Goerz Celor

[Steve Hamley]

Folks,

Just curious after doing some browsing and looking at specifications and comments. I began thinking about it after reading an offhand comment that the Fuji C series was a Celor design.

From Cameraeccentric's Goerz Catalog (1915?), the Celor is a symmetric, air-spaced double anastigmat. My questions are "How does it differ from other symmetric, air-spaced, double anastigmats like the Artar?", and "Has or does anyone else make a lens of this design?".

Now back to the Fuji (an air spaced double anastigmat) comment, there seems to be a little support for it. I've always assumed it was an Artar design, but Artars were specified at 46 degrees, while the Fuji C series is specified from 55 to 66 degrees, and the Celor was specified at 60 degrees of sharp coverage.

Cheers, Steve

[rjmeyer314]

The Celor was a well known lens back in the 1930's. I don't remember if it was advertised specifically as a portrait or soft focus lens or not. However, George Hurrell chose one to replace his Verito portrait lens for his Hollywood glamour potraits of movie stars, and used it from around 1930 onward. If I remember correctly, it was a more expensive lens than the Dagor in the Goerz line. I have one that I've mounted on a 5x7 B&J, but I haven't used it enough to be able to compare it's sharpness to my Dagors.

[rjmeyer314]

See http://photo.net/large-format-photography-forum/00Xmlr for a discussion of the Celor optics.

[Dan Fromm]

Steve, buy a copy of A Lens Collector's Vade Mecum. It contains accounts of many marvels, including dialytes from many makers. Dan Collucci, who posts here as ccharrison, sells it.

Or visit my friend Eric Beltrando's site, www.dioptrique.info, and look at his analyses of four element lenses. There are many dialytes there.

[Steve Hamley]

Thanks Dan, I was hoping you'd post.

I have a copy. What I'm not getting out of it is that is there anything different about the Celor as opposed to the others, other than maximum aperture? For example, lenses with smaller apertures typically have more coverage than those with larger maximum apertures, yet Goerz specifies the Artar with less coverage than the faster Celor. That makes me think they aren't the same although that could just be marketing...

I also understand the Dogmar is an improved (non-symmetric) Celor design.

Cheers, Steve

[Dan Fromm]

Steve, Eric evaluates coverage and lens performance. Go look at his site.

These lenses aren't the same. Eric gives the prescriptions. Different glasses, different radii of curvature, different spacing, different everything but layout.