Thambar 9cm f/2.2

Ernst Leitz · LTM · 1935 · Uncorrected soft focus

Also known as: Leitz Thambar 90mm f/2.2 · Thambar 9cm f2.2 · Weichzeichner 9cm · タンバール 90mm F2.2

Variants & identification

Variant	Mount	Years	Serial ranges	Production
Weichzeichner-marked (early)	LTM	1934–1936	226001–226500 (1934) — the first block of the model 283001–283500 (1935) 311001–311500 (1936) — the last block entered as Weichzeichner	1,500 lenses across three blocks, 1934–1936
Thambar-marked	LTM	1937–1942	375001–375500 (1937) — the first block entered as Thambar 416501–417000 (1938) — the block the wiki's sample inscription, No416xxx, is drawn from 472001 (1938) — a block of 500 whose end serial is mistyped as its start; its extent is unpublished 540001–540500 (1940) — the last assigned block	The remainder of about 3,500 lenses

Four elements in three groups, with the spherical aberration deliberately left in: the outer zone of the glass focuses in a different place from the middle, which is the whole point of the lens and the reason the centre-spot filter increases the effect rather than diluting it.
One row of the serial list reads 472001 to 472001 — a single number — with a batch of 500 against it. A transcription slip in the end serial, not a 500-lens block at one number.
Leitz Photographica Auction gives 226001 as the first Thambar serial. Lot A01776, serial 226067 and dated 1935, is a chrome-finished example carrying a single aperture scale instead of the usual two, catalogued as probably a prototype or a finish sample; it made €16,800 including buyer's premium at auction 46.
Standard chrome Thambars, Leitz code TOODY, made between €2,400 and €6,000 including premium across Leitz Photographica auctions 41, 42, 46, 47 and 48.
Two figures conflict with the ones given here. Agata Urbaniak's 35mmc account puts total production at 2,984 lenses against about 3,500, and Thorsten Overgaard's lens compendium dates the model 1935–1939 against 1934–1942.
Urbaniak's 2,984 is close to the six sound blocks read alone: 226001–226500, 283001–283500, 311001–311500, 375001–375500, 416501–417000 and 540001–540500 are 3,000 numbers between them, with the unusable 472001 row making up the wiki's 3,500. Whether the two counts differ over that seventh block, or over lenses assembled against numbers assigned, no source says.
The head of the wiki page gives the variants as "meter and feet versions". No block on its serial table distinguishes them, and no published range identifies either — the scale marking cannot be predicted from a serial number.

How to tell them apart (expand)

A centre spot filter, supplied with the lens, that blocks the middle of the aperture and leaves only the uncorrected edges working
TWO aperture scales — red for use with the spot filter, black for use without
E48 filter fitting, larger than anything else in the screw range

Weichzeichner-marked (early):

Listed in the serial tables as Weichzeichner — German for soft-focus lens — rather than by name

Thambar-marked:

Engraved Ernst Leitz Wetzlar Thambar f=9cm 1:2.2

Weichzeichner-marked (early): The first three blocks carry the descriptive term; the name Thambar appears in the tables only from 1937.

Serial-range notes

226001–540500: THE RULE. Leitz never numbered a model from one and never put a date inside the number. Serials were issued in blocks drawn from a single running sequence shared by every lens the company made, so a number dates a copy only against a block list. Find it in the SN Start / SN End table on this lens's Leica Wiki page and read the year off its row. Seven blocks cover the Thambar between 226001 and 540500, every one of them exactly 500 numbers from a round start, and they total the 3,500 the head of the page prints. Failing that, the general Leitz lens year list maps the whole sequence to years regardless of model — and here the two agree on all seven blocks, which for a pre-war lens is unusually firm ground.
the name in the table: THE SECOND TEST, and one no other lens in this catalog offers. The tables do not call the lens by one name throughout: the first three blocks are entered as Weichzeichner 9 cm 1:2.2 and the last four as Thambar 9 cm 1:2.2. The change falls between 311500 and 375001. A number at or below 311500 belongs to a lens the factory list called a soft-focus lens; a number at or above 375001 belongs to one it called a Thambar. The engraving on the barrel is a Thambar throughout — this is a change in the paperwork, not the lens.
226001–226500: Four sources, two answers, on the model's first year. The Leica Wiki's block table dates this block 1934, and the general Leitz lens year list puts 1934 at 195001–236000 and so agrees independently. Against them, the production era at the head of the same wiki page begins in 1935, and Leitz Photographica — which gives 226001 as the first Thambar serial, matching the block exactly — catalogues lot A01776, serial 226067, as a 1935 lens. The block and the copy inside it are dated a year apart by the same pair of sources. Both are recorded.
416501–417000: Begins on the exact first number the general Leitz lens year list assigns to 1938 (416501–490000) — the block and the year start together. The sample inscription at the head of the wiki page, "Ernst Leitz Wetzlar Thambar f=9cm 1:2.2 No416xxx", is a number from the first hundred of it.
472001–472001: The row that cannot be used. It gives a start and an end of 472001 with a batch of 500 against it, which is impossible: 500 lenses cannot share one serial. The six other blocks each run 500 consecutive numbers from a round start, so the printed end is a transcription slip rather than a real one-number block — but the true end has not been published, and it is not recorded here. A Thambar numbered a little above 472001 is very probably from this block and cannot be shown to be.
540001–540500: The last assigned block, 1940. The head of the same page gives production to 1942, and this entry to 1942; no serial numbers have been published for 1939, 1941 or 1942. Read as serials the model runs 1934–1940, two years shorter at the far end and one year longer at the near one than the era printed above it.

Specifications

Formula: Uncorrected soft focus
Construction: 4 elements / 3 groups
Aperture range: f/2.2–f/25
Min. focus: 1 m
Weight: 500 g
Filter: 48 mm
Years manufactured: 1934–1942
Country: Germany

What reviewers say

Agata Urbaniak (blog) — Urbaniak expected a lens too soft to be worth using and instead found it surprisingly sharp in the centre when shot without the spot filter, its real weakness being a strong tendency to flare and veil that makes a hood essential.

History

The Thambar is the one Leitz lens built to be optically incorrect. Every other lens in this catalog exists to correct spherical aberration; the Thambar keeps it, so that light passing through the outer part of the glass focuses in a different place from light through the middle, and a bright highlight spreads into a soft halo instead of a point. Portrait photographers in the 1930s wanted exactly that, and had been getting it with gauze, vaseline and mesh over the lens.

What makes it more than a defect is the filter supplied with it. A small opaque spot in the centre of a clear disc blocks the middle of the aperture — the well-behaved part — and leaves only the uncorrected outer zone working, which increases the effect rather than diluting it. Because the filter also swallows light, the lens carries two aperture scales, red for use with the spot and black for use without. That pair of scales is the quickest way to identify one.

About 3,500 were made between 1934 and 1942, and they were expensive then and are more so now. The serial list shows the name settling in as the lens went along: the first three blocks, 1,500 lenses, are entered as Weichzeichner — simply the German word for a soft-focus lens — and only from 1937 do the tables call it a Thambar.

One row of that list should not be read literally. It gives a range of 472001 to 472001, a single serial number, with a batch of 500 beside it. The end number has been mistyped; there is no block of five hundred lenses sharing one serial.

Expand Collapse

This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Example photos

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Thambar 9cm f/2.2? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, HKD: a median of HK$25,800 across 3 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half HK$23,800–HK$25,800). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from HK$25,800.

By day

Date	Median	Middle half	Listings
2026-09-11	HK$25,800	HK$23,800–HK$25,800	3
2026-09-06	HK$25,800	HK$23,800–HK$25,800	3

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Ernst Leitz Wetzlar Thambar 90mm F/2.2 — HK$23,800.00 · Meteor (HK) Ltd (Meteor · Leica) · likely thambar
Leica Thambar 90mm f/2.2 LTM — HK$25,800.00 · LSKamera · likely thambar
Leica Thambar 90mm f/2.2 LTM Screw — HK$46,800.00 · LSKamera · likely thambar
Leica Thambar 9 cm 90 mm f/2.2 L39 Soft Focus Portrait Glow Classic Objektiv ... — €3,450.98 · eBay · likely thambar
[Exc+5] Leica Leitz Thambar 90mm 9cm f/2.2 LTM L39 M39 Schraube Original... — €3,480.45 · eBay · likely thambar
Leica Thambar 9cm 90mm f/2.2 L39 Soft Focus Portrait Glow Classic Lens Japan — £2,965.30 · eBay · likely thambar
[Exc+5] Leica Leitz Thambar 90mm 9cm f/2.2 LTM L39 M39 Screw Original 1937 JAPAN — £2,984.74 · eBay · likely thambar
Leica Thambar 9cm 90mm f/2.2 L39 Soft Focus Portrait Glow Classic Lens Japan — $3,999.00 · eBay · likely thambar
[Exc+5] Leica Leitz Thambar 90mm 9cm f/2.2 LTM L39 M39 Screw Original 1937 JAPAN — $3,999.99 · eBay · likely thambar

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Listings updated 2026-09-11. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.