Jupiter 9 85mm lens

I was thinking of adding one to the lens collection of my Zorki and wonder if the Jupiter9 that's supposed to be redioactive is really as bad as they say? Would it possess a health hazard? Don

redioactive ??? Where did you get such information ?

I do not think J-9 lenses are radioactive. There was hype on eBay at some point, but it then died out.
Well, maybe some J-9s got smuggled from Chernobyl or Pripyat', thouse can be hot.
But if anyone who reads this has a J-9 in leica mount and wants to get rid of it, please send me your prices, I'll buy them all.

Yuri

I thought the only "radioactive" lens was I-61 L/D and I've used a geiger counter on it (don't ask why I have it , you'll be laughing a long time) and it has shown less radiation from the lens that there was in my room..

Vlad

quote:

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Originally posted by dgillette4

This info was on one of the many web sites that refer to Russian lenses. They also had pictures showing the yellow discoloration caused by the Lanthum glass.

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At first Jupiter-9 has not lanthanum glasses (like STK-6), only: TK-6, TK-11, O-1, TF-2, K-5, TK-11.
Industar-61 has: STK-6, F-4, LF-9, STK-6.
At second, Lanthanum is not Thorium... It is not radioactive (of course, all materials has a natural background radioactive).
At third, very many of Japanese lenses uses a lanthanum glasses, why do you not fear them? ;)

Hello

One thing about the Jupiter 9 is often remarked, they begin to have a yellow color after a certain time. This may be the cause of the myth about radioactivity.

Milos Mladek told me that he think this yellow color may come from the "cement" (sorry, I don't know no other word for that) used for fixing the lenses. In german this stuff is called "Kanadabalsam", a resin of the canadian fir tree (I hope anyone will understand this ...).

Best regards - Guido

Used also with microscope glasses, to glue the thin glass to the thick glass and specimen in between. So even I know what it is!

Smena rules

since a long time i use a Geiger detector (soviet made !!! ) on my lenses and camera bodies (specially these coming from Ukraina )
so i never detect some radioactivity in my home collection.