Commissionned new lenses, foolish ?

[Kerry L. Thalmann]

As of now the mark for Dagor appears to be a dead mark in the USA as filed by Schneider

See:

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?...ate=plpgva.2.1

In this case, Schneider = Schneider U.S.A. NOT Schneider-Krueznach, the German lens manufacturer.

Schneider U.S.A. was the company that purchased the rights to the Goerz names and designs and some remaining inventory from Kollmorgen in the early 1970s (I believe 1972). Around that same time period, Schneider U.S.A. (now known as Schneider Optics) also became the official US distributor for Schneider lenses made by Schneider-Kreunach in Germany. At some point during the mid-1970s, the rights to the Goerz legacy products seems to have been transferred from Schneider U.S.A. to Schneider-Kreuznach. Perhaps that's why Schneider U.S.A. allowed their US trademark on the name Dagor to lapse in 1975.

In any case, Schneider-Kreuznach continued use the Dagor name on their lenses (produed under contract by Kern in Switzerland) through the mid-1980s when the 14" multicoated Dagors were manufactured.

I have no idea if Schneider-Kreuznach still owns a valid trademark on the name Dagor. However, it is interesting that the new 550mm Fine Art XXL lens is a Dagor type construction (6/2), but they chose not to use the name Dagor for this product.

Kerry

[Carsten Wolff]

I have to agree with most posters here: basically, everything you need you can find on the used market; even if you rebuilt an old dagor (no, I don't mean YOU, Andrew) or whatever from scratch - re-coating, new shutter, even new cementing; STILL cheaper than a new lens job... e.g. a while back I got a 19" Apo-Artar multicoated (quite cheaply overseas mind you), and then front mounted it in an Alphax shutter: All that just because I couldn't afford a 450 Fujinon-C. (And I'm about to make the same "mistake" again with my 10" Conley (minus the coating job)).
....also cost realms would equal that of a decent digital back.....IMHO, why bother.....
Donate some money to make your house/car more environmentally friendly instead, buy yourself a new 610 Fuji and feel better already.....

[Toyon]

Mr. Solomon, what is the minimum order Linos will accept for a production of spec lenses?

[Gene McCluney]

If "I" were going to comission a small run of a needed or desired lens, I would seek out the almost idle optical houses in the Ukraine or Russia. Once high volume producers of LF, MF and 35mm format optics. Arax in the Ukraine (a dealer of reworked MF gear manufactured by Arsenal) seems to have some connection where he can get lenses repolished and multicoated for very reasonable fees. therefore he seems to have an "in" at the Arsenal optical plant there. This would be the direction I would go, with final costs being a consideration. Arsenal is still around because they make military optics as well as consumer optics and are still a state-run company.

[Iain McClatchie]

Just to add a data point to this discussion.

I've recently had a run of 40 lenses built. After the first few lenses, production quality was good and the lenses deliver better than 40% MTF resolving 350 megapixels. That is not a typo. This lens resolves an order of magnitude more information than most lenses.

Cost was around $60k. All engineering was done for free, and that is the typical business model for optical shops like this. The shop I went with was American, lens grinding, polishing, and coating was Japanese, and final assembly was American.

These lenses did not have shutters (they go in front of electronic sensosrs that have electronic shuttering). If I needed a shutter, I would buy an off the shelf shutter (Copal or UniBlitz) and have the lens designed to fit. In fact, I have done that in the past.

The lens also does not have a focus mechanism you would want to use on a handheld camera. It is focussed once and set in place with Loctite, after which focus is maintained by having the entire lens body temperature compensated over a wide range of temperatures.

A word of caution however. This was the fourth lens I've commissioned. The first two did not work out well, once for supplier design reasons and once on my end.

[Michael Kadillak]

A while back I went after this objective full throttle and came back and learned several things.

First while there are many optical engineers that have software that can aid in the "optimization" of a design formulation the simple fact is that this is as much an art form as much as it is science. Plus there are a myriad of different glass specifications as well as coatings that give you a headache in short order. It comes down to simple business risk. Lets say that you come up with a simple Artar design with modest cost glass and coatings overseas and have them assembled and collimated and optimally your cost for 100 lenses is $1200 each, you start asking about the size of the market as to what can really be sold. A 35% profit margin takes the retail price to a bit over $1600. Total at risk project cost before profit cost is $120,000 and you see someone selling an Artar in the focal length you want for $1,000. I believe that one could sell maybe 20 lenses - and in that situation the costs go up to over $2,000 which is a deal breaker.

Factor in the fact that the quality of the glass and the expectations of the coatings are realistically not guaranteed to be as good as what was produced in years past and you have a situation that will keep you up at night if your dollars are at risk.

I talked to Kowa that assembled the Computar lenses on contract early on in my research and they were completely uninterested in taking this on.

At the end of the day I learned that this is a very complicated and risky business venture to consider. Experience and a large bank account should be considered as necessary prerequisites to down this road.

It is what it is......

[Bob Salomon]

In this case, Schneider = Schneider U.S.A. NOT Schneider-Krueznach, the German lens manufacturer.

Schneider U.S.A. was the company that purchased the rights to the Goerz names and designs and some remaining inventory from Kollmorgen in the early 1970s (I believe 1972). Around that same time period, Schneider U.S.A. (now known as Schneider Optics) also became the official US distributor for Schneider lenses made by Schneider-Kreunach in Germany. At some point during the mid-1970s, the rights to the Goerz legacy products seems to have been transferred from Schneider U.S.A. to Schneider-Kreuznach. Perhaps that's why Schneider U.S.A. allowed their US trademark on the name Dagor to lapse in 1975.

In any case, Schneider-Kreuznach continued use the Dagor name on their lenses (produed under contract by Kern in Switzerland) through the mid-1980s when the 14" multicoated Dagors were manufactured.

I have no idea if Schneider-Kreuznach still owns a valid trademark on the name Dagor. However, it is interesting that the new 550mm Fine Art XXL lens is a Dagor type construction (6/2), but they chose not to use the name Dagor for this product.

Kerry

And that German Schneider company that existed then went into the German equivelent of bankruptcy in the early 80s. The company was closed and then Heinrich Mandermann purchased the assets, spun off some companies like Isco which was a Schneider company and then became a separate company. The current Schneider, and its' subsidiaries like Schneider divisions in the USA are the successor companies that Mandermann bought. The companies that he owned besides Schneider included Rollei, B+W and the company that remanufactured an East German camera into the Exacta 66.