goertz Dagor f 6.8 9.5 inch series III No 4

Bought one for not much money on a Linhof Board in an Alphax shutter. The shutter indexes do not match the lens: is there an easy way of esitmating the lens f stop positions. Also there is a chrome bar which sticks out to the side of the shutter release. Does it do anything??? Anyone with experience of this lens... I expect it to be decent.

David

The Dagor may be old, but people still use them. A mismatch between lens and shutter aperture scale suggests the shutter has been swapped. If the correct spacing between the front and rear cells, and between the cells and the iris have been retained, your example should be a useable lens. If these spacings are incorrect, performance will be degraded. Desting the performance of the lens will probably be the most practical way of testing this. The apparent aperture diameter as viewed from the front of the lens divided into the 9.5 focal length of the lens will give the correct f/number. When measuring the apparent aperture diameter, the eye should be some distance from the lens to reduce the effect of parallax.

S. K. Grimes can either engrave the shutter or made an engraved plate with the proper markings. You will probably have to send them the lens and the shutter. I am having that done by them as I type.

http://www.skgrimes.com/

The chrome bar sticking out is probably a place where you can screw in a cable release.

You can make your own aperture scale by comparing the light coming through the lens with another lens you have. I think the procedure is described in Steve Simmon's View Camera book.

Jon