Unless you deal with a canadian built one, everytime you’ll happen to be fiddling with a Leica lens, “Leitz Wetzlar – Lens made in Germany” is quite possibly the second thing you’re going to read.

The first being the lens type, under the name of Summicron, Noctilux, Elmarit; mysteriously sounding names, the real gateway to a full fledged mithology that generations of photographers solemnly bow to since 1914.

In 2016 I had the opportunity to visit what is known as the “Leitz Park”.

If you somehow sense this building to resemble a film roll, it is because it was actually meant to.

 

Half a museum, half an art gallery, the main hall is an impressive place to stay and walk around.

Light here is, needless to say, everywhere.

Towards the assembly line. A dazzling hallway leads to the production department.

 

Throughout the production line you’re allowed to shoot only in a few spots.

 

No restriction though in the musem. The Ur-Leica (left) and a series I (right)

 

Leica Cine lenses…this is seriously brilliant.

 

Time now to grab a Leica SL, with a 24-90 f2.8-4 Apo Vario Elmarit and stroll around Wetzlar for a while.

Wetzlar is a rather small town so while wandering through you’ll surely come across this very spot.

The story goes that Oskar Barnack, inventor of the orignal 35mm still camera, later know as the Leica (Leitz Camera) took the first shot ever with his invention.

This is the picture he took with a 50 mm lens.

This is the picture I took from that exact same spot, 102 years later, with a digital Leica and the Vario Elmarit zoom set to 50 mm.

This one…