Like a Leica – copies, replicas, and fakes of the World’s most famous camera

It’s a tribute to Leica that the brand influenced so many other manufacturers. When the first cameras were produced, Leitz failed to register patents in Russia or China, thus the Russians began making Leica copies in the 1930s. With the end of World War II in 1945, governments of countries where German patents had been registered made those patents available free of charge.

Consequently, post-war, camera manufacturers began making their own versions of Leica cameras in countries that included America, China, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia. It’s impossible to list all the cameras that copied, or were inspired by, the Leica. So here just are a few notable examples…

Leica copies

Fed 1/Zorki 1

The Russian Fed 1, made by a company of the same name in Ukraine, appeared in 1934 two years after the Leica II on which it was based. Externally the two cameras are very similar, right down to the Fed 50mm f/3.5 collapsible lens, resembling Leica’s Elmar. The Zorki 1,made by Krasnogorsk in 1950, was a derivative of the Fed 1, making it another Leica II copy. There were many variations of both cameras.

Reid III

Made by Reid and Sigrist in Leicestershire in 1947, the original Reid is a copy of the Leica IIIb with a Taylor Hobson 50mm f/2 lens. Like the Leica, slow speeds from 1/20 second down are adjusted by a separate knob on front of the body. In 1958, this was removed to produce the Reid II, at which point the original camera became known as the Reid III. The same year, the Reid I was a copy of the Leica Standard, itself a variation of the Leica I.

Leotax F

From the Showa Optical Works in Japan came a range of nearly 20 Leotax Leica copy cameras. The Leotax F is a copy of the Leica IIIf, one of the best of the Leica screw-lens cameras. Shutter speeds run 1-1/1,000sec using the traditional Leica twin controls for fast and slow speeds. Standard lenses, in the 39m mount, are the Topcor 50mm f/3.5, f/2.8. f/2 and f/1.5.

Leica inspired cameras

Canon S-II

Early Canons were not exactly Leica copies, but their designs were obviously inspired by Leica. The S-II, made in 1947, strongly resembles the Leica III. The Serenar 5cm f/3.5 lens is similar to Leica’s Elmar f/3.5 with the same 39mm screw fitting. The Leica-like body uses separate dials for fast and slow shutter speeds. Corners of the body, rounded on the Leica, are chamfered on the Canon. The viewfinder and rangefinder are contained in a single eyepiece, rather than Leica’s method of separating them into two.

Minolta-35 Model II

Minolta’s early 35mm cameras were not direct copies of the Leica, but the German camera’s influence is definitely seen in the body style and the Leica 39mm screw-fit lens. Early Minolta-35 cameras used a 24x32mm film format, but the Model II, made in 1953, changed to the traditional 24x36mm. Leica-like twin dials are used for slow and fast shutter speeds. The rangefinder shares its eyepiece with the viewfinder.

Periflex 1

In the early 1950s, Board of Trade restrictions following World War II restricted Leicas from being imported into Britain. So the British Corfield company produced a camera body with a shutter and the Leica 39mm mount. The plan was that photographers who still had Leica lenses from pre-war could purchase an inexpensive extra body for them. Having built it, Corfield decided to add a viewing device which, side-by-side with a normal eye-level viewfinder, took the form of a small periscope manually pushed down into the film plane to magnify part of the image. Then they added a lens in the shape of the Lumar 50mm f/3.5. It sounds like a clumsy idea, but the concept remained and was improved upon continually until 1961.

Leica replicas

0-Series

The original 0-Series prototype cameras, built in a limited number prior to production of the Leica I are still around but fetch literally millions of pounds at auction. But in 2004, to mark the 125th birthday of Leica inventor Oaskar Barnack, Leitz released fully-functioning replicas of the 0-Series. These regularly turn up at specialist auctions for £1,000-plus.

Gold-plated miniatures

Made by a company called Bim Ab/Eurofoto AB in Sweden in the 1990s, comes a set of half-scale gold-plated replicas of the Leica 250, Leica M3, Leica III, Leica I and Ur-Leica, all produced for the collector’s market.

Leica II fakes

Fed and Zorki cameras abound with fake engravings that make them difficult to differentiate from the originals until you check the serial numbers. Others, a lot more obvious to spot, boast strange body coverings like snakeskin, fake wood or gold lamé. Some of these claim to have been made for the Luftwaffe and even engrave a German eagle clutching a swastika in its claws on the body and lens cap. The cameras are made for collectors.

Related reading

• 100 years of the most significant Leica Cameras from 1925-2025
• How the World’s first Leica camera came to be (and changed photography forever)

Follow AP on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok