Theile data on pre war CZJ f9 Dagor

[Cliff Manley]

Does anyone know any information or if Hartmut Thiele addressed the pre war Goerz-Dagor 12.5cm f9 Carl Zeiss Jena. I would like to know production numbers and the date of production of my lens. Serial No. 1752317, I think 1935, or 36. Thank You for your help. If I could read German I might buy those books. Are they translated anywhere, or available in english?

[Dr Klaus Schmitt]

Can you read this serial number (I type it on purpose in GERMAN)? 1752317 ;) ;)
The book is full of numbers and the headings are not complicated to understand.

[Paul Ewins]

Cliff, I bought the three Schneider books and as Klaus says, the information doesn't really require much knowledge of German to glean the required data. It is laid out in spreadsheet format (and boy do I wish the books were available electronically so I could sort the data) in date order. Each line of the table represents a batch of lenses and it details the number of lenses in the batch, start and finish serial numbers for the batch, the lens name, focal length and aperture and the recipient if it was an OEM order for another company. Occasionally there was also a notation for shutter size used. Most of this is readily apparent regardless of your language skills.

I don't have any of the Zeiss books, so I don't know whether they had more or less information than the Schneider books. It all depends on how detailed the Zeiss production records were in the first place.

[Louis Pacilla]

Hi Cliff

Not sure what your looking for but here are Zeiss specs on your lens

The lens is a reverse Dagor wide angle that covers 100 degrees or about when stopped down (so around 11"-12" image circle at small stops) It covers 6 1/2" x 4 3/4" wide open.The year of manufacture was around 1936 so you where on the mark with that.

If your intended format is 4x5 you'll have tons of coverage & at 5x7 you'll still be in good shape

[Cliff Manley]

Thanks Guys for the information. I am really looking for production numbers of that specific 12.5 cm f9 Dagor lens. The reason I was not sure about the serial number, is the lists stop just short of this number in 1935 and start up way below it in 1936, so I thought there may be some discrepency in the lists. I have owned this for a long time and not only intended, but it's home has been on the 4x5 view camera (See Avitar) and it has more than enough coverage for anything you can contort with the beast. It has a 10 1/2" image circle at f18 or smaller. Straight on with the 4x5 it is pretty sharp corner to corner wide open and also works very well with one cell as a portrait lens. I haven't done it, but they say it will cover an 8x10 for interiors (not infinity).

I just want to know how many of this particular one were made. I saw the Comment on the VEB Carl Zeiss Jena 12.5 f9 as being 26 produced. I am wondering if that is just for the VEB or the total production of the lens. They seem to be very rare. I want to know HOW rare.

[Arne Croell]

Your dagor was part of a series of 30, made in 1935 according to Thiele; it lists 1930 as the design date, so I assume Zeiss tweaked the original Goerz design somewhat. Altogether Thiele lists 405 units of this lens being produced between 1928 (design date 1928) and 1946.

[Cliff Manley]

Thank You Arne for the reply. My friend Dan told me that he asked you about this lens and I appreciate you looking up the correct information about it for me. I beleve you are correct about the tweeking of the design. The original 1922 design was for 100mm, any may not have worked out for the other focal lengths. So anyway , now I know the answers, Thank You.

For anyone interested in the f9 Dagor designs here they are, and it is a very nice lens from my experiance.

The original 1922 100mm f9 design is shown on the US patent of 1926 as the first drawing shown here. and the final tweeked version is the Goe014 design.Totally different animal from the standard 6.8 Dagor Goe001 or Q9 type lenses.

[Ole Tjugen]

A Wide-angle dagor then, not a reverse Dagor. Zeiss' version of the reverse Dagor was the Amatar, also for a while sold as Protar Serie VI, as well as Serie IV - both designations recycled from other designs. To confuse matters even further the US Serie VI and teh German Serie VI were different lenses...

[Cliff Manley]

Here is a photograph with it on 4x5. This was shot wide open at f9 with a K2 yellow filter, 1/50 sec on ASA 100 film. It really looks a lot better than this compressed little version. But here it is anyway.

[banjo]

here is this what you are looking

www.motamedi.info/serial.htm

[Cliff Manley]

I wasn't looking for that, but it's a nice list, thanks.

[David Lindquist]

Theile's book on Carl Zeiss production covering the years 1890-1927 appears to be available in the U.S. from here:
http://www.camerabooks.com/search.aspx?keyword=Carl+Zeiss+Jena

So I'll order it from there unless someone has another suggestion.

It looks like the second volume covering the years 1927-1991 is not currently in print but is due to be available in March 2011.

Wish I'd taken German back in the day to fulfill my foreign language requirement, though as has been suggested I can probable muddle through. I see a German-English dictionary in my future.
David