LOMO

LOMO () or Leningrad Optical Mechanical Amalgamation () was a manufacturer of advanced optical instruments, medical equipment, consumer still and movie cameras, projectors, lenses, film editors, splicers, professional sound recorders for motion-picture production based in Leningrad in the former Soviet Union. The factory was the holder of three Lenin Orders.

History

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The company was founded in 1914 in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg).

It was established as a French - Russian limited company to produce lenses and cameras. It manufactured gun sights during World War I. In 1919, it was nationalised. In the ensuing years, the state optical industries were reorganised several times. In 1921, the factory was named the Factory of State Optics, G.O.Z. In 1925, camera production was resumed, and several lens designs tested between 1925 and 1929. In 1928, the factory was ordered to manufacture a 9x12 camera, known as the FOTOKOR.

Further reorganisations of the soviet optical factories in several stages finally resulted in that the factory at Leningrad became GOMZ, the Russian Optical and Mechanical Factory.

In the transition period 1932 to 1935 a copy of the Leica camera was developed, the VOOMP I. It was followed by the VOOMP II or the "Pioneer" that was manufactured in small numbers. Simultaneously designers began the development of a single-lens reflex camera for 35mm cine film, possibly inspired by similar work...
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