From time to time you will see a lens appearing here, which is rarely sold at all. You can look up ebay history and i doubt that you will find many 500mm F4.5 Jamin Darlot Cone Centralisateur. Like the Dallmeyer 4A that was sold within a week, this is another such a lens, that rarely will appear on the market.



History: The Cone Centralisateur lens design (which is a petzval design with a larger back element to avoid reflections), is absolutely famous and sought after in the late 19th century and even more today. It was the flagship lens for Jamins workshop in the early 1850ies and 1860ies in Paris. It offered better optical quality then most of his rivals, but also a possibility to it as a portrait (portrait mode) lens and also as a landscape lens (paysage). Even though its a normal petzval design, you will see a slight difference to other portrait petzvals from that time. The Cone Centralisateur lenses have this cenrtain 'something' to their image, which is hard to grasp, but many people are looking for.

The engraving reads:

'JAMIN & DARLOT Btes - Rue Chapon 14 Paris'

That engraving puts the lens in the short time period of early 1860 where Darlot became the partner of Jamin. Just a couple of years later (around 1863) Darlot took the workshop over.

Condition: This brass beauty comes in a great condition! The brass shows only light wear and still a warm patina, the rack & pinion mechanism seems complete and working. The lens features a washer stop option inside (you need some washer type stops). The glass is in nice condition too, there are some light marks and fine cleaning streaks here and there,  which is quite normal for that age and wont affect the image at all.

With its fast open aperture of F4.5 and a focal lengh of 500mm (or almost 20"), this lens will work anywhere from 8x10 to 12x15 format (and very likely even 14x17 if you really want to see alot of petzval character in your images and some light vignietting).

In landscape mode it will have an estimated focal lenght of 1200mm, covering huge ULF formats like 40" x 40" !

It comes with a fitting flange and the original brass Lenscap!



height: 33cm
width: 13cm
weight: 3300gr

Insured and tracked shipping cost:

Germany - 30 eur
EU* - 50 eur
Worldwide - 150 eur**

*(the site offers only 2 shipping variations, DE and worldwide. buyers from EU please either contact me beforehand for a reduced EU cost, or after buying so i can send a refund over the difference)

** the high cost is due the high insurance value

Importent Note: This item comes from my private collection and is around 100 years old (antique). I try my best to describe all the faults and major damage which are relevant for the function of this item. But the actuall item can show signs of wear and also some cosmetic blemishes/damage which is not described in the auction text! When buying this item the buyer agrees to this terms.