2" Taylor Hobson

[cliveh]

I once had a 2” Taylor Hobson lens on a leica II and was quite impressed with it. Can anyone comment on experience with this lens?

 

[Ian Grant]

They out performed the Leica lenses of the period, they are worth more as well

TTH lens division, now called Cooke, are probably still at the top of the lens design ladder but they were bought by Rank the film studios/cinema owners after WWII and the minimal investment went totally to cine lens manufacture. They have made a few LF lenses again in small batches. That's apart from their foray at the UK Governments behest into making Reid cameras, Leica screw mont copies, actua;;y far better engineered.

What no-one knew at the time was that Leitz had hidden prototypes from the Nazis and by the early 50's leapfrogged the Reids with the M series and newer lenses. TTH made one of the faster lenses for them.

Ian

 

[Someonenameddavid]

There was a batch nos 2inch TTH lenses sold in the small ad of "Amateur Photographer" in the 1970-s probably 75-76 for about UKP 50 each which was a fairly high price then ( you could get a Zorki-4K with 50/2 for UKP 20 then)

David

 

[Ian Grant]

There was a batch nos 2inch TTH lenses sold in the small ad of "Amateur Photographer" in the 1970-s probably 75-76 for about UKP 50 each which was a fairly high price then ( you could get a Zorki-4K with 50/2 for UKP 20 then)

David

Actually you could buy a Reid camera with a 50mm f2 TTH lens for about £21 from if I remember right A.W. Young in London, essentially what happened was a whole batch of partially assembled cameras and lenses were discovered and they were finished and sold of quite cheaply. The parterner in A.W, Yound was also involved with Marston & Heard, Harringey Photograpghic supllies and a few others companies they had their own workshop, film and paper packaging facilities and dealt almost exclusively with surplus ex Government & Military film, paper, chemistry and equipment.

I used these companies a lot from the late 1960's until they disapperaed late 70's or early 80's. Martin Reed of Silverprint and Roy of RK Photographics started with Harringey (if memories corrct) actually Roy's father was a partner.

Ian