Koerner Camera Systems hosted the 4th 2022 Pacific Northwest Lens (PNW) Summit on May 13-14 in their large Portland, Oregon rental headquarters. Michael Koerner, the company owner,  called it “A celebration of cinema-lens technology and education.”

“A massive lens geek-out,” were the words of Cooke’s Danny Haikin, who flew in from London.

Massimo Proietti, head of the Camera and Optical Department at Movie People Milan and D-Vision Rome, flew in from Italy. Gerhard Baier of P+S Technic (Technovision lenses) and Timm  Stemann, CEO of Chrosziel, arrived from Munich.

Around 30 exhibitors displayed their products, mostly lenses. More than 300 industry visitors arrived from as far away as New Zealand.

A day before the main event, lens technicians attended hands-on lens training classes taught by lens maestros. “We had 10 to 12 techs in each class,” said Kari Fouts, Senior Lens Technician at Koerner Camera. Classes included:

• Zeiss: maintenance and service of Supreme Prime Radiance lenses and T1.3 Super Speeds, taught by AbelCine’s Casey Ehalt.
• Angénieux: swapping the Internal Optical Pallet and Iris in Optimo Primes, by Band Pro’s Randy Wedick and Ronald Monte.
• ZerøOptik: maintenance and service of ZerøOptik lenses, with Alex and Alex.
• Chrosziel: lens projection and collimation, presented by Timm Stemann.
• Cooke: maintenance and service of Cooke S4/I primes by Matthew Duclos and Michael Nadas.

For the main event, seminars were available for all, presented by:

• Randy Wedick on Optimo Primes and the Angenieux IOP.
• Snehal Patel and Jean-Marc Bouchut from ZEISS on creating custom lens flares for cinema lenses.
• Colin McDonald of Creative Solutions on SmallHD Vision HDR Monitors.
• Art Adams of ARRI and Colin McDonald on what HDR means for lenses.
• ARRI’s Art Adams and Chase Hagen with a rear filter demo.
• Tom Jay Smith of Dynamic Rentals on long term rentals.

Michael Koerner, Owner of Koerner Camera Systems, said, “People tell me this is the largest gathering of lens technicians from around the world gathering together in one place. The beauty of the Lens Summit is creating a community of lens technicians, manufacturers, cinematographers, assistants, crews, directors and lens enthusiasts where we can all meet, exchange ideas and develop relationships. It is a very accessible event to attend—the exhibits and seminars are free, as are the food and beverages. Instructors donate their time, so the technicians attend training for free.”

For the past two years, Michael Koerner fearlessly and altruistically hosted the ever popular Virtual Lens Summits online. You can play them again via YouTube. But, everyone agreed the real deal was best and it’s tough to replace getting together in person.

FDTimes was psyched to attend. Hotels were booked and non-refundable airline tickets were purchased. But an imminent new camera report deadline (coming May 31) got in the way.

And so, multi-talented photographer Arthur Hitchcock took gorgeous pictures that lens geeks, mongers and aficionados will love. We’ll caption them soon, still a work in progress, but did not want to delay the slideshow: