Goerz

Goerz – Brand Review & Overview

Goerz (C.P. Goerz) is a historic German optics maker best known in large-format photography for its legendary Dagor and Artar lenses, which date back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Designed originally as high‑quality anastigmat and process lenses, these optics earned a reputation for sharpness, generous coverage, and a distinctive rendering that many landscape and ultra‑large‑format photographers still seek out today.

Dagor lenses, built from symmetric double-triplet cells, offer wide image circles in relatively compact, lightweight packages, making them favorites for field use on formats from 4×5 up to 12×20 and larger. Apo‑Artar lenses are long, apochromatic process lenses with excellent correction and very high resolution, often used on 8×10 and bigger cameras for contact prints, copy work, and detailed landscape or portrait images.

As you explore this brand, think about your format and shooting style: a wide or mid‑length Dagor for portable landscape and architecture with lots of movements, or a longer Apo‑Artar for razor‑sharp, classic contact prints on big sheets of film. Choosing the right Goerz lens lets you pair vintage large-format cameras with optics that are both historically significant and fully capable of producing beautifully detailed, character-rich images today.