The Online Photographer

Erwin Puts used to have the old version of the Compendium available as a PDF download. No pictures, schematics or graphs, just the text. But even that is a very interesting read.

Although it is still easily findable online, I can no longer find it on his site, so I won't post a link here.

Yes, he is planning a limited third edition for 2011, per the bottom post here...http://www.imx.nl/photo/page152/page152.html

quote from Mr. Puts' blog:

New edition of the Leica Compendium

There is such a demand for my Leica Compendium book that a third printing is necessary. It will become available end November 2011 and is printed in very limited numbers.

Please let us know when it's available. I want one.

Did it answer your question re: Leica history from a couple months ago?

-Z-

If you are purchasing lenses the book contains MTF charts for all current and most older lenses. A valuable resource for the portrait and landscape photographer to use in comparison to other Leica or Zeiss and Voigtlander lenses. Fantastic resource.

It is a fantastic body of work. I was lucky to get a book from the second run directly from Mr Puts.

It is obvious that Mr. Puts has a robust market for his book, although probably not a large enough one to attract the attention of a traditional publisher. If he were interested in making more copies available, my wife and I own a publishing company that we started to support a similar project. We're a small operation, but we understand the difficulties of publishing a labor of love. If you think Erwin would be interested at all, it would be great to talk to him.

Thanks,
–An enterprising publisher

Even though I own a used Leica M5 in excellent condition that I was able to obtain from a professional photographer; as with all things Leica, this book (selling from $149-$349 new) is a bit too rich for my blood.

Printing the Leica Compendium book in limited quantities assures collector demand will be brisk. Maybe an eBook version for us Kindle, iPad, etc., owners might make it a bit more affordable but I guess I shouldn't hold my breath.

Perhaps he can start a kickstarter project for the next edition?

Regarding the PDF version and it's availability then un-availability: there seems to be quite a story behind it. IIRC the faerie tale goes like this: Once upon a time Mr Puts wrote the 'original' Leica Compendium for a publishing company,but said publisher seems to have 'forgotten' to pay Mr Puts properly. Therefore Mr Puts offered a PDF version (sans graphics) on his site with a request for a donation if found useful and informative. Unfortunately receiving few donations relative to large number of individual downloads. Fast forward to the present with the advent of quality self-publishing resources, Mr Puts has done exactly that for his revised Leica Compendium. I chose to buy the compendium rather than donate for the pdf I had recently downloaded: figured that was a win/win for him and I in that situation.
Reasonably, in my opinion, Mr Puts withdrew the non-revenue pdf prior to the new edition becoming available to avoid undermining his sales potential. It appears from available information that his self-published edition has proven to be much more popular than he imagined and he was compelled to reach a third printing attempting to meet demand. Note: The Publisher's edition from years before is available right now on ebay for over 300 dollars u.s., when for far less once can acquire the current revised edition (which Mr Puts will actually be renumerated for!). Easy choice in my book. (pardon the pun).

FYI: I found the chapters on optics & the lens design process to be exceptionally informative. I found it raised my 'photography IQ' considerably.

Sincerely
Richard in Michigan

I seem to recall that when Erwin authored an earlier, much slimmer edition of the Leica Compendium a few years back, he had some sort of dispute with the publisher and as a result decided to self-publish his works in the future. This may explain why he's in no hurry to sign up with a commerical house to print and distribute his new book.

$150, or $149-349? It is €78 at Lindemanns in Germany, plus shipping. That $-€ difference is much more than the exchange rate allows... maybe the collectors market is already at work?

I can understand and respect Erwin's being reticent to either self-publish more editions, or use a commercial publisher in light of his purported bad experience. I wonder, however, if it would be practical to publish using a Print On Demand system. I've read about this (I think the leader in the market is called Espresso). The customer goes to a location with the Espresso machine, pays for the book, and it gets put onto paper and bound into a physical book. I suppose the quality of photos wouldn't match offset printing, but some book is better than no book, no? It would allow Erwin to make money, and customers to get the books that otherwise wouldn't be available if Erwin doesn't print more. I know the Print On Demand infrastructure is minimal now, but there would be nothing to prevent retailers from printing multiple copies and selling via ebaY, Craigslist, retail etc.

Patrick