Dallon 10 inch tele-anastigmat lens on lens plate: Lieutenant Alan Queale, Official Photographer, BCOF

Dallmeyer Dallon 10 inch f=5.6 tele-anastigmat lens (serial number 315562) fitted onto a Compur shutter assembly and mounted onto a square lens plate to allow it to be used with the 2x3 Speed Graphic. The lens is fitted with a screw-in Ilford 104 Alpha pale yellow daylight filter, and has a later aluminium lens hood fitted on the front, with an unnamed leather covered lens cap.

The user has taped up the apeture indicator on the Compur shutter base, possibly indicating a specialist application.

Alan Queale was born in Boonah, Queensland on 16 November 1908 and enlisted in June 1940. Under service number QX6717 he served in the Middle East with 2/1 and 2/2 Ordnance Stores as a technical storeman from September 1940 until January 1943, reaching the rank of sergeant.

During his time in the Middle East, he used a simple Ensign Double 8 still camera to privately produce six albums of photographic portraits and studies of buildings, a format he would reproduce when he worked in Japan. Arriving back in Australia, he was transferred to 2 Base Ordnance Depot in Melbourne before being transferred to Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU) in March 1944, serving with them in New Guinea (an experience he found "rubbish"). He applied for a transfer to the Military History Section in July 1945, where he worked with No 2 Military History Field Team in New Guinea until February 1946.

Queale worked with the Military History Section (MHS) from 1946-47 in Japan, photographically documenting the activities of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) and aspects of Japanese life post-war, including the demilitarisation of the country, before being made the Officer in Charge (with the rank of lieutenant) of the MHS from February 1947 to March 1949. His photos from his service in the Middle East as well as Japan are searchable under his name on the AWM database.

After he was discharged from the Army in August 1949, Queale continued to take and collect photographs, and became well-known in Queensland for his work as an amateur historian and collector of art and artifacts. His work is notable for its unusually fine aesthetic values, as well as for what it reveals about Australia’s view of Asia in the immediate post-war period.

This Dallmeyer 10 inch Dallon lens was mounted on a Compur shutter which was in turn mounted to a steel lens plate designed to fit the quick change lens mechanism on a Graflex 2 ¼ inch x 3 ¼ inch Miniature Speed Graphic press camera. All the user had to do was slide the lens release upwards and replace the lens. The lens mounts an Ilford 104 Alpha pale yellow filter which is used for rendering daylight clouds and sky blues.