Red Zooms - who is producing these lenses

[Andreas Höhn]

What is with Optex ? I own a 300mm T3.2 which looks very, very similar to the Red 300mm. As far as I know optex was based in the UK as well, in north London.

 

[Stephen Webb]

What is with Optex ? I own a 300mm T3.2 which looks very, very similar to the Red 300mm. As far as I know optex was based in the UK as well, in north London.

And made some very very bad decisions.

And died a horrible death.

 

[Andreas Höhn]

tell me more....what decisions ? how was the horrible death ?

 

[Stephen Webb]

Optex was mainly a Production Accessories rental house. Their biggest draw was that they were the exclusive rental outlet for Steadicam, but they were also the biggest grip hire company in the UK (I believe). Added to this they were extremely good at innovating new toys to meet demand from various productions.

My understanding is that the guy who owned Optex decided the time had come to expand and over-reached himself. Eventually creditors called in the loans and the whole shebang imploded - a sad end to a company that had done fantastic work for 30 years or so.

The Steadicam rental department moved to Tiffen UK and a number of ex-employees set up Production Gear and took on a lot of the ex-Optex contracts. They tend to specialise more in video than film though.

 

[Martin Drew]

I think there was a lot of bad feeling amongst staff over the way Optex "died", it happened suddenly just before Christmas and none of them got paid, let alone any redundancy. This was despite being assured previously that everything was fine.

Another company that sprung from the ashes is MTF services which specialise in lens adapters and servicing.

 

[Stephen Williams]

Another company that sprung from the ashes is MTF services which specialise in lens adapters and servicing.

Hi,

Thats Mike Tapa, he built the Excellence periscope amongst other things for Optex.

Stephen