Konica AR 57mm f/1.2 Lens: Insect Remains Inside
Originally posted on Instagram. Notes from the repair bench, kept here as a searchable archive. View the original on Instagram
Konica AR 57mm f/1.2 lens with bug inside. I acquired this lens from a friend and he described it as having a “giant bug inside”. Sure enough, there were remains of an insect inside (photo three). This may not seem so odd as I have certainly seen my share of insect parts inside of lenses before, but what is odd is that I removed very similar insect parts from another Konica 57mm f/1.2 lens about a month previous. And in looking at ebay recently, I noticed this same style lens being sold with “insect parts inside”. So why this many examples of a not very common lens with the same type of insect residue inside the lens? I have no idea but I wonder if Konica outsourced this lens and the production facility had a problem with small insect larvae?
On another note, this lens has radioactive glass and unlike Pentax, where this sort of glass is generally in the rear elements, this lens has glass in the front that is radioactive. The last photo shows my spectrometer identifying the isotope as Thorium 232. Another interesting note about this lens is that (seen in the second photo) the rear element is partially obscured by the diaphragm mechanism.
This lens has become one of my favorites to use with an adapter on my mirrorless Nikon.
