Radioactive lens: do you know?

[Timmyjoe]

Edit: I'm now cancer free! Psa 0.28

Most excellent news, congratulations.

 

[x-ray]

Good Luck with your cancer in the future. There are long term effects to radiation treatment as my wife had 32 rads and 16 chemo. I only hope that hospitals and treatment center's can afford to get the newer Proton units into North America soon. The shots from these units are way smaller (narrow beam), than the wider beam ones on the regular radiation units now in use.

Thank you!

We have a proton center twenty minutes from my home. I did a lot of research on the proton therapy for prostate cancer and I wound up getting the seed implants. There were several reasons that I elected to do seeds. Yes proton is much easier on the body than external beam xray and that was an option just above surgery. It really came down to two choices, proton or seeds. I spoke to several proton patients that had treatment up to 5 years ago and patients that had had seeds. I do a lot of work with hospitals for advertising so I had access to these people.

Proton is still radiation whether better focused or not. There are side effects from all forms of radiation therapy. When I dug into the side effects of proton the effects were similar to what external beam xray produced. Fatigue, pelvic fractures, bleeding at 18 months or longer ( short term) and etc. The dosage to the tumor was the same as external beam xray IMRT, 75-85 Gray. You go 38-40 visits for treatment. Basically it's 5 days a week for two months.

Seeds have side effects but no bone fractures but mostly inflammation which goes away usually. The seeds are precisely targeted in the organ. The organ is mapped with ultrasound and a computer model generated with a precise map of where to place each seed. My oncologist had done well over 2000 implants. The seeds are implanted once and that's it. One trip does it all. They stay with me forever but diminish in intensity every 17 days until they're if no consequence. The final dosage to the organ is 125-135 Gray. This is significantly more radiation to the site insuring a higher rate of success. There are side effects but they are more isolated and diminish with the nuclear decay of the isotope. None of the side effects were terrible, just irritating for the most part but now I have virtually none just a few little things here and there that are getting better daily. I'm now at my 7th half life so the radiation is negligible.

One treatment isn't for everyone. I recommend anyone facing this weigh all options. There are so many great treatment options now. Do not delay treatment especially if you're you get. It's not going to go away by itself.

 

[sevo]

How about a Kodak Aero-Ektar 2.5/178mm?

As I said, that is one known exception, with a high thorium element as the last inward element. But even that is considered harmless in normal use...

 

[Bille]

Ho,

I have some lens:

- Takumar smc 1.8 55mm
- yashica ml 50mm 2.0
- Helios 44m version 4 and 6

Do you know if the my radioactive? Radioactive lenses are dangerous?

Thanks

The dose is negligible from what I have read, but still, why expose oneself on purpose?

Check this out:
http://billead.com/radioactive/

Canon USA has stopped answering my mails on the matter btw. There are a few "hot" lenses in their history as well. I will name just a few:
35/1.5 LTM
50/1.8 FL (first model)
50/1.4 FL (some copies of the first model)
58/1.2 FL
35/2 SSC FD (all concave versions)
17/4 SSC FD
55/1.2 FD ASPHERICAL

 

[Ronald M]

Maybe not dangerous, but it will screw up pictures , color a lot, monochrome marginally.

Some say you can cure it with UV light. I wonder if it is a cure or temporary fix.

 

[Rob-F]

Maybe not dangerous, but it will screw up pictures , color a lot, monochrome marginally.

Some say you can cure it with UV light. I wonder if it is a cure or temporary fix.

Exposing the lens to sunlight is supposed to bleach out the yellow color. But that won't reduce the radioactivity. According to wikipedia, thorium has a half-life, depending on which isotope it is, of 25 hours to 14 billion years! Fortunately, the consensus is (and has long been) that there is no harm with most of the radioactive lenses.

The yellowing could give some beneficial filtering with black and white!

 

[bmattock]

https://fstoppers.com/historical/how-kodak-discovered-atomic-bomb-114260

 

[willie_901]

Oak Ridge Associated University is one of my clients. Do you know Dr Paul Frame? Super nice guy and has quite a museum collection relating to this.

If I met Dr Frame I wouldn't remember. All the faculty and staff at ORAU were great people, They treated us wet-behind-the-ears chemistry majors as if we weren't actually wet-behind-the-ears chemistry majors.

Best of luck to your friend. I know several people that were stage 4 that have survived long term.

Thanks

 

[x-ray]

If I met Dr Frame I wouldn't remember. All the faculty and staff at ORAU were great people, They treated us wet-behind-the-ears chemistry majors as if we weren't actually wet-behind-the-ears chemistry majors.



Thanks

The folks at ORAU are super. They're not as active photographically as they used to be but I get a nice shoot with them from time to time.

Here's a photo of Paul from an annual report I did in the 90's.

 

[zuiko85]

Way back in the 60's and 70's a lot of amature astromners were obtaining military surplus eyepices to use on telescopes as a wide field eyepiece. As some of these were radioactive there were some warning about long term use, such as comet hunters who sat looking through the eyepiece for extended periods of time. That was the only instance where such warnings could perhaps be valid concerning radioactive lenses.

 

[x-ray]

I notice you are now represented in Brooklyn. Does he have many examples of your work? I have never mentioned that I find your work quite beautiful, and have been intrigued by your selling in multiple galleries.

Whew!! on the treatment! 🙂

David Winter Works on Paper has represented me for about ten years. He moved from Manhattan a few years ago to a location in Brooklyn. David only carries my x-ray work but has done quite well with it. I think he has several large framed pieces and I'm sure he's be happy to show it.

I'm down one gallery right now but have galleries in Knoxville where I live, 2 in Nashville, Charlotte area, Atlanta and Charleston SC. I've had excellent sales through most of them. I'm always looking to expand my base.

I license my work through several companies for murals, cosmetic packaging, decor and currently working with a clothing manufacture and designing fabrics using my floral and shell x-rays. I'm also engaged in a custom project for a cosmetics company in South Africa I've worked with before. I've licensed work for ad campaigns in Italy and India as well.

Knoxville, Nashville and Charleston all carry my documentary work which has really taken off in the past couple of years. Knoxville and Nashville carry my Collodion images and they're picking up.

Thanks for asking

You can see my website at www.x-rayarts.com but viewing original prints is the best.