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Manual Lenses and radioactivite?
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  • @Zeko, exactly, and that is a good example of the problem being corrected. Unfortunately many problems have been deemed not cost effective to correct. For anyone that doubts this logic, the Ford people knew of the Pintos tendency to explode when rear ended, but it was deemed more cost effective to deal with a few lawsuits over the loss of loved ones rather than recall and correct the issue on the vehicles. I think the biggest example of a product known to be bad for us (other than booze and tobacco) are cell phones, and french fries. These are both mass market and both have high risks of cancer according to valid studies. I personally use a PHS phone which is the only type allowed in Hospital rooms (in Japan anyways). It is not actually a cell phone in the traditional sense, and uses much smaller transmitter towers which can be located just about anywhere, so I actually have better coverage, but the best thing is the SAR level which is as high as 1.2 on many of the newest smart phones, is something like .05 on my phone, or maybe it was .005 eitherway ridiculously low, and OMG it still functions and even surfs the web if need be. I will get off my soap box in a sec, but my point is that there are often alternatives to the bad stuff we deem necessary, french fries can be fried or baked at lower temps, and reduce the cancerous chemical that comes from high temps (sorry the name slips my mind)... but that would take more time to produce the product, and not be "cost effective".

    Sorry for the rants, but I tend to care a bit too much and want to pass on the little positive knowledge I have whenever possible.

  • And don't forget those wonderful x-ray machines they had to measure your foot size.

    Step right up folks...

  • @soundgh2

    ad hominem - yes, well picked.

    In my case it's ad hominēs omnem, meaning I tried to quote all opposing arguments.

    Frustrating as it seems, the online-style of debate looks ridiculous and chaotic but on Personal-View.com the occasional bun-fight over trivial issues serves to mask the obvious intelligence of its contributors. So that was indeed a post about out personal traits.

    FWIW, I don't go to any online discussion groups on a regular basis - because, as we all know, debate often disintegrates into ridiculous polemic. Whereas here, (largely because of Vitaliy's occasional intervention), we largely pull in our horns and discussion gets somewhere.

    I value the comments of you guys guys (including the ~3 gals). I like the way I learn here, get corrected and pushed to more rigorous examination of all things photographic and other. It's the reason I don't feel I need to do FaceBook or Twitter (in fact if I practised social networking I would have no time for a real life).

    Almost without exception, PV contributors stand out exactly because they do have lots of real life experience as well. After all, we've somehow got it together to fork out the cash for a Lumix or two - which suggests we tend to put one foot in front of the other, have lives - and some of you (me excluded, I confess) have not only found your way around the GH2's menus and but have committed them to memory. We manage to decide whether a $100 purchase is worth the time saved, whether a dropped 5-cent coin is worth enough to bother picking up..

    But here you get the linear nature of forums. This messes with our ability to express complex, abstract concepts. (We chew gum, stop chewing, walk a bit, chew gum some more..)

    The way in which intelligent individuals can't seem to cope with the variables involved in making commonplace decisions regarding a slightly radioactive lens is baffling - and not just a little funny to witness a discussion collapse in a giggling heap! And I see others seem to find it so as well. :-))

  • As a journalist for most of my adult life, I try to balance stories and am judged by my peers according to my ability to do so. But from time to time I am surprised by a non-journalist who assumes I have allegiances one way or another. (They assume both ways).

    I find we skip over others' posts in online forums, making assumptions over others' beliefs which were never there, sometimes even implying that the person has a Freudian belief behind what they are saying.

    Forums pose a challenge for us to try to understand others when faced with words alone, without facial expressions or vocal inflections. I find it hard to imagine faces behind the words. It's also a challenge to force myself to abandon a false caricature of another which I have built up.

    Just as in driving, we often perceive other motorists as a kind of enemy, forums are a good opportunity to seek humanity behind the words, abandon paranoia and presumptions. For me, it's a chance to cultivate the Tao. Sorry for when I offend you.

  • @Robertao "sorry when I offended you"

    Are you referring to me, cause I was never offended by anything you said or posted.

    also I agree with this comment allot "Forums pose a challenge for us to try to understand others when faced with words alone, without facial expressions or vocal inflections. " Even with people you know it can lead to misunderstandings. It's why I don't like talking to my friends using instant messengers.

    And in an attempt to try and steer this thread back on topic. Whether it is the thorium, or the concave lens, my canon 35mm F2 FD lens is amazing. Here's a little pre sunset cloud action. Of course the original file is much sharper, and has zero noise.

  • @roberto fair 'nuf - not saving lives are we :) "Personal View" sort of sums it up - I wasn't entering an argument just re-blah blah blah-ing years of tedious physics which ended up in a piece of paper saying yes - I'd survived years of tedious physics - my daily job is resolving broadcast shit so don't worry some ASCII wibble aint a worry. Still like my faintly yellow lens though I must say.

  • Fact is, there is no reason to own a radioactive lens. Modern lenses are sharper, focus instantly and silently, have better color, contrast and better coatings. There are obviously better wide open--I don't use my Leicas anymore, just snap on an Olly 45mm or whatever. From a technical point of view, there is no safe level of radiation. It comes down to probabilities. A banana is surprisingly radioactive, and modern lenses also take better pictures than a banana.

  • You use a radioactive lens because it is unique.

    You can't get that image from a modern lens.

    Just know what you are dealing with, when using and storing the lens.

  • Maybe my GH2 will develop some kind of failure soon... as the FD 50mm 1.2 and the 35mm 2.0, both used in thorium turbo mode on, are 90% of the time in camera : O

    The good side is that they produce wonderful images : )

  • @DrDave in my case I use it because it was a free gift, and none of my other lenses can match it's results. I try to use my non thorium 50mm FD lenses whenever possible, and my Panny 14-42 lens for wide shots, but that 35 f2 concave thorium lens just produces such gorgeous results. The focus feels great and is so precise and the bokeh is on par with the Nokton lenses IMHO. It makes everything look very filmic and is actually a very sharp lens, even wide open. I do plan on trying to replace it with the Nokton 25mm .95 lens someday. But that is allot of money for me at the moment.

  • @Ze_Cahue it's funny you say that cause I had to send my GH2 into the shop a couple weeks ago because it had some strange glitches which initially looked like LCD issues. However functions would not work even using the EVF. Panasonic replaced the motherboard and it's fine now, but I was thinking in the back of my head "I wonder if it was the thorium". I am not complaining though, since I got them to replace the mount too which always felt too loose. The new mount is much tighter, and I still have 6 months warranty. So if the Thorium is the culprit there should be plenty of time for it to fry another mobo before my warranty runs out = P

  • For $160 you can get the Panny 14mm which is as sharp as Leica, light as feather, slim as a hockey puck, has fast, silent autofocus and does not glow in the dark. I have never seen an old lens that was really sharp wide open, it was shock to use the 20mm for the very first time and have my wide-open ideas turned upside down. If you like the character of the lens, then keep it and use it! You can buy lead golf tape for $5 on eBay and line a small box for it as well.

  • I tested the older (non SMC) Takumar 50mm 1.4 recently on my GH2. It has nothing image wise which I can't get from my Minolta Rokkor 58mm 1.2, but it is definitely radioactive, and my meter is not showing alpha radiation only. BTW, it shows massive yellowing too.

    While I don't think there is a significant health risk unless you grind it and inhale the dust, I think there is some risk to your sensor. The radiation is emanating mainly from the rear lens and hitting the sensor at very close distance. Canon has put a warning in one of the manuals for the C300 that ionizing radiation can damage photocells on CMOS sensors. So, I'd rather avoid that risk.

    BTW, none of the older Russian lenses I own and like a lot (as Mir, Helios, Jupiter or Tair), some of which show lens yellowing, shows any radiation.

  • I totally understand that old lenses have character, I have many, but there is no reason to own one unless you really want to. The simple fact is that the micro coatings are much better now, and the lenses are mostly superior. Doesn't mean I will part with my Vivitar 1:1 90mm macro, but I don't use it so much any more. That said, most lenses probably have the same rads as a banana, but you never know, you might get a "hot" one. If you are worried, don't sleep with it.

  • "Takuma, baby, we're going to have to stop sleeping together like this. My wife is starting to suspect something."

    " But we're so good together! Just look at you. You're positively glowing " :-)

  • There are many words of wisdom written in this thread. In the last passage, I accomplished some of them, as well corrected few information which were not right- for all those who will read this topic and try to learn something here.

    I own myself several radioactive lenses, so naturally I also wanted to know how dangerous using of old radioactive lenses could be. I've found this video which contains at least some reasonable values, as opposite to many videos with panicy noises of the Geiger counter without the facts, like many other videos present:

    I am getting slightly upset almost every time when reading in the newspaper some articles about Fukushima, Tchernobyl or about the radioactivity in general: so many journalists seem not to understand the numbers they are writing about. We need to have few facts to get impression of how high the danger for our health could effectively be:
    A: how high the radioactivity really is
    B: how long time was body exposed to it, or
    C: total radiation dose.

    Let's check it:
    Example lens: Canon FL 58mm f/1.2 (contains radioactive Thorium dioxide)
    - Average exposure to the radiation by practical use of this lens is 1 µSv/hour if constantly kept on-body
    - Harmless amount of radiation for humans is 3 µSv/day
    - Keeping this lens just half of your arm length away from your body reduces the radiation to negligible amount

    BTW, we live surrounded by Thorium:
    The bones of a human contain 0.002 to 0.012 mg per kg of bone mass. We all are consuming through our food and water about 0.05 to 3 µg of Thorium daily. It would be better for us to avoid any exposure to the radioactivity, but it is not possible- it is all around us.

    Among many absolutely correct things what @soundgh2 wrote, it is also true that flying in the airplane exposes our bodies to much higher effective dose of (cosmic) radiation: it varies between roughly 3-7 µSv/hour. Compare it to lenses radiation....so rather avoid here and there some flight and keep your Takumars, @Roberto. I owned some 25 years ago Pentax Spotmatic F with three radioactive Takumars (I didn't even know about their radioactivity), I just loved that camera so much that I kept it often literally close to my bed. I am still perfectly healthy, so the Takumars made no harm me... did you read this, @disastronaut ? Feel supported by my time experience.

    Although the outgoing danger is too small to get rid of the radioactive lenses, as @nomad says there is also no particular reason to own some.... BTW, the yellowing of some russian vintage lenses @nomad mentioned comes from aging of Canada balsam they are coated with, they're indeed not radioactive. @nomad has right that many other, non-radioactive vintage lenses give just same optical results- and indeed, the lens radioactivity could indeed mean much higher danger for the camera sensor than for user's health, maybe @ZeCahue could post us here if he still uses most of the time his radioactive lenses and if he noticed any bad effects meanwhile? I still own my radioactive Canons, but I don't find them optically superior like @mee does. As @DrDave wrote, coatings are improved so much meanwhile, and Nokton which was mentioned for instance outpreforms very clearly just any of the radioactive lenses I ever owned: in terms of sharpness, color rendition, CA control and ghosting plus it also has wonderful image with character and lovely bokeh.

    And all of radioactive lenses have one common disadvantage: dealing with their yellowing, which is result of radioactive process in the glass. I deal with that nasty problem exposing my radioactive lenses during winter months to direct sunlight, when the weather is really nice and when I can stay home and turn the lenses as the sun position moves. I cut round whole in the paper which has the same size like the front (or back) lens. White paper prevents heating of the lens, aperture blades should be open (both for reason of preventing oil exceeding). Exposing several days to the UV rays brings first results, yellowing starts disapearing.

  • I can confirm this information about yellowing. I was able to significantly reduce the yellowing of a nice old Rokkor 58mm 1.2 (knurled metal ring, clearly radioactive) with a strong source of UV (old EPROM eraser).

    It had no effect whatsoever on an old Russian lens which was yellow, but not radioactive.

  • Less than a banana, but no way to know if a tiny amount of radiation is dangerous. Anyway, the non radioactive lenses take better photos, so it is kind of a moot point. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15288975

  • Is there another, more complete list than the one pointed out on the first page?

  • My GH2 is still working very well... with 55 1.2 and 35 2.0 About the image quality, aesthetic is not very well mensurable, its up to taste, like ass, each one has its own! The thorium coat dont make the lens "better", but unique.

  • Thanks for the link, @cupanudles

    However, the writer's knowledge of old lenses shouldn't be mistaken for expertise in radiation:

    even if you were right by the lens for, say, an hour per day, you’d probably still be ok in the long run

    Well, according to The American Cancer Society, an individual's risk varies.

    Referring to medical use of radiation during tests, they say:

    Because radiation exposure from all sources can add up over a lifetime, and radiation can, indeed, increase cancer risk, imaging tests that use radiation should only be done for a good reason.

    Might we say that we should each take into account our accumulated risk from all sources and then only use a radioactive lens carefully, sparingly and likewise only for a good reason?

  • Really, folks don't get nervous about this. The only lenses to use with care are Kodak Aero.

    All others are pure alpha emitters, shielded by your skin or a piece of paper. The only way they could damage you if you grind the glass and inhale or swallow…

  • My two most heavily used lenses are Canon FD SSC's. My wife kinda likes the way they make my skin glow.