Oskar Barnack Builds the Ur-Leica

In 1914, Oskar Barnack — a mechanic and keen amateur photographer suffering from asthma — was looking for a camera light enough to carry on hikes. Working in the Ernst Leitz optical factory in Wetzlar, Germany, he built a small prototype he called the Lilliput camera. It used 35mm cinema film, already widely available, but exposed each frame at twice the normal cinema height to get a larger negative.

That prototype, later nicknamed the Ur-Leica (German for "original Leica"), is the direct ancestor of every compact camera ever made. Barnack's key insight was simple: make a very small negative, then enlarge it onto paper. In 1914 that idea was radical — photographers carried large glass-plate cameras into the field.

World War I and Barnack's fragile health delayed commercial development. Ernst Leitz I died in 1920, but his son Ernst Leitz II believed in Barnack's invention and authorised production. The camera that reached shops in 1925 was called the Leica I, and it changed photography forever.