Tamarkin Camera: 90 Thambar f2,2 - the legendary Bokeh Queen revisited

Between 1935 and 1949, Leica made less than 3,000 copies of the original Thambar, order code: TOODY. Supplied with a lens shade and cap and silvered center spot soft-focus filter, the lens produced a beautiful bokeh and soft-focus portraits. Long sought-after by collectors, the Thambar is now coming back into vogue with the newly re-envisioned Leica 90mm Thambar-M f2,2 lens. It uses the same optical design with a modified, modern housing, but it still produces the same dreamy look of the original lens. Available now at Tamarkin Camera.

1-800-BUY-LEICA

Transcription:

Dan Tamarkin here from Tamarkin Camera in downtown Chicago to show you one of Leica's new lenses, the 90 mm Thambar f2,2 Lens. This lens is a reissue of an earlier model. I'd like to show you how it appears today and then we'll take a look at the vintage model as well and we'll see them side-by-side.

So, as per usual, Leica's packaging is gorgeous and here is our Thambar Lens in what's called the jewel presentation box. Voila, you have your leather case, you have a little filter, and I'll show you this filter in a moment, it's a special soft focus filter, and here's our Thambar Lens. The Thambar Lens is an f2,2 lens, but when you use the little filter that comes with it, which has a silver spot in the center of it, the f-stop drop value drops a little bit and so here is our center spot filter, which is the same type of filter that was supplied with the original lens. And so the new Thambar, like all Leica lenses, comes with a metal with a lens cap this one is metal, with Leica inscribed on it very beautiful, reversible lens shade.

This, unlike the earlier Thambar, is an M-Mount lens, and so here we have the new 90 mm f2,2 Thambar. It's beautifully made in a black enamel and you can see the aperture scales, two different aperture scales, one without the filter and one with the filter. This
is a very solid metal filter that they made for the Thambar. So here we have the new Thambar Lens and here is my copy of the Thambar which was rescued from a flood in a basement. And I have an M-Mount adapter here on my lens. This was made in about nineteen forty-one I think or forty-two, something like that and you can see now how the Thambar Lens will fit on an M camera, this is a Leica M4 Camera. It's a really fantastic soft portrait lens it's really beautiful.

But one of the prizes of our collection here at Tamarkin Camera is an original, amazing condition Thambar and this Thambar has the tropical metal case, and this case was delivered to places like South America, for example, that have very warm and humid climates and so these metal tins, which are actually rarer than the lenses were delivered to those locations and so here we have an original Thambar Metal Case. And the original Thambar Lens, this is the original that was reissued by Leica and you can see it has its spot filter here just like the new one, very very similar in fit and finish and in size. Of course, the original Thambar is a thread mount lens, but here you have it one to show, one to go, and the brand new Thambar, available now at Tamarkin Camera. Give us a call (800) BUY-LEICA or on the world wide web at Tamarkin.com. Thanks for watching.