendency of writers to rely on other authorities in the absence of access to the original documents.

And exactitude with numbers is not always important.

For the collector and the historian it is of the utmost importance to research the definitive amount of cameras produced in the famous Null-series (Leica 0). The maximum amount is 31 cameras (serial numbers 100 - 130), but most historians agree that a lower amount (perhaps 25) have been made or at least identified. On the other hand no one knows for sure if more cameras have been built without a serial number before the official registration of the number 100 (in itself this is a strange starting number as it was and is common practice to start with 101). This is a bit like the Black Swan principle: the statement that every swan is white is true until one finds a black swan, but not having found one does not imply that a black swan does not exist!

The history of Leica does not have to be rewritten if the number of cameras of the type Leica I is not exactly 58919 and it may be safer to state that about 60000 have been produced. The production numbers for the Leica Luxus have been claimed to range from 60 to 100 and again in this case the exact amount is not important or impossible to finalize, partly because of the habit of the Leitz factory to cater for individual requests (an early idea of the a-la-carte style of production).

The fascination with the exact production numbers is in itself trivial unless when there is a case of considerable collector value. The value of the individual models of the Null-series would drop when it became known that there were fifty more cameras of this type produced. Historians refer to the writings of Barnack to document their case, but no one can be sure that 1) these writings are complete or accurate and 2) that there have been more documents that have been lost.

I am more interested in the question how the relatively low amount of cameras of the type Leica I (the 60000!), made in the period 1925 to 1932 could have had such an impact that the global world of photography changed in a fundamental way. This is the big and important theme and one may add in the same league as when art historians argue that the 100 or so paintings of the Impressionists changed the world of painting.
And even more interesting is it to observe the current changes in the Leica factory where a new élan is creating the products that will define the role and place of Leica in the digital world. Let us hope that a modern Barnack is working at new products ( a modern Berek is already active in the company).

Just as Leica is now forward looking and only pays token tribute to the Leitz heritage, the friends of Leica should start doing the same: the history has been copiously documented and some unknown knowns might still wait to be discovered, but the survival of Leica depends on the future and on persons that produce new knowledge, new insights and new visions.