Really Big Darlot Petzval

**maurits** · 12-Mar-2010, 08:56

So an elderly gentleman living in a small village in the Dutch Veluwe was building a museum for himself. He kept on acquiring all kinds of crazy stuff and soon needed a bigger place to house his growing collection. But the local authorities refused to cooperate. In short: there was not going to a bigger museum, ever.

His house was now filled to the brim with all kinds of crazy old artefacts. He had no choice but to sell part of his treasure. Out went several antique washing machines, dozens of coffee mills, a few street lanterns and sleighs and thousands of different keys. Oh yes, and one (yes, just one) old lens.

The lens was advertised next to some fruit, to reflect its huge size. I know that the chili pepper is the produce of choice for lens advertisements, but we do not have that many of those in The Netherlands. Instead, the lens was pictured with what most people thought were tangerines. Their mistake, as the fruits were large juicy oranges...

It was a big lens, no doubt. Bigger than any other lenses I have...

Heck, even bigger than a Coleman Northstar lantern...

And surely too big for my Chamonix 45n...

Including the hood the lens is 15.5" tall, the glass front and the back diameter is 5.3". I'm guessing focal length is somewhere in between 16" and 20".

It is a Darlot for sure. Not only does the AD monogram prove that, but the front cemented element is signed Darlot, Paris 1862 on the rim. I have not been able to remove the rear element group, but it can clearly be seen that it is made of two air separated lenses.

My guess now is that this lens was born a Magic Lantern lens that was converted for photography very early in its life. The area where Darlot's signature used to be unfortunately made place for room to install Waterhouse stops. Only the monogram and the serial number remain (16.093).

There is no inner guide for the Waterhouse stops. I can see marks on the inside where such a thing may have been installed, though. Instead, there is a metal, matte black aperture ring mounted at the farthest inner rear part of the lens with a 4" diameter. I guess that ring makes it an f4 to f5 lens (depending on actual focal length).

Does anyone know this configuration? Or more about this lens?

All in all, this thing is really impressive. I like it...

.

**Emil Schildt** · 12-Mar-2010, 09:06

no help from me, BUT I'd like to ask permission to use the picture where you show the lens with your camera.. (just for fun - at facebook.. I LOVE these images!!)

In any case - I have the camera for it!! so send the lens to me....

**jb7** · 12-Mar-2010, 09:07

If only it was a little bigger, you could have put the camera inside...

Are you going to use it?

**dsim** · 12-Mar-2010, 09:09

Wow!!

What camera for that lens?

**goamules** · 12-Mar-2010, 09:09

Great (big) find. Darlot's continue to baffle me, just when I thought I understood them, another type appears that confuses my theories. If you can tell the slot was cut later, like you said, it was made over the signature, it's probably a projector lens originally. But what a huge one, I've never seen one larger than about a 8" focal length. A 16" focal length wouldn't fit on any projector I've seen, so perhaps it was a special order.

**Tri Tran** · 12-Mar-2010, 09:36

Congratulation! Great optic for portrait. Now you have to contact Hass to widen your Chamonix lens board to mount the camera on it. Please update us when you have picture taken from that lens.