Photography, Music, Fractal Art

STL Elgeet 86mm f1.2 lens

This is a barrel lens made for TRW Space Technology Laboratories by Elgeet in the 1960s (I guess). The lens is for very close work, designed for 1:1. It was used in the STL Image Converter Camera, and appears to be designed as a transfer lens. It is also highly radioactive, containing at least two thorium glass elements and which measures around 20 microSieverts/hour at the back element, enough that I would not want to have it too close to my eye for long periods of time. The ionizing radiation from Thorium-232 eventually tints the glass, and this lens is quite brown, darkened by almost 2 stops in terms of light transmission. That being said, it does have a singular bokeh. I have had little success in achieving pleasing results, but there are a couple that I do like and will post here in the gallery.