Goerz Dagor 168mm f6.8 lens

[Anton Lukoszevieze]

I just picked up a Dagor to use on my 9x12 camera and have read that it has a large coverage, even up to 8x10, stopped down. Is this correct? Also it doesn't have a series number, just Goerz, Berlin Anastigmat-Dagor. I think from the serial it is early 20's. So, this is a nice lens yes, as in famous Dagor? These 20's lenses are becoming my favourite, Tessar and Heliar also, wonderful.

 

[bdial]

I have one of these, yes, it covers 8x10. It's the only Dagor I have used, and I haven't used it very much, so I can't say how it compares.

 

[Ugo Dap]

I have it too. Very nice lens for alt processes, I made cyanotype still life in my gallery with it. If wide open it has some sort of glow which might have influence on density (pardon my eng.).

Cheers,
Ugo.

 

[Ian Grant]

A normal Dagor (Goerz AM Opt) 165mm will cover 7"x9" @ f45 and 5"x8" @ f16, the much later AM Opt 6½" WA Dagor only covers 10x8 @f45t, so I think your German 168mm will be quite similar to the US 165mm in it's coverage.

Ian

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I have it as well, and it does cover 8x10". There could be some variation among these, since coverage can depend on the cell spacing in the shutter and the diameter of the shutter opening.

 

[JPD]

I have one also, but in an empty Compur. The cells have special threads, so it seems impossible to find another shutter for them. How good is the lens, really? Is it worth to have a "new" shutter machined to fit the cells?

 

[Ian Grant]

My 12" Dagor (Goerz AM Opt) is wonderful, but how much I'd spend on re-shuttering another I'm not sure

I'd test it first using a Packard or Thornton Pickard shutter, but does yours have the aperture control still. You are caught by the lack of a standard in older Compurs.

Ian

 

[Anton Lukoszevieze]

I just use f64.........and 25asa film, long exposures I know, but can be good.

 

[JPD]

My 12" Dagor (Goerz AM Opt) is wonderful, but how much I'd spend on re-shuttering another I'm not sure

I'd test it first using a Packard or Thornton Pickard shutter, but does yours have the aperture control still. You are caught by the lack of a standard in older Compurs.

Darn, I always forget that my father can make adapters for me if I can persuade him to visit his old workplace. I would get them free.

Yes, the Compur still has the aperture mechanism, so maybe I should try it with slow film, as Anton suggests. I could use a loose fitting lens cap, remove it for exposure, and then cover the lens with my hand and slide the darkslide back.

I have two Dagors in working shutters, one 10 and one 13cm, plus a Steinheil Orthostigmat 13,5cm, Zeiss Doppel-Amatar 13,5cm and a RÜO Iricentor 18cm, so I'm in no hurry - but it doesn't feel good to have a lens I can't use.

 

[JPD]

Darn, I always forget that my father can make adapters for me if I can persuade him to visit his old workplace. I would get them free.

I talked to him yesterday about it. He's very reluctant, but agreed to take a look at the lens cells and shutters.

 

[illumiquest]

Goerz 168mm Dagor Sample Images?

I just picked up one of these at a local antique shop and was wondering if anyone has any sample images? There's quite a bit of info on them including that they cover 8x10s, I'd like to see what they do before sticking film through a camera.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Comparison shots with 3 other lenses on 6x17cm (vignetting on the 168mm shot is due to the mechanical obstruction of the 6x17 extension back, not the coverage of the lens)--

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

I've used it on 8x10", but I don't know if I have anything conveniently scanned at the moment.

Threads merged.

 

[Dan Fromm]

illumiwhatsit, David, are you sure that a 168/6.8 Dagor will cover 8x10? Cover as in put good image in the corners, not cover as in put light in the corners.

I have two reasons for asking. The first is a long and hilarious thread on the LF forum -- here's the link http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=13109&highlight=lousy+dagor -- about whether a 7"/6.8 Dagor will cover 8x10. The second is calculations my friend Eric Beltrando, who's written a ray-tracing program and uses it to evaluate old lens designs, did on several generations of Boyer Beryl prescriptions. The Beryl is a Dagor clone, the Beryl prescription's in the parts of Boyer's archives that Eric has are uncannily close to prescriptions for Dagors in Goerz' patents. Eric has told me that Beryls are good for 70 degrees (not the 84 or so needed for a 168 to just cover 8x10) for non-critical work and for only 50 degrees for critical work.

Cheers,

Dan

 

[illumiquest]

@Dan Frommwhatsit - I don't really care whether it covers 8x10, primarily because I don't currently have an 8x10 to test it on. I was just wanting to know whether someone had digitized examples of what the lens looks like.

Ps. Sorry if my screen name confuses you.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

illumiwhatsit, David, are you sure that a 168/6.8 Dagor will cover 8x10? Cover as in put good image in the corners, not cover as in put light in the corners.

For something critical, like a commercial architectural image that's going to be enlarged for a glossy poster, it might be marginal in the corners, and I don't see myself using an ancient uncoated lens for that anyway, but stopped down, the older 168/6.8 ser. iii, or at least the one that I have, is good enough with a few mm to spare for the 8x10's that I'm likely to make with it--namely landscapes and architecturals that I'm planning to contact print. Since it's such a compact lens, I also like it for 4x5" when I need lots of image circle.

According to Goerz's own catalogue, at f:32 a 6" Dagor should cover whole plate, and a 7" should cover 8x10", and 168mm would be somewhere in between.

Sometimes, all one needs is to put light in the corners, as long as there isn't any important detail there, and as long as the image isn't terribly distorted, like, say, at the edge of the image circle with an Angulon where the image quality drops off quite radically.