Teach me about Dagors?

[Paul Fitzgerald]

InaG,

"Paul, the insult is really how few Goerz designed lenses were produced by Zeiss after the merger of various companies to form Zeiss Ikon,."

Goerz produced their own glass in-house and their designs need different glass than Zeiss made.

Forgetting two world wars and the rubble between, from what i can gather:

Dallmeyer, TTH, Suter, Voightlander, Goerz, ect. were private companies so when the principle heads died or retired so did the companies. Zeiss, Schneider and Rodenstock were corporations that did not depend on a single head or family to run the companies, seems to have worked well for them.

Kodak, Wollensak and Ilex definitely made top tier products BUT they continued with large format, the Eruos shifted to medium format, then the Japanese went to 35mm. With each market shift the Americans were obsoleted. Taking the dollar off the gold standard and instituting price freezes put these companies out of the market. It never was a quality issue, these lenses are still well sought after today.

In an Atomic world in a Space Race, optical performance was no longer the 'Holy Grail' and the best engineers went into other fields, such is life.

[Jim Galli]

Btw Dan, my memory is fine. I'm well aware that Schneider made Symmar's about 1952 that were Dagor type and triple convertible. That was why I never winced at the possibility of a 225mm G-Claron (240 front 210 rear). My question was why Goerz never did this, not whether it had ever been done. I suppose the answer is that Goerz wasn't quite the whore that the others were. It's a stretch to say a dagor is convertible at all. A stretch American Optical wouldn't sell out to? There was a time when the horrid Angulon reverse dagor's were touted as convertible. FWIW I have almost one of every type lens ever devised and many Angulon's have come and gone, but I've never felt the need to keep one of them.

[Dan Fromm]

Jim, I'm delighted to learn that you're not in the grip of Alzheimer's.

I know that the American branch of Goerz, which was severed from the German branch in 1917 (?), survived decades longer than the German branch, which was merged into Zeiss Ikon in 1926 (?). I know that Goerz American Optical Co. (not to be confused with American Optical Company of Springfield, MA) made or at least sold Dagors to the end, i.e., after Schneider took it over. But I'm not aware of many new designs from Goerz American after 1917. They made Metrogons under license for mainly military purposes, also Biogons and Planigons, same deal. They made Artars and Hypars, both originally German designs. The Rectagon seems to be a new one designed in the US. What have I missed?

I have no idea why Goerz American never offered Dagors as convertibles. Eric's curves for a single 1910 (French Patent # 422 742) Dagor element give the impression that its pretty dreadful, but there's no guarantee that better performance couldn't have been obtained with newer glasses.

If you want to play with it, I have a 210/6.8 Beryl in barrel whose cells are direct fits into a #1. Dagor type; Boyer claims the rear cell is usable as 360/13.

Cheers,

Dan

[Ole Tjugen]

I'm considerably surprised that Ole Tjugen, who's mentioned having one and liking it very much, hasn't brought forward Zeiss' own Dagor type, the Amatar. According to the VM it is slightly better than the Dagor. ...

I did mentioned it, back in post #19.

But the Amatar is not a Dagor-type, it's a reverse Dagor - rather like the Angulon!

[paul08]

"Ahh yes, yesss! Finally you have realized that that gnawing hunger deep within your belly is the undernourished and underfed artistic soul desperately crying out for the mothers milk of sustenance that only a Goerz Dagor can provide."


The art is in your head, not your lens. That's just "effect."

[CP Goerz]

Ahhh but if it were only so clear as to you dear Paul to the rest of us as yet unenlightened masses. We have not reached the state of pure perfection of light that you have AND so you may scoff from such lofty heights we mere mortals have yet to attain. We are not that far behind and with a mere $300 be granted the joy of feeling as you do.

Is it in the head or the heart? So often we are guided by the head but truly the heart is the one that really makes the final decision. Good shooting to all, as long as you are making worthwhile images does it really matter??(well....unless its a Goerz does it make a difference?)


CP Goerz./Dagor77.

[Rodney Polden]

The thing I like best about the Dagor77 design is that it's so damn woolly and so damn sharp all at the same time..... kind of verbal bokeh or something.

[John Jarosz]

This discussion has been quite helpful in aiding me understand the Dagor mistique.

Appropriately, there is now on Ebay a 240mm F9 Dagor (item # 320319806365) that is touted for even 12x20.

Can someone knowledgeable comment on the claims made in the auction? It seems that the discussion in this thread would indicate that the claims are not possible to attain, but I would like to see an explanation.

If the claims are untrue, then it's these kinds of claims that contribute to the confusion over the use of short FL lenses for ULF. If they are true, well, that explains the price.

Thanks

John

[Dan Fromm]

John, the ebay listing smells of a hyperventilating liar in OZ who's sold under other screen names, including pak harry 1944 and cameo need ham. In this case, although the vendor is hyperventilating it isn't lying.

According to the VM, "Wide Angle Dagor f9.0 This was a later lens and was listed in 1924 in 75mm for 4.25x3.25in, 100mm for 6.5x4.75in, 125mm for 8.5x6.5in, 150mm for 9x7in, 180mm for 10x8in, 210mm for 12x10in, 240mm for 15x12in all for stopped down use (Goe014) This lens can cover at least 100°, and 150mm is actually useful on 10x8in when stopped right down. (There is a patent for an f9 wide angle anastigmat of this type to Goerz (Brit Pat. 209,093 of 1922), using a low R.I. meniscus with a high R.I. flint for the biconcave and baryta flint for the external biconvex lens. The design was aimed at reducing astigmatism at wide angles.)"

The lens on offer's trade name "Weitwinkel - Dagor" contains the text string "Dagor" and it is in the Dagor design family, but it is in no way an f/6.8 or f/7.7 Dagor with restricted maximum aperture. The lesson here is that design family is no guarantee of performance. For more on this idea, compare claimed coverage for these two very similar lenses: Cooke Ser. VIIb and Wide Field Ektar.

For curiosity I did the arithmetic, and found that a 240 mm lens that covers 100 degrees will cover a 572 mm circle at infinity. The formats given in the listing (8x10, 11x14, 7x17, 8x20) all fit in that circle. So if the lens on offer actually covers 100 degrees, as reported in the VM, it will cover those formats.

I'm not sure that f/9 WA Dagors really cover 100 degrees. This because coverage is an elastic concept whose meaning in manufacturers' propaganda has changed over time. Modern Schneider and Rodenstock catalogs, for example, use much more stringent criteria for coverage than seems to have been used in between-the-wars catalogs.

All that said, f/9 Dagors have their partisans and their high prices seem to be justified. Nearly $US 1400 seems like a lot to me, but there may be people who are willing to pay at least that much for the lens on offer. If it gets a bid, the bidder must value it at least that highly.

Cheers,

Dan

[Martin Courtenay-Blake]

InaG,

Dallmeyer, TTH, Suter, Voightlander, Goerz, ect. were private companies so when the principle heads died or retired so did the companies. Zeiss, Schneider and Rodenstock were corporations that did not depend on a single head or family to run the companies, seems to have worked well for them.

When TTH became part of the huge and vastly underfunded Rank organisation the interest to Rank (even though primarily a film and entertainment organisation) was the metrology equipment...especially the Talyrond surface measurement devices...manufactured by TTH. Everything else was simply given the Rank Taylor Hobson badge and development seemed to stop.

Luckily Cooke continued the range of highly regarded movie camera lenses and as we all know the occaisional LF offering...just not enough of them

Martin