Goerz Anschütz Ango

Shutter controls
The plate gives the shutter speeds for any slit-width; the viewfinder is missing.	Lens board allows rise and shift
Images by Rachel Rayns (Image rights)

Many of C.P. Goerz's early cameras use the fast rouleau shutter that the company had licensed exclusively from its inventor Ottomar Anschütz of Lissa in Poznań . A long running series of such cameras was named Ango, an abbreviation for Anschütz and Goerz. The series started in 1894 (though maybe not yet named "Ango"). The best-known of the 'Ango' cameras are strut folding models with the Anschütz focal plane shutter. The cameras are wooden-bodied, with black leather covering and bellows.

These cameras have a rather complex set of shutter controls on one side of the body, since early focal plane shutters needed more than one control element to set the speed. A combination of slit width setting and rouleau speed setting gave the shutter speed. Until 1905 the slit width had to be set inside the camera. On the opposite side of the camera is its grip. The camera has a folding Newton finder; most examples seen have a blue filter in the eyepiece of this, and crosshairs on the front lens. It can also be used with a ground-glass screen, like most plate cameras. The camera has helical focusing (compare to the strut-folders by Nettel, such as the Deckrullo-Nettel, which focus by adjustable strut extension). The lens board allows front rise and shift.

As the High-Speed Ango, such cameras were still available in 1922, for plate sizes 3¼x4¼", 4x5", 5x7" and 10x15cm , and equipped with Goerz Dogmar f/4.5 lens.

There were also Ango Luxus cameras, and stereo models, the Ango Stereo and Ango Stereo Luxus.

Production of the Ango ceased in 1926 or 1927 as a result of Goerz merger into Zeiss Ikon.

A folding SLR version of the camera, the Reflex-Ango was made, with reflex focusing.

advertised as High-Speed Ango in 1922 scanned by Uwe Kulick  (Image rights)

Links

• Anschütz Kameras of Goerz at www.ottomar-anschuetz.de
• Ango cameras sold at past auctions by Westlicht Photographica Auction (now Leitz Photographica Auction):
  • 9x12 cm Ango, serial no. 32909, dated about 1906, with a 13.5 cm f/6.8 Dagor Series III, and blue-filtered Newton finder, at the ninth auction (20 May 2006).
  • 8x10 cm Ango, serial no. 47110, dated about 1911, with a 13.5 cm f/6.8 Dagor lens, and blue-filtered Newton finder, at the nineteenth auction (28 May 2011).
  • 9x18 cm Stereo-Ango, serial no. 19504, dated about 1910, with 120 mm f/6.8 Dagor lenses, and with three Newton finders, one for stereo and one for each lens used separately; sold at the second/third auction (23 May 2003).
  • 9x18 cm Stereo-Ango, serial no. 21378, dated about 1920; similar to the one above, but with a single, blue-filtered Newton finder; also sold at auction 2/3.
• Goerz Anschutz 13x18 at Sylvain Halgand's www.collection-appareils.fr (in French)