J H Dallmeyer Ltd was a well-known London-based manufacturer of lenses, telescopes and photographic equipment, founded in 1860, and it enjoyed a high reputation for the quality of its products.  The founder of the company, John Henry Dallmeyer, is reported to have invented the Rapid Rectilinear lens (in 1866), and he and his company received many awards in the 19th century for their inventions and products.  I believe that the company may still be trading but have not been able to find contact details.
 

In the 1960 edition of the British Journal Almanac, Dallmeyer’s advertisement states “ESTABLISHED 100 YEARS” and uses the slogan “BY TEST THE BEST”. The SLR Yearbook 1970, which was published in the U.K., Reported that Dallmeyer lenses were available in the Pentacon Six mount. Dallmeyer liked to use the prefix “Dall-” with various of its products, speaking of “Dallcoating” for lenses and giving the name “Dallac” to its lenses supplied with a Leica mount, for example.  “Dallon” and “Adon” were two of the names that they used for ranges of lenses that they manufactured.  Sam Sherman says, “I think the Dallon lenses were Dallmeyer and the same lenses were also listed as Adon – if any of these were made at all.” In the full-sized version of the 1936 advertisement reproduced on the right (click on the image to see it), I have arrowed some of the references to “Adon” and “Dallon” lenses.

Advertisement from the British Journal Almanac, 1936 Click on the image to see a larger version.

Adon

Gillespie lists six lenses in the Pentacon Six mount with the product range name Adon.  They all have a maximum aperture of f/4.5.  I have added the price in £ s d (pounds, shillings and pence) as given in the SLR Yearbook 1970.  Details are as follows:
 

1 In the SLR Yearbook 1970 the focal length is listed as 305mm.

Dallon

Dallon was another Dallmeyer product range name.  Gillespie lists the following Dallon lenses with only the focal length and the maximum aperture.  I have again added the price in £ s d (pounds, shillings and pence) as given in the SLR Yearbook 1970.
 

1 In the SLR Yearbook 1970 the focal length is listed as 305mm.

For both sets of lenses, Gillespie states, “All of the above have click-stopped diaphragm (not pre-set)”, which is confirmed by the SLR Yearbook 1970.

Click-stopped diaphragm controls were common at the time and are also to be found on the Enna Tele-Ennalyt and the Novoflex 240mm Novoflexar and 500mm Tele-Novoflexar.  No need to take one’s eye from the viewfinder; just rotate the aperture ring, counting the clicks just before firing the shutter.

The Adon range clearly consisted of larger-aperture and more expensive lenses, although not all of the focal lengths were offered in both ranges.

As regards the unusual focal lengths, these may have been metric conversions of calculations that had been made in inches.  One should also bear in mind that most manufacturers “round up” or “round down” the actual focal length of their lenses to the nearest commonly-quoted one, such that a lens from another manufacturer that purports to be 150mm may in fact be anything from about 146 to 154mm.  To their credit, Dallmeyer believed in giving the exact focal length.

Compared with salaries that were common at the time, these are very expensive lenses that may have been bought by businesses but are unlikely to have been bought by many amateur photographers.

I personally doubt if some of these lenses were ever manufactured in the Praktisix/Pentacon Six mount, and am sure that they never entered serial production.  They were probably prepared to order by adding the appropriate camera mount to lenses that had already been manufactured without a specific camera mount.

This data is based on published sources.  I do not have any of these lenses.

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© TRA May 2002, January 2012