I wouldn't share it if I didn't find it interesting and didn't have a pretty good guess that you'd find it interesting, too. What's kind of mindblowing about Edwin Land is we know he worked on shit from CORONA to the MOL, but that's only because those projects have been declassified (MOL just last July. Add in the KH-9 HEXAGON and KH-11 KEYHOLE and you're modern. I mean, I watched 'em put up a KH-11 in 2011. KH-9 is still so secret that the NRO just sort of dumped one in a museum on 24 hours notice so that friends and family could finally see it (25 years after they last flew) and then tucked it back into the shadows.

Meanwhile, the NRO will literally give KH-11s to NASA but won't tell anybody what they are, where they came from, or who worked on them. Considering the KH-9 was easily the most complicated mechanical device we've ever lofted into space, and considering the KH-11 was hardly developed in a vacuum, it's probable that Edwin Land did their optics, too... which means he basically was the US spy satellite program.

William Burrows made the argument (back in '82) that the US space surveillance apparatus prevented nuclear war by allowing verification of things that would have been unverifiable. And while SR-71s and U-2s had dozens of missiles fired at them (sometimes multiple times per flight), the satellites were beyond harm via treaty.

There aren't many people who can legitimately lay claim to Saving The World. Edwin Land is one of them, though. 50 years from now a bunch of shit is going to be declassified and it's going to be a hell of a story.

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If'n you're gonna fetish on old cameras, Voigtlanders aren't a bad way to go. They're literally the oldest name in optics, although they were killed from 1965 until the 2000s because - get this - Carl Zeiss purchased them and ate them because ZEISS wanted their optical technology. Zeiss basically allowed them to operate independently back in 1999 or so, and they came out with the Bessa L. They're still making cameras and lenses that you can put on, like, your normal camera and they kinda rip.

Price an Avus on eBay. You'll see that you get hella more for your $150.