No.9 Optics is fusing the charm and character of century-old glass with cutting-edge contemporary design.  

The Gestalt principle of the ‘unified whole’ refers to something being greater than the sum of its individual parts. In 2022 Ben Mitchell, managing director of Focus Canning and Edward Koehler, former design and production manager of Van Diemen, partnered to form No.9 Optics, acquiring the intellectual property of Van Diemen including hundreds of lens rehousing designs that were developed and refined since 1983.   

Applying the Gestalt principle, No.9 Optics is combining vintage lenses and modern engineering at Focus Canning, creating bespoke optical projects for the digital era.  In the words of Ben Mitchell: “We have curated an exhaustive selection of donor glass that is oven ready for ‘reincarnation’. Some of the lenses we are working with were manufactured in the early 20th century and have not been used to create images for almost 100 years. We are working to resurrect a vision and a view from the past, almost an extinct species. The ‘reincarnation’ of classic vision and character paired with a youthful and reinvigorated body.”   

Part of that approach is to not just anticipate “the next big thing”, but also have the freedom to explore projects that have not yet been considered. As Mitchell puts it, “Since we are rehousing lenses for Focus Canning exclusively, we have the agility and freedom to choose projects that are unencumbered from the constraints of rehousing for third parties.  We can instead shoot for bold choices based on our own experience and intuition for what cinematographers want to see.” 

Koehler notes that “the largest departures from the norm of our design are the unique focus movement and the forward placement of iris control. This iris placement provides camera crew with faster and clearer access and line of sight to iris control and scale markings. No.9 Optics’ unique ‘Tensegrity Coil’ focus movement embodies a design principle developed by architect, designer and inventor Buckminster Fuller of ‘tensional integrity’ or ‘floating compression’.”   

It is a further development of the patented ‘Wireform’ focus movement, refined over the past 40 years.  The optics follow along a variable pitch thereby compressing the near focus rotational throw whilst providing significantly improved close focus. 

Edward Koehler further asserts this is also where the Gestalt principle applies “the ‘form, fit and feel’ of our design, the considerations that make a particular tool or machine a pleasure to use, yet inexplicably difficult to describe why… a combination of several factors yielding a product greater than its individual components.” 

It’s also possible that a third design principle is derived from author Mary Shelley, when Koehler speaks of a “hybrid” approach to the reborn lenses, taking lens groups from different manufacturers but similar optical designs combined in a modern rehousing. “The spacious design is capable of accommodating optics never before housed together.”   

Mitchell adds, “Through consultation with cinematographers, we will provide a diverse selection of rare, unique and desirable cine lenses that we can tailor at will.  This gives No.9 the ability to freely utilise any optical combination with just a few unique components- ‘hybrid optics’ for truly unique images. There will always be ‘trade secrets’, however our goal is to enhance the aesthetic palette for cinematographers and encourage collaboration. Liberating latent creativity, shaping images where words fail. This is the essence of No.9 Optics.” 

Creating, in other words, an entirely new “Gestalt” for cinematography. 

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This article was paid for by Focus Canning & No. 9 Optics