In 1913 an enthusiastic German photographernamed Oskar Barnack designed for his own use a camera small enough to slip easily into a pocket, yet as accurate as any hulking news camera made. It used cinema film. Nothing happened till the War was over, then manufacture started under the trade name of Leica. Since then Photographer Barnack’s pocket camera has become one of the best known precision cameras in the world. With the special lenses that have been ground to fit in, the Leica (and approximately six similar miniature cameras of rival manufacturers) has profoundly affected the entire field of photography and newspaper illustration. Its enthusiasts support some 300 special attachments and have produced a shelf of books, several candid-camera tradepapers, and a name: minicam.
More than 5,000 minicam enthusiasts were willing to crowd into an exhibition gallery in Rockefeller Center last week to see what experts could do with their minicams. All of the 300 prints on view were enlarged and unretouched from the original postage stamp negatives. They represented the work of 25 photographers, ranging from socialite amateurs to Professional Photographer Thomas D. McAvoy of Washington, whose candid-camera shots of President Roosevelt (on ammonia-sensitized film) first appeared in TIME two months ago.
Perhaps the most expert minicam operator is Dr. Paul Wolff of Frankfort, Germany, who bought one of the first Leica cameras, has since paid for his passion for traveling by selling his tourist snapshotsTwenty-eight Wolff prints were on view. Easily the most striking photograph was a head-on shot of a sneering horse (see ait) taken in 1/60th of a second on panchromatic film by F. Fahnestock of New York.
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