Telephoto Lens

On display in The Search for Truth area is one of the giant 36-inch telephoto lenses used by the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau during ten years of summer surface surveillance in the 1960s.
The lens was fitted to a 35mm Newman movie camera designed to capture the clearest images of an animal surfacing. It was especially important to reveal the details of a creature's head and neck to identify it. The lens magnified an area only about 140 feet (43 metres) wide a mile away, so resolving objects as small as a football at this range.
Researchers kept constant watch from their hillside base at Achnahannet, waiting for the calm surface conditions they now recognised as ‘Nessie Weather’. Then, mobile camera units moved out to viewing points along the north-west shore.
Films of interest were assessed by the Joint Air Recconaisence Intelligence Centre (JARIC), of the Ministry of Defence. The best was one obtained by volunteer Dick Raynor in 1967, which JARIC concluded might show an object as much as 7ft (2.1m) long which was more than any animal known to live in Loch Ness.