Leica’s Legendary Craftsmanship: From Barnack’s Vision to the M6. From the full frame size of a digital sensor, to 36 rolls of film in a cannister - 35mm photography begins with Oskar Barnack.

From the earliest days of photography, cameras were hefty, complicated devices. Plates were large and unwieldy, limiting both portability and the opportunities to shoot spontaneously. Oskar Barnack (1879–1936), an ingenious optical engineer at Ernst Leitz Wetzlar in Germany, would change all of that forever.