This past week I was lucky enough to meet one of the founders of the group that developed the Red Pro and UniqOptics prime lenses. One of the things that came out of the meeting was this mixed set of lenses consisting of five Red Pro Prime lenses and one UniqOptics lens. The story of how these lenses came to be is fascinating. I’m not going to report it here because I have no way to verify all of the information, but the gentleman I met with was extremely knowledgeable and a joy to speak with for several hours. One of the lead designers of these lenses was an old acquaintance of mine, Kenji Suematsu. When I was first getting into the movie business, I worked for F&B CECO of Hollywood under the supervision of John Russel, an amazing self-taught engineer and a force in creating new equipment for the industry. Kenji was head of the optical department when I started there and I was lucky enough to spend a few days with him teaching me basic lens repair. He then went on to bigger and better things from F&B CECO and became an Academy Award winning optical engineer and innovator in the movie industry. This wonderful set of lenses includes: 18mm, 25mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm T1.8 Red Pro primes, and a 100mm T1.9 UniqOptics prime. Our research indicates that these lenses were built around custom high definition glass which is reported to resolve down to a 5 micron pixel. These PL mounted lenses are color matched across all focal lengths, with low optical distortion. They have easy to read focus and f-stop scales, feature gears on both the focus and f-stop rings, have consistent 110mm front diameter across all focal lengths, and have assistant-friendly 340 degree lock to lock focus rotation. They are of rugged construction and were manufactured in the United States. https://bit.ly/3ftcfWe
