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Goerz Dagor 6.8/150... hopefully my last buy for a while
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 4:30 pm    Post subject: Goerz Dagor 6.8/150... hopefully my last buy for a while Reply with quote
I succeeded in getting a Goerz Dagor 6.8/150 at a reasonable price, Click here to see on Ebay, this specimen is probably from 1911. This symmetrical anastigmat was the last lens type I've been hunting for so I hope to be done with the hunting, at least for a while. I've got way too many lenses already, and the progression from the Meniscus to the APO-Lanthar and the various Zeiss and Leitz lenses ought to provide enough different signatures for my photographic needs, from exceedingly pictorial to exceedingly documentary.

Veijo


PostPosted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 5:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
You finally bought a Dagor lens. Congratulations!
It is great to know somebody who brings these old gems back to life.


PostPosted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 5:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I never heard of Dagor lenses.
What impresses me is your ability of buying these rare lenses at such low prices!
Like always, I'm greatly looking forward to what you will be able to create with it.
And egoistically I hope that you keep buying these old lenses so that we can enjoy them further more Wink


PostPosted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 6:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
LucisPictor wrote:
You finally bought a Dagor lens. Congratulations!
It is great to know somebody who brings these old gems back to life.


Thanks Smile

Veijo


PostPosted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 6:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I've seen a number of Dagor photographs, and they are stunners! I've
been thinking of getting the Zeiss Tengor Box camera because it has
a Goerz lens on the front of it.

Bill


PostPosted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 6:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Orio wrote:
I never heard of Dagor lenses.


Dagors (Double Anastigmat Goerz) were the first symmetric anastigmats. The configuration is 3+3, i.e. there are only four air/glass surfaces, and these lenses can be very sharp. There is some residual spherical aberration, which means there is a focus shift when stopping down, but I usually focus at the shooting aperture so for me it doesn't matter.

Quote:
What impresses me is your ability of buying these rare lenses at such low prices!


Well, in this case I was helped by the rather original remounting, which must have scared most potential buyers away Smile

Quote:
Like always, I'm greatly looking forward to what you will be able to create with it.
And egoistically I hope that you keep buying these old lenses so that we can enjoy them further more Wink


If I keep buying lenses, I don't have time to prepare proper pages for the lenses I've already tentatively tested, and I don't have time to do proper testing, and I don't have time for the most important thing - photography instead of mere testing. I think I have a wide enough selection of these uncoated lenses to show that they really are worthwhile - for people who are ready to accept the inevitable shortcomings of these lenses and who find some artistic uses for the different optical signature of these lenses. Artistic is the key word, there are very few, if any, purely technical reasons to use these lenses. Not one of these lenses can technically match a reasonably recent Zeiss or Leitz lens, but in a way photos taken with those technically superior lenses are like view cards, often very striking, and the photos taken with the old lenses are more akin to paintings, they have a soothing atmosphere. Take e.g. my Kuhmo Radionar photos, they lack all the visual attributes of my Leitz lenses, they can in no way be made as vivid, but conversely, it would take very great photographic skill to produce an equal serenity and tranquility with, say, a 2/35 Summicron. Of course, many people would prefer the Leitz photos, the normal Leitz photos, no doubt about that. One of these days I'll prepare a page to show the contrast - between "view cards" and "paintings".

Veijo


PostPosted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 6:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Katastrofo wrote:
I've been thinking of getting the Zeiss Tengor Box camera because it has a Goerz lens on the front of it.


The lens on the Tengors has optically nothing common with the Dagors. It is probably a f/11 Meniscus Achromat, newer ones may even be single glass Meniscus lenses, i.e. not even achromats.

Veijo


PostPosted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 7:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
vilva wrote:
Katastrofo wrote:
I've been thinking of getting the Zeiss Tengor Box camera because it has a Goerz lens on the front of it.


The lens on the Tengors has optically nothing common with the Dagors. It is probably a f/11 Meniscus Achromat, newer ones may even be single glass Meniscus lenses, i.e. not even achromats.

Veijo


Thankfully, my idea never got past the musing stage. Thanks for the info!

Bill


PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 12:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I never even heard of half of these lenses..... Embarassed


patrickh


PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 12:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
patrickh wrote:
I never even heard of half of these lenses..... Embarassed
patrickh


Same here. Real ignorant.
But I am amazed by what Veijo can do with them.


PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 12:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I think Odin was Veijo's dad, that might explain some of it... Laughing


PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 9:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Katastrofo wrote:
I've seen a number of Dagor photographs, and they are stunners!


Those Dagors were probably mounted on large format cameras so the photos certainly would be stunners even compared to normal medium format photos, which again can be stunners compared to 35 mm photos. Mounted on an SLR, the differences will be more subtle - if discernible at all. Anyway, as far as old lenses are concerned the Dagors are near or at the top.

Veijo


PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 9:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
patrickh wrote:
I never even heard of half of these lenses..... Embarassed


I hadn't either before I started playing with the old folder cameras - then I had to learn in order to know what to buy. After I started mounting the lenses on SLR bodies, the range of usable lenses grew as the condition of the original camera didn't matter at all anymore, and also lenses from larger and obsolete format cameras became usable.

Veijo


PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 9:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Orio wrote:
But I am amazed by what Veijo can do with them.


Well, it's mostly a question of forgetting all they say about the lens quality required for digital photography, just a logical extension of using manual focus SLR lenses. A lens is a lens, and any lens can be usable under some circumstances for some purpose, even a pinhole will sometimes do. Using a number of, quite admittedly, "bad" lenses may also teach more about photography than any of the latest (AF) wonders could - one has to learn to know the limitations and to work within them, freedom is in knowing the limits.

Veijo


PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 9:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Katastrofo wrote:
I think Odin was Veijo's dad, that might explain some of it... Laughing


My late father was an unlearned man who thought there are pretty few things a man cannot do if necessary. I, with all my learning, am just a petty tinkerer compared to him.

Veijo


PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 3:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
vilva wrote:
Katastrofo wrote:
I think Odin was Veijo's dad, that might explain some of it... Laughing


My late father was an unlearned man who thought there are pretty few things a man cannot do if necessary. I, with all my learning, am just a petty tinkerer compared to him.

Veijo


Veijo, self-effacing, you're one of the bright stars here!

About the Dagor pics I've seen, they were mostly if not all, 4x5 and
some that stick in my mind were done with an old Seneca, black and
white, of course.

The Dagor you found on ebay, very very lucky find at that price!!!

Bill


PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 4:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Katastrofo wrote:
Quote:
My late father was an unlearned man who thought there are pretty few things a man cannot do if necessary. I, with all my learning, am just a petty tinkerer compared to him.

Veijo


Veijo, self-effacing, you're one of the bright stars here!


I wasn't being self-effacing, I was just comparing myself to my father. I'm content to have something work sufficiently for my needs, my father was after perfection. When he was in the primary school, he had a woodwork teacher who took an ax and broke into splinters the things the boys made if he wasn't satisfied with the quality. So my father became a man who honed things to perfection and made his own tools when he wasn't satisfied with the quality of the commercial ones - that was the time when you still could make things, before the time of the present, often quite excessive use of micro-electronics. He was the kind of man who makes a paper knife with which you can split a coin without braking the blade in the process - he made it out of an old-school bayonet, not one of the modern, ninny toothpicks. I've still got the paper knife, the kind of cutlery which gets you arrested if you go around carrying it in your briefcase.



Veijo


PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 4:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Yes, I would say your father was a master at what he did! Beautiful blade
and handle (of staghorn?). No, you wouldn't want to be packing that in
your briefcase going through an airline carry-on checkpoint.

My father was a jeweler, went to watchmaking school, was one of the
first of two registered gemologists in the state of Idaho, and made
beautiful jewelry. I still have some of his tools, superbly made and
irreplaceable.

Bill


PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 5:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Now what I am going to say is going to sound like the usual "ah the old times... the old people..." but I really think that the men of the generation of my father (which should not be too distant from your fathers) are something that we are going to lose forever here in the western world.
This because in today's time we are not allowed to be concretely creative anymore.
At the time of my father, the scarcity of means forced people to be creative with even the simplest everyday objects. What was not available, or not affordable, had to be replaced and recreated with fantasy, creativity, genius.
_


PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 6:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Orio wrote:
Now what I am going to say is going to sound like the usual "ah the old times... the old people..." but I really think that the men of the generation of my father (which should not be too distant from your fathers) are something that we are going to lose forever here in the western world.
This because in today's time we are not allowed to be concretely creative anymore.
At the time of my father, the scarcity of means forced people to be creative with even the simplest everyday objects. What was not available, or not affordable, had to be replaced and recreated with fantasy, creativity, genius.
_


Not be condescending all the time, but I am in total agreement. This will be a huge loss of a remarkable generation.


PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 6:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Orio wrote:
This because in today's time we are not allowed to be concretely creative anymore.


I think and feel we can still be creative and we have far better material prerequisites to be creative than our fathers had. We just have to get over the hurdle of not needing to be creative, and I think it is very important to show to our children that it is possible to be also materially creative and not only in the virtual spheres of life. Children are naturally creative and inventive if they are given even the slightest opportunity early enough - and a reasonably good example in ourselves, showing that it isn't necessary to be a facsimile of the next-door neighbor - showing, not just saying, let alone demanding. This manual focus and old lens thing is part of the process, a way to show that you don't need be content with the silver platter.

Veijo


PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 7:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
vilva wrote:

I think and feel we can still be creative and we have far better material prerequisites to be creative than our fathers had. We just have to get over the hurdle of not needing to be creative, and I think it is very important to show to our children that it is possible to be also materially creative and not only in the virtual spheres of life. Children are naturally creative and inventive if they are given even the slightest opportunity early enough - and a reasonably good example in ourselves, showing that it isn't necessary to be a facsimile of the next-door neighbor - showing, not just saying, let alone demanding. This manual focus and old lens thing is part of the process, a way to show that you don't need be content with the silver platter.
Veijo


I have to quote the whole text, I agree on 100%. Very wisdomfully expressed.


PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 7:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Orio wrote:
I have to quote the whole text, I agree on 100%. Very wisdomfully expressed.

I second that too.


PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 8:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Yep! My daughter surprises me all the time. She is not even two years old and yet she show so much creativity!


PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 9:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
LucisPictor wrote:
Yep! My daughter surprises me all the time. She is not even two years old and yet she show so much creativity!


Don't worry the state education will suppress her creativity very soon Evil or Very Mad Rolling Eyes They need to create productive citizens not artistic ones.
_
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