Erwin Puts is Gone

The world of enthusiast photography lost a friend and a unique individual when Erwin Puts passed away in March after a short illness.

Erwin was perhaps the greatest paragon of his type: the independent superfan of a camera brand or system. A great aficionado of the Leica marque, he worked tirelessly and performed truly Protean feats both to learn about the focus of his passion and to generously share what he knew with others.

A precursor of this type of passionate enthusiast was Ernst Wildi, who for many years was an independent expert and booster of Hasselblad. On the modern Internet our friend Thom Hogan has similar expertise with Nikon, although he is as much a gadfly critic as a fan of that company. The late Herbert (Burt) Keppler of Modern Photography and Popular Photography perhaps started out on a similar path as the author of The Pentax Way, but necessarily became more brand-agnostic as his editorial career progressed.

Personally Erwin and I had a regrettable reputation for a short while as what might now be called "frenemies," due to some overenthusiastic public arguments we indulged in many moons ago on the LUG. We had a fundamental difference of outlook: to put it overly crudely, but simply, Erwin venerated Leica optics and I considered Leica just another lensmaker. Those viewpoints could never truly be reconciled. But neither of us were happy with the relationship that resulted, so, in private correspondence, we "buried the hatchet." That was many years ago now. Since then we had a cordial, though not close, relationship. Erwin sent me several kind gifts of his work, including an inscribed copy of his magnum opus The Leica Compendium (Ken Rockwell wrote a review). He wrote innumerable other articles, books, and web and forum posts as well.

Leica, and Leitz before it, has inspired a great deal of supporting literature over the years, more than any other marque, and many of the books have been impressive and deluxe productions. Almost all are to some extent labors of love. Even for a brand that inspires such strong passions, and even with such vigorous competition, it seems safe to say that no one ever loved a camera marque more than Erwin Puts loved Leica in the film years. The Leica Compendium and Jim Lager's monumental three-volume Leica: An Illustrated History must be counted the twin peaks of Leica literature, and thus, perhaps, by logical extension, of all independent writings devoted to the creations of specific camera companies.

Don Morley has written a tribute to Erwin at Macfilos, which nicely hints at Erwin's warmth, enthusiasm, and generosity.

There will never be anyone quite like Erwin; he can never be replaced. His work will survive him and continue to speak for him.

Mike

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Original contents copyright 2021 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Kenneth Tanaka: "I was very sad to see this news. Mr. Puts was unquestionably the ultimate 'superfan' of Leica. But he was more than that. He was a tremendous educator and documenter of not just Leica products but also of lens and camera design. Puts's Leica Compedium is truly a magnificent reference volume for anyone who wants to study the science of photography as well as a bit of brand lore. During the past year I've dived deeper into Leica and, having spent more time with the Compendium, I've come to admire Puts even more. (I just randomly flipped my copy open to a page in the 'Lens Optical Design' section, showing a discussion of '5.9.14. Vignetting and the cosine-to-the-fourth-effect.' Nerd-max! I never met him, but understand from personal accounts that he could be a bit touchy and cantankerous. OK, me too. Still, I thank him for his tremendous work and offer my deepest condolences to his family and close friends."

Joseph Reid: "This is such sad news. Twenty years ago as I first considered buying a Leica, the Google led me to Puts' site. It was a trove of useful information as well as entertaining on an arcane level. How much, I wondered, could one person know about a brand? With Puts and Leica, the answer seemed to be, everything. His Compendium, which eventually became available as a PDF, remains incredibly helpful to anyone shopping the used lens market and faced with sorting through the overwhelming number of lens variants. I bought a hard copy of the Compendium at some point and when the PDF became available I could have sold the hard copy at an obscene profit, were it not for a dog with an itch to eat book bindings."

Comments

[Rodolfo Canet]

Here you can see the late Mr. Puts...

https://valentinsama.blogspot.com/2021/03/el-mundo-leica-pierde-al-gran-erwin.html

The picture is uncredited because the author couldn’t locate the source. He also says Mr Puts’ images are very rare.

[Jeff]

His brother-in-law posted a nice tribute on Erwin’s website, while also noting that the site archives will be restored.

https://photo.imx.nl/

[Steve Rosenblum]

Thanks for this Mike. I admired Erwin and his book has a respected place on my shelf. I would say that Erwin was largely responsible for the modern day veneration of Leica as a brand above all others which is not something I agree with. However, unlike many of today’s YouTube vloggers who use a camera for one day and then post a review (!!), Erwin was extremely meticulous in his testing. Not just bench testing, but real world testing. He had clearly articulated definitions of which qualities he was testing for and which he valued. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of Leica history in general and lens history and technical issues in particular. And, he shared them generously with the rest of us. He was apparently a very nice man and had a real impact in the niche he was passionate about. It would be very nice for any of us to be so remembered.

[Rick in CO]

I have most of Erwin Puts' books and they are overwhelmingly informative, if sometimes like a scientific textbook. I valued his opinions of Leica lenses, based on objective testing and reasoning. He also evaluated some Zeiss and Voigtlander lenses, comparing them to the Leica offerings, occasionally in the latters favor. He pointed out that Leica's MTF curves were calculated, whereas Zeiss' were from actual measurements. Not to mention his frank discussion of Boke'. He was a measure of reality in the realm of Leica infatuation that will be missed.

[Richard Man]

Someone found this:
https://www.memori.nl/gedenkplaats/erwin-puts/

There's a photo of him there, not sure how long the page will stay up

[Dan Khong]

Erwin and I connected briefly and many years back when he was active in the LUG (Leica User Group). Then he left. Some people had asked him if he "worked" for Leica. Quite a sensitive sort of person who had strong views and also easily rubbed the wrong way.

The ol' dogs at LUG still remember him, and there was a brief mention when he died in March.

To know more about LUG, here's a link to their YearBook (2019).

http://leica-users.org/LUGYearbook2019-screen.pdf

The 2020 one will be coming out anytime.

[Geoff Goldberg]

I never met him, but enjoyed his work immensely. Its the kind of effort and dedication that we often take for granted, and don't realize how much work it took until it is too late, and the person is gone. More importantly, his was the kind of effort from a time long passed, when commitment to science, factual history, and deep powers of observation and investigation were sufficient. We will miss him and others like him who make these efforts. May we all tip our hats to such good people. RIP.

[Bryan Geyer]

In the course of his last 15 years, Burt Keppler was a fervent Minolta booster. I was of the impression that he was personally acquainted with the Minolta management, and always ready to give that company his support whenever ethical and appropriate opportunity permitted.

Of course, Minolta never fully survived their loss in the Honeywell versus Minolta decision, when it was ruled that they had infringed on the original Honeywell AF patents. It was all downhill thereafter, despite their intense promotion of IBIS.

[Anton Wilhelm Stolzing]

Puts was unique. A genius. Of course he was a fan of Leica, but he also respected Zeiss very much.

[Christer Almqvist]

I have learnt a lot from Erwin Puts, not only about Leica cameras and lenses, but also about films, film processing and darkroom technique.

After I had sent him some old copies of Réponses Photo magazine he was looking for, we corresponded briefly and he signed one of the Compendiums I bought from him. I have since sold the books, the only books I have sold for more than I paid for.

Our relationship ended suddenly after I disagreed with him on an unimportant matter. He continued to let me have access to his pictures on the net; lots of cat pictures but also other models . . .

Here is link to much of what he published on the net

https://web.archive.org/web/20201217181248/htpps://photo.imx.nl/

[Tullio Emanuele]

Very nice post about history of photography, I didn’t know about Erwin Puts and did a little research, starting with the article that you suggested by Ken Rockwell. Unfortunately the Compendium is hard to find and the link to download the pdf version doesn’t seem to work. I was able to find the 8th edition of the Leica pocket book which should have the section on lenses written by Mr. Puts.

I also read your post written at the time of publication of the second edition of the Compendium and learned why it was printed in such limited numbers.

One question for you, would it be possible to put the the pdf files of very hard to find photography books on this site so everybody could have access to them? I am sure you know a lot more about all the copyright issues.

Thanks again for the nice and informative post.

[Martin D]

Erwin Puts and Leica: his love for his subject was based on ever increasing knowledge, rather than self-fulfilling delusion. A deeply moving lifelong dedication.

I learnt a lot about lenses from his books. His reflections on Leica cameras in the digital era also gave me a model for how to make use of my film experience when working with digital cameras.

Very sorry he is gone.

[TOP reader]

FYI if anyone is looking to order one of Erwin's books from the website. Paypal will process the order and take your money but you can't get the books any longer.

If you go to the homepage (https://photo.imx.nl) you will find in small print at the bottom: "Please do not email, orders for the ebooks cannot be processed any longer." But you don't get any warning before the transaction actually processes.

Hopefully Erwin's representatives can figure out a way to turn off the Paypal links.

[Dennis Ng]

I do not buy many photograph books. Did buy a few of his ... it is so sad. Rip.