xayraa33
rangefinder user and fancier
Does anyone know if the Leitz Thambar f2.2/ 9cm soft focus lens was ever copied by any lens manufacturer, esp. in post war Japan.
bob cole
Well-known
--------------------------------------------------------------------xayraa33 said:
It's possible but when the Japanese were major buyers of Leica in the United States, I personally saw a Japanese buyer at the Second Sunday Camera Show in Wayne, New Jersey, peel off seven thousand five hundred us dollars for a Thambar in like-new condition...The lens would be shipped to Japan for sale at twice the price, or thereabouts. Today, you can buy one for much, much less...it was considered great for photographing women because of the soft-focus...regards, bob cole
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payasam
a.k.a. Mukul Dube
The Thambar was made, in small numbers, specially to meet the demand of some portrait photographers. I recall being told by an old chap who had used it that he took quite some while to get the hang of the clear glass bit with the opaque spot at its centre. Several makers of SLRs have made soft focus lenses, most designed to eliminate the sharp resolution at the axis by under-correcting spherical aberration, but I have never heard of one made for an RF camera. Some lenses -- the Summitar comes immediately to mind -- give low contrast at maximum aperture, which achieves a somewhat similar effect. That is true of the 90 mm Elmar as well.
x-ray
Veteran
In college a friend took his 125mm Hektor and attached a nickel to the center of a UV filter (using double sided tape) and placed it on the lens. he shot at max aperture and had some images close to the softness of the Thambar. This might be interesting to do with a 90 elmar particularly with an older uncoated one. I have one so I might try making a small disc out of black tape and attaching it to the center of the UV filter. It might be quite nice.
In the early 70's I was teaching a darkroom class and had an older student who had a Thambar with the disc and shade. he was kind enough to allow me to shoot some with it. With the disc it was very soft at 2.2 but with out it was quite nice and sharp particularly at 4 and lower.
I've become very interested in soft focus and my wife gave me a very clean Rodenstock Imagon with discs for Christmas. It's an older one in a compound shutter and in the 250mm focal length. I've used it on my 4x5 and have had some really nice results. I plan to use it for some pictoral portraits and landscapes using B&W.
In the early 70's I was teaching a darkroom class and had an older student who had a Thambar with the disc and shade. he was kind enough to allow me to shoot some with it. With the disc it was very soft at 2.2 but with out it was quite nice and sharp particularly at 4 and lower.
I've become very interested in soft focus and my wife gave me a very clean Rodenstock Imagon with discs for Christmas. It's an older one in a compound shutter and in the 250mm focal length. I've used it on my 4x5 and have had some really nice results. I plan to use it for some pictoral portraits and landscapes using B&W.