Leica camera - Most expensive camera ever sold at an auction in Vienna, Austria

Leica camera - Most expensive camera ever sold at an auction in Vienna,Austria

A rare 1923 Leica went for 2.16 million euros at an auction in Vienna at the weekend, making it the most expensive camera ever sold, the auctioneer said.

An anonymous buyer won the bidding battle for the German camera, which still works and is one of around 25 test versions of Leica 0-Series cameras produced in 1923, two years before the start of serial production. Only half of them have been preserved.

                                             Most expensive camera - Leica camera Picture

Including the buyer's premium, the price paid at the WestLicht auction on Saturday was more than seven times the starting price of 300,000 euros, WestLicht said.

It did not identify the previous owner, who it said was a private collector in Europe.

A different Leica 0-series sold in November 2007 for 336,000 euros at auction, and then again in May 2011 for 1.32 million euros including the buyer's premium, WestLicht said.

The Guinness world record for the Largest collection of film camera was set by Richard LaRiviere (USA), who owns 894 different film cameras.

Guinness World Records also recognized the world record for the Largest collection of still cameras (still photography) was set by Dilish Parekh of Mumbai, India, who has a collection of 4,425 antique cameras.

The camera was picked up by an anonymous bidder, and the price paid was more than seven times the starting price of €300,000. The bidding stopped at €1.8 million, and the rest is for taxes and other fees.

In 1923, the German photography equipment manufacturer released only 25 test versions of Leica 0-series cameras.

These test models were the prototypes for the famous Leica A cameras, the first commercially successful compact cameras to use 35mm film.

Serial production started about two years after that. Of the 25 test versions, only half the number have survived.

The World's Most Expensive Camera is still in working condition.

Leica was founded in 1849, specialising in the development of lenses and microscopes. Optical engineer Oskar Barnack worked in the microscope division, but was a keen photographer in his spare time.

Most expensive camera: Leica camera breaks world record Video:-


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World's oldest and most expensive camera set world record

A Giroux “Daguerreotype” – the world’s first commercially-produced camera – is expected to set a world record price when it goes up for auction this May at WestLicht Auctions in Vienna. The previously undocumented camera has been in private ownership in northern Germany for generations and is in remarkable condition given it is 170 years old.

The wooden sliding-box camera was made in Paris in September 1839 by Alphonse Giroux, the brother-in-law of Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, the inventor of the first practicable photographic process. Daguerre even signed the camera to verify its authenticity. Only a few of these cameras are known to exist worldwide and all of those are in public museums.

Every detail including the plaque signed by Daguerre, the lens, the black velvet interior and the ground-glass screen are in their original state and the camera also comes with the extremely rare original instructions in German. These instructions, entitled, “Praktische Beschreibung des Daguerreotyp’s” were published by Georg Gropius in Berlin 1839 and feature 24 12x20cm pages with 18 illustrations in 5 plates showing the equipment used for producing Daguerreotypes in accordance with Daguerre’s invention.

The cameras produced by Daguerre’s brother-in-law are more opulently finished that those of the competition and the selling price of 400 Francs was very high, representing approximately the annual income of an average working man at the time. There is no record of the total number of cameras that Giroux produced, but since cheaper and improved cameras came onto the market relatively quickly it is assumed that the numbers were limited.

Making Daguerrotypes is a relatively involved process and the camera was originally sold with all the equipment necessary for their production. This included fuming and mercury boxes, a spirit burner, the silver-covered copper plates and the necessary chemicals. In total all the required equipment weighed around 50 kg (110 lb).



How it works

The camera itself consists of two boxes made of different kinds of wood that slide into each other. The larger of the two, which has the lens attached to it, is fixed to the base plate. The back of the smaller box is either the ground glass plate or the holder insert and it fits into the forward box so that the whole camera is lightproof. The interior is lined with black velvet. In order to bring the image into focus the rear box is moved back or forwards along the wooden camera base.

It can then be fixed in position by means of a brass screw, while a fold-out mirror behind the ground-glass screen allows the image to be seen while standing upright.

Initially Daguerre used plates of pure silver but later switched to plates made of silver-plated copper to save on costs. Before the exposure was made the plates were fumed with iodine or bromine inside a special wooden box with the aid of a spirit burner. Under the influence of this fuming process, light-sensitive silver iodide formed on the surface of the plate.

In order to maximise the brightness of the image while focusing the lens’s outer brass fitting was removed. During the exposure the ground glass screen was exchanged for the (now) light sensitive plate (167 x 216 mm). Before the exposure was made the diaphragm was replaced and a swiveling cap served as a shutter. Daguerre suggested exposure times of between 3 and 30 minutes, depending on light conditions.

After the plate was exposed, the photograph was developed with the aid of mercury fumes which adhered to the surface producing a very faint silver image. Development and fixation in a salt or cyanide solution results in a positive image made of grey quicksilver. The tonality of the original pictures varied between grey and blue-grey but, after the introduction of gold toner, they could also be gold, purple or sepia-coloured.


Source: gizmag

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