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1 week ago
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Source: AFP
Photographer Franziska Stuenkel likes to instrumentality spontaneous municipality shots, truthful she needs a nimble camera that is acceptable to spell erstwhile inspiration strikes: her German-made Leica M11.
"I person to beryllium precise speedy and discreet," said the Berlin-based creator who captures reflections of radical walking past windows, their contours merging with the shapes down the glass.
Stuenkel's compact Leica is the cleanable camera for the job, the 51-year-old told AFP.
Famous for its pocket-sized and retro-style devices, the Leica marque is celebrating a milestone arsenic it marks 100 years since its archetypal commercialized camera was presented to the public.
The Leica institution was founded successful 1869 by the entrepreneur Ernst Leitz successful the metropolis of Wetzlar successful occidental Germany, primitively manufacturing optical lenses and microscopes.
But it was not until 1925 that the Leica 1 camera was introduced astatine the Leipzig Spring Fair.
Leica cameras went connected to go the instrumentality of prime for salient photographers for years to come, including legendary photojournalists Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Even today, the nifty camera with a reddish dot inactive holds its ain successful a marketplace dominated by Japanese giants specified arsenic Sony, Canon and Nikon.
'Better photographer'
Working with a Leica "makes you a amended photographer", said British creator Alan Schaller, who uses a monochrome mentation of the M11 -- a integer camera with manual controls.
Schaller has got truthful utilized to adjusting the aperture, shutter velocity and airy sensitivity manually that helium said helium can present bash it "faster than immoderate automatic device".
One 100 years on, Leica cameras are inactive assembled by manus successful a mill successful Wetzlar, northbound of Frankfurt.
Source: AFP
In the dust-free assembly room, 70 workers equipped with precision screwdrivers and anti-static tweezers physique the devices by manus from much than 600 parts.
It's a painstaking occupation "that requires a batch of experience", said Peter Schreiner, caput of camera assembly.
In different country nearby, lenses are polished to wrong 0.1 millionth of a metre earlier they are glued and lacquered.
After a hard decennary successful the 2000s, Leica has turned its fortunes astir by afloat embracing integer cameras, which present relationship for the immense bulk of sales.
The institution inactive makes a fistful of analogue devices -- including the M6, a relative of the M11.
Leica's main enforcement Matthias Harsch said income are projected to person reached a grounds 600 cardinal euros ($660 million) successful 2024/25, with yearly maturation adjacent to 10 percent.
Leitz Phone
Total planetary income of integer cameras grew by lone 4 percent past year, to 6.8 cardinal euros, according to Germany's GfK user institute.
Source: AFP
Innovation remains astatine the bosom of the brand, with a probe fund of "more than 10 percent of sales", according to Harsch.
Beyond cameras, Leica has diversified into watches and laser projectors for location cinema, arsenic good arsenic cameras for smartphones.
Leica lenses tin present beryllium recovered successful smartphones made by the Chinese institution Xiaomi arsenic good arsenic successful the Leitz Phone, designed by Leica with Sharp for the Japanese market.
But caller technology tin ne'er regenerate the romance of the Leica camera, according to Harsch.
"With a phone, you instrumentality snapshots. Everything other is photography," helium said, insisting that the 2 strands of the company's enactment bask a "peaceful coexistence".
Source: AFP
Leica's telephone cameras and its accepted models are besides worlds isolated erstwhile it comes to terms -- the M11 costs upwards of 9,000 euros, positive a fewer 1000 euros other for a lens.
North America represents astir 20 percent of Leica's full income and the institution is "assessing the impact" of tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump, Harsch said.
Leica operates much than 120 of its ain stores worldwide, including successful the United States, with much openings planned this year.
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Source: AFP
