Goerz Dagors...What's so special?

[Scott Peters]

The look. And my 12 inch covers 7x17...really.

[sanking]

The look. And my 12 inch covers 7x17...really.

I am thinking that you bought a 12" Dagor from me some years ago? If this is the one, that lens actually covers 12X20", which is unusual for a 12" Dagor. In fact, even some 14" Dagors do not cover. Of course, it was pretty soft on the corners, even stopped down, but the circle of illumination was there.

Sandy King

[Scott Peters]

I am thinking that you bought a 12" Dagor from me some years ago? If this is the one, that lens actually covers 12X20", which is unusual for a 12" Dagor. In fact, even some 14" Dagors do not cover. Of course, it was pretty soft on the corners, even stopped down, but the circle of illumination was there.

Sandy King

Yes it is. Still enjoying it with my 7x17. Corners seem quite nice on the 7x17 stopped down. Thank you Sandy.

[renes]

Angulons are supposed to be a Dagor-type lenses.
How they differ in image character and quality?
Do you see any differences?

[Bruce A Cahn]

The main advantage of a Dagor is that it has low contrast while being very sharp. This quality makes it very desirable for landscape photography , where there is often a problem with too great a contrast range in the subject. Also they have a lot of coverage, as mentioned above. I had several which I used as everyday lenses. The problem with them is that the shutters are old and most of them are inaccurate. I did have one mounted in a new shutter, and it was a great performer, but eventually I replaced all my vintage glass with current lenses.

[Kevin Frost]

Notes on Dagors. I agree that the Dagor is a valueable lens for lots of reasons. But a fussy lens to use. I've never been able to focus mine (165, 101/4", 300) with open aperture. Generally I have to stop down to near f11before things become crisp enough to focus. But another thing that deserves mentioning is that many Dagor's suffer from focus shift. You might not notice it because it's slight but it happens with some, though not all. I believe that Adams recommended focusing the Dagor at or near the taking aperture, which can be hard to do in low light situations. But for those who have experienced dissapointment with the Dagor regarding sharpness this ought to be checked. An easy way to do it (maybe this is well known?) is to set your camera up as an optical bench by removing the ground glass but using a loupe so you get an ariel image. In effect your camera becomes a telescope. I made a panel to replace the camera back with a hole drilled through the middle and loupe attached. Very simple. But this will show you directly what your glass is doing for you. Generally all lenses are brilliant right in the center. What makes a good one is how well it preforms at the edges. By swinging the front and racking out to get it in focus you can see it clearly. Usually what happens at the edges is color fringing. When I got my prized Gold Ring Dagor I was delighted to discover that there was no focus shift at all, and more, the lens appeared to be apochromatically corrected right out to the edge of the field, which was a massive 85 degrees. No color fringing. BTW, 85 degrees is what an Angulon will give you so the 165 Dagor will cover 8x10, a valuable lens.

[Rick A]

I have a 10 3/4" that came off of an 18x24" process camera. I'd be willing to swap for a Mamiya C-330. Its that or I build a LF camera to use it with.

Rick

[Ole]

Angulons are supposed to be a Dagor-type lenses.
How they differ in image character and quality?
Do you see any differences?

Angulons are reverse Dagors, and even if they were "normal" there is no reason why they would be similar to other Dagor-type lenses - as indeed the Dagor-type lenses are different.

Angulond are optimised for larger coverage with less mechanical vignetting, thus less light fall-off. Dagors are better optimised for central sharpness.

[Mike1234]

DAGOR users please don't be offended but I've never understood the advantage of using a lens with "less contrast" unless one is shooting transparencies. It seems to me the best results are attained with careful exposure and development. I would worry that the shadow detail (shadow contrast) would suffer from what is essentially fogging the film during exposure.

Again, I intend no offense and I've seen zillions of gorgeous images shot with them many of them by you guys here on APUG. I'm just confused about the advantage of fogging the shadows rather than exposing more and developing less. But, I've never used one so I'm really only speculating.

[David A. Goldfarb]

I think Dagors actually have pretty good contrast, particularly if they're clean and coated. Even uncoated Dagors have reasonable contrast, as long as they are clean, and it's pretty common for older lenses to have some haze that is often cleanable. In their day this was one of their main attractions, because inherently faster or sharper designs, like the Planar, had too many glass-air surfaces to provide sufficient contrast before the introduction of lens coatings.