Omnar Lenses – Frequently Asked Questions
What and who are Omnar Lenses?
Omnar Lenses are a photographic lens and accessory manufacturer based in the UK specialising in lenses for M-Mount cameras.
Omnar Lenses was founded by Hamish Gill of 35mmc and Chris Andreyo of Skyllaney Opto-Mechanics.
Since then, Omnar Lenses has incorporated as a VAT registered UK Limited Company. Its current directors are Hamish Gill and Vita Andreyo (who is also married to Chris Andreyo). Vita and Hamish share the various roles of running the company with Chris Andreyo acting as an external advisor.
Chris and Vita remain the owners of Skyllaney Opto-Mechanics.
Where are Omnar Lenses located?
Omnar Lenses head office and primary business address is based in Worcester, England. Omnar Lenses manufacturing workshop and operational headquarters is based in Alexandria, Scotland.
Why are Skyllaney Opto-mechanics so frequently mentioned in the context of Omnar Lenses?
Skyllaney Opto-Mechanics operates as the primary manufacturer for Omnar Lenses. It is perhaps most easy to understand Omnar and Skyllaney as sister companies, as although they don’t fit into the traditional structure of sister companies, the close relationships between their respective owners brings a similar dynamic to how they are run.
Do Omnar Lenses manufacture their lenses in the UK
Yes.
Omnar Lenses manufacture the large majority of the mechanical components that go into making their lenses in the UK, this is either directly in-house, or with strict oversight by Chris in partnership with other UK manufacturers. Currently, 95% of the mechanical components inside the lenses are manufactured within a 1-mile radius of Skyllaney’s operational headquarters in Alexandria, Scotland. This is so Chris can keep control of, and oversee, manufacturing processes to ensure ultimate quality of production methods and outcome.
Do Omnar Lenses outsource manufacturing to overseas manufacturers?
No.
With the exception of a few generic parts such as lens mounts, rear caps, and some ISO standard screws, all the unique mechanical components used in Omnar Lenses are designed and manufactured in the UK either in-house or by trusted local suppliers with whom Omnar Lenses have a close working relationship. Omnar even makes most of its own front lens caps. In short, if they can justify making it in the UK, then they will.
Where do Omnar Lenses source their optics?
Omnar Lenses source their optics from a range of manufacturers. When using their own optics, these have, to date, been specified and designed by Chris Andreyo and then sourced from a manufacturer in mainland Europe. For future projects, Omnar Lenses are now in talks with a US based optic design consultant and manufacturer.
When Omnar Lenses rehouse lenses, the large majority of these are sourced globally and make use of non-functional cameras and lenses with excellent or mint optical condition.
As an example, lenses have been sourced where the glass is in excellent or mint condition, but mechanically they may be broken beyond repair. It is most common that these lenses have issues with damaged helicoids or failed electronics. The same can be said for when they extract optics from point and shoot film cameras. As a rule, they tend to avoid dismantling working cameras in favour of sourcing cameras that have suffered some sort of electrical failure. It has even been known for them to source optics from lens conversions that have previously been undertaken poorly resulting in reduced functionality or incorrect focusing when mounted on an m-mount camera.
Regardless of where Omnar Lenses find these optics, they are all closely inspected, cleaned, reconditioned where required, and always meet a high level of quality standards before being rehoused.
Are Omnar Lenses handmade?
Whilst many of the components used in Omnar Lenses are manufactured using precision machine tools, the components are often tweaked and adjusted by hand by Chris. In many instances, some components are CNC machined to around 80% of the way to complete via automation, with the final 20% of the machining then being undertaken manually by Chris to ensure tolerances and features meet the final design specs exactly. The lenses are also painted, assembled, calibrated and tested by hand using a variety of specialised tooling and jigs that Skyllaney has as part of its in-house manufacturing capability.
Do Omnar Lenses feel handmade or mass produced?
No one lens made by Omnar Lenses is exactly the same as the next. Due to each component of each lens being tweaked and adjusted to match the rest of the components in that individual lens, there are some very subtle variations between each lens produced. As a result, it is often commented that Omnar Lenses look and feel as though they have been entirely crafted by hand. The manufacturing process of the Omnar Lenses can be most easily related to an era of camera and lens production that predates modern manufacturing methods, where each component was machined to fit its mating component directly, thus yielding a much higher tolerance accuracy and build quality feel.
How many lenses do Omnar Lenses produce a year?
With Omnar Lenses being hand made by Chris using more classic manufacturing methods, they are currently limited to how many lenses Chris can make by hand in any given period. They are currently aiming to produce something in the region of 120-180 lenses annually, though this target has yet to be reached.
Are there any optical or image quality variations between Omnar lenses?
The optics chosen to be mounted within Omnar Lenses pass strict testing processes and procedures before being selected for use. Once selected, optics are mounted into housings and adjusted using extremely high precision measuring equipment to ensure optical centring.
As a process of installing and calibrating the optics into the mechanics of the body, the optical formula undergoes an optical centering alignment which is very similar to the alignment processes undertaken in the production of cinema lenses.
When Chris was servicing and converting lenses for clients years ago, one of the more frequent tasks being requested from Skyllaney was optical recentering services. It is through this that Chris became known as one of the few lens technicians that is able to recenter optical formulas in this way. Many of Skyllaney’s bespoke lens conversions were indeed for cinematographers, and Chris brings this same optical centering and calibration method over to the assembly of Omnar Lenses.
With that said, no one individual optical element is the same as the next, as each element themselves have tolerances on their radii of curvatures and total effective focal length calculations. As such there is always a possibility that there might be some subtle differences in optical performance. Omnar lenses testing and optical alignment procedures help keep these differences within the realms of largely imperceptible.
What equipment do Omnar Lenses use to make their lenses?
Omnar Lenses utilise a combination of both state of the art, and old school manufacturing methods.
On the state of the art side, Omnar Lenses have two custom built CNC machines, capable of achieving 5 micron machining accuracy consistently. Modern 3D CAD and CAM software capable of FEA and Raytracing is utilised to design the lenses first as 3D assemblies, before breaking the assembly down into individual 3D models, of which 3D CAM and 2D Technical Drawings are then generated for each part. CNC machines then are able to take these CAM/NC files and machine out parts from raw brass and aluminum stock. Lasers are also used to cut certain parts, as well as for engravings.
On the more old school side of things, Chris has a decent collection of manually operated vintage engineering machinery he uses to carve mechanical parts out of raw stock, using machinery such as turret milling machines and clutch gear-boxed lathes. These manually operated machines are often used to fine tune CNC parts to ensure lens components fit together perfectly. Once the mechanical parts are finished, they may be anodized, plated, or vapor blasted and hand painted. Polishing machines and surface grinders are sometimes used to achieve a desired surface finish.
What inspires Omnar Lenses?
The Omnar Lenses team are inspired by the idea of bringing high build quality purely mechanically operated lenses to market that are similar to the rangefinder lenses made in the 1950’s-1960’s, with optical formulas that have unique rendering and classical look to the image making process.
They also take cues from the world of cinema lens conversions where the above is achieved through an approach that is rarely impacted by compromise, as well as embracing lenses that might not be conventionally or objectively considered to be high quality, yet enable their customers to achive a more unique signature within their work.
Are Omnar Lenses all limited editions?
Yes and no. To undertake the hand made manufacturing and assembly process Omnar utilise, all lenses have a limited finite amount that can be made per batch each year. However, Omnar often repeat batches of previously made lenses all of which might well be in normal serialised, albeit low volume production.
In addition to this, sometimes Omnar make unique creations and one offs, where a very limited batch of only a handful of lenses are made. These lenses can sometimes have a unique finish that the main batches of lenses do not share. One example is the CZ40-14, which due to the extreme rarity of the Carl Zeiss Jena 4cm f/1.4 Biotar, means the one unique lens Omnar rehoused will probably always remain a 1 of 1.
In other instances, Chris may also decide to make one lens of a batch in antique brassing or pearlescent oyster finish instead of the usual black or silver, engraved with “Limited Edition” on the side of the lens. When the lenses are engraved “Limited Edition”, it means that the finish or mechanical design of that particular lens is unique and not shared amongst the larger batches of lenses that may contain the same optical formulas.
Can Omnar Lenses rehouse my lens?
Due to the overwhelming demand for the Omnar Lenses, they have had to temporarily discontinue bespoke and one-off lens rehousing in order to free up resources to focus on the manufacture of lenses in batches. In some instances where they may be releasing a new conversion housing for a lens (like the Contax T2 Omnar CX38-28), they are able to accept in client lenses within a certain time frame, to be converted alongside the main batches of lenses. If you would like to discuss rehousing of a lens within a forthcoming batch build, then please get in touch.
How do I purchase an Omnar Lens?
All currently available Omnar Lenses are available to purchase off the website here. Omnar Lenses also sometimes offer short batch productions of lenses to their email subscribers. This is where all lenses are promoted before the website, and in the case of special editions, often they are sold this way before they have a chance to market them elsewhere. To this end, if you are in any way interested in Omnar Lenses work, now or could be in the future, the recommendation is to sign up to the newsletter (form at the bottom of this page).
What do I do if I want to purchase a lens that I have read about but isn’t listed on the Omnar Lenses website?
In this instance, please contact Omnar Lenses to discuss the lens you wish to purchase.
Is Omnar lenses a safe/secure company to purchase a lens from?
Yes.
Omnar Lenses are a UK VAT registered Limited Company. If you have any concerns about purchasing an Omnar Lens then please get in touch.