Some have written that Dagor lenses do not dazzle in any one category, but are fine in all of them. Ever in search of that magic "silver bullet", I would love to see some sample photos which illustrate the Dagor look. Could anyone share ?
I think I can provide a useful post when I get home if I can find the right images. Anyone know off the top of their head what the maximum file size is for an upload?
O.K. I found them in archived e-mail. Lets give a try. The images are of a monument in Knoxville's Old Gray Cemetery and were made with a 12" Gold Dot Dagor on 8x10, probably Ilford HP4, distance to monument about 10 feet. The exposure was probably around 2 seconds at about f:32. Light was bright overcast although the statue was in shade. The first image is a scan of the negative and you can see how the OOF areas are rendered. The second is detail in the monument. The images have been sharpened a bit to make up for my scanner, but otherwise unmanipulated in a way that would affect detail, other than sizing for the forum.
Hope you can tell something about the lens properties. Maybe, maybe not. The reason I made the jpegs was because I was surprised that the image had a kind of pleasant softness, yet if examined critically had high detail in the sharply focused areas. On the negative, you can see individual lichen fronds on the cherub.
A characteristic (which I don't understand) of Dagor and most Leica lenses seems to be "sharp but soft."
Negatives can be enlarged bigger and bigger to giant sizes, and even though fine details may not be visible the images themselves never seem to become "fuzzy." The bigger prints just seem to be larger versions of the small prints. As I say, I don't understand this phenomena.
Many Dagor users complain of a focus shift when the lens is stopped down to working aperture.
The rear element may be used by itself at 1.7X the combined focal length.
Incidentally, the one image by St. Ansel which is often identified as being made with a Dagor is a very early one of trees across a stream in Yosemite, which is so incredibly soft that I wonder if it was made with a single element of the lens at full aperture? It is certainly not characteristic of Dagor quality.
Wow - The images are really close to one another in appearance.
Are these images taken from analog enlargements, or are they scans from negatives ? Which scanner/resolution ?
Thanks for the comparison !
If you want to load a large image, you need to place it on a server somewhere. Then your post contains a reference to the image, rather than the image itself.
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