[Paul Ewins]

Just sharing some pictures from a brochure I recently acquired. The Nocta was a specialised Infra Red camera built by Pentax in the sixties and this is the first time I have seen any evidence of it outside of books. However given that it would have been marketed to government bodies that shouldn't be surprising. The brochure is dated August 1966.

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[Nass]

Fascinating, I wonder what exactly an infra red flash emits

[pathdoc]

Infra-red light at an appropriately optimised wavelength. Heat, basically.

[edmundrt]

Fantastic - I love this space-age camera and have never been able to find really good pictures of it. Thanks for sharing.

[Baard-Einar]

Hi

Enclosed is a scan of the deal handbook from that period. The Norwegian Pentax repair specialist has this in his archive, not the camera but the handbook . He actually did try to get a hold of such a camera, but it was only buildt to order.

Note that it is a regular Spotmatic (?) with some gear around it. Well, actually a lot of gear! Page two shows all the specificaitions.

[Digitalis]

I wonder what exactly an infra red flash emits

The IR flash probably has a peak emission of 900~2000nm where people won't be able to visually detect glow. Basically this is a NIR camera [near Infrared] . Also bear in mind photographic optics are very poor long wave IR transmitters *and films, even the ones mentioned in the brochure aren't sensitive at all to long wave IR. I recall the gasses used in IR flash tubes tend to be rather exotic and thus: expensive.

Heat, basically.

This is a bit of an over simplification, long wave IR is harder to detect than NIR** - none of the films mentioned in that brochure are sensitive to long wave IR. Kodak HIE ( which is a pain to handle, and has no halation backing, so say goodbye to micro-contrast) I recall is only IR sensitive as far as 1000nm after that sensitivity drops markedly. Unless you hyper the film which can enhance its sensitivity - but that is a really esoteric practice.

* Lenses with high amounts of Lanthanum are particularly good for IR photography. Lanthanum added to borosilicate glass can produce a product with a near perfect 98% transmission precisely at 1000nm, combined with gallium the bandpass for IR can be extended further.
** making a digital sensor sensitive to long wave IR invariably involves the detector being actively cooled, sometimes to cryogenic temperatures to eliminate thermal noise from the sensor and surrounding electronics. The degree of cooling required depends upon the spectra you wish to observe.

[Apet-Sure]

Really interesting, secret agent stuff. If cameras could tell stories....

[Ontarian50]

Here's a page from the January 1970 Honeywell dealer catalogue - and it shows the price of the Nocta system - $4,950.00 !!

And you might note that since the flashbulbs were the only other item on the page, the flash system isn't an electronic flash at all - good old flashbulbs.

I do have a pack of old GE infrared flashbulbs stashed away - they could be used with infrared film at normal distances. I didn't know the darn things were that expensive back in the day - a buck a piece!

Obviously the key to the Nocta camera was how it extended the range of the flash illumination via early night vision amplification tech.

[dmr]

Interesting product. I had never heard of it before.

I do know that Weegee (and others) were doing clandestine photos in the 1940s and 1950s using deep-red/near-infrared coated flashbulbs, so the technology was really nothing new in the 1960s.

[Bob 256]

I remember reading sometime in the early 70s about a coating formula for making your own IR flashbulbs. No idea where or what the ingredient was in the lacquer that was used, but interesting since the flash-tube was just gaining popularity and flashbulbs were still popular, especially in the large sizes. Infrared flashbulbs weren't noticeable but if one was looking directly at them in the dark, they could see a red flash. Otherwise, they were considered covert. I was experimenting with IR film at that time but didn't have a sophisticated enough camera to really tame it and my photography relied on the sun for illumination.

I believe the Nocta used regular film and that an image converter changed the infrared image to a visible one which the film recorded. Those were expensive little tubes that operated on high voltage and had a phosphorescent screen at the rear. The image was grainy and wasn't too great in resolution. The same type tube was employed in WW2 "sniperscopes" and "snooperscopes" with a visual system rather than a film recording one like the Nocta.

Very interesting information and history Paul.

[Omarrfadda]

I've asahi pentax nocta