[LargeFormat] cult lenses

[Les Newcomer]

I'm beginning to think that the cult has less to do with the lenses and 
more to do with Dagor77 aka Andrew Glover.

Dagor lenses are known for coverage and sharpness, they also have a 
focus shift that some people refuse to belive.
Dagors were made by the Goerz company, known for quality lenses 
throughout their lifetime.

Wollensak made a number of soft focus lenses and within the mushiness 
lies a lot of lore, and a lot of lies. They also made a lot of lenses 
for Graflex under the Optar name and for themselves under the Rapax 
name, but these were produced in great numbers and don't qualify for 
cult status.

the current cult Wolley lens is the Pro Raptar.  A very good performer 
and until recently under valued.  Hard to find and everyone wonders 
what the heck is a Rapax shutter doing with a blue background  (all 
previous were black)

  A lot of Dagor's lenses are lenses from the printing industry.  They 
were expensive to make, had to be excruciatingly accurate in color 
fedility, resolution, and contrast.  The only thing they didn't have to 
be was fast, so these are typically long lenses 19inches plus and slow, 
f10 or so.  They do work well on large format as long as you have a 
bright and sunny location like Clive has. ;-).  Actually because they 
are long lenses they aren't that difficult to focus in diminished light 
as the light comes in nearly on axis.

Les

On Monday, June 2, 2003, at 11:41  AM, Dan Kalish wrote:

> What are Dagor, Cooke, Dallmeyer, Goerz, Dallmeyer, and Wollensak 
> lenses and
> why are they held in such reverence?  I was checking out Dagor77's 
> auctions.
> What a character!
>
> Dan Kalish
> Flushing, New York, New York, USA
>
>
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