This lens can be used as a portrait lens or as a single achromat landscape lens by removing the rear lens group and placing the front lens group at the back of the lens tube. The single lens is of long-focus and will cover the next plate size. For landscape use it is fitted with washer stops part way along the tube.

Ross advertisements from around 1860 list the following portrait lenses:

In the early 1860s Dallmeyer produced several portrait lenses of different apertures.

• Extra Rapid with an aperture of around f2.5, only produced in short focal lengths. In catalogues these have model numbers such as 2C.
• Quick Acting with an aperture of f3. These have model numbers such as 2B. The model 4B covered whole-plates and had a back focus of 12".
• Ordinary Rapidity with an aperture of f4. These have model numbers such as 2A. The model 6A covered 20" x 16" and had a back focus of 22".
• Group with an aperture of f6. The smaller aperture gave better correction over a wider angle of view. These have model numbers such as 6D. The model 8D covered 22" x 20" and had a back focus of 30".

The Petzval portrait lens had two cemented elements at the front and two un-cemented elements at the rear. The shape of the rear positive element i.e. which face has the deeper curve, changes between examples. In 1866 Dallmeyer proposed (BP 2502/1866) switching the two rear elements so that the negative glass was at the rear. Other designers also used this configuration.

The advantage of switching the two elements was questionable except that by slightly unscrewing the rear element spherical aberration was introduced, this gave variable softness to the centre of the field. The softening of the image was often, at the time, described as extended or uniform depth-of-field. This arrangement was used in Dallmeyer's Patent Portrait lens. On early examples of the lens the rim of the outer cell is marked with cuts, one to four, these are aligned to a pin on the body of the lens.

A J.F. Shew catalogue from 1855 and a Bland & Long catalogue from a few years later both list Maugey lenses.