"Necessity is the means of invention”. This was definitely the case when Canadian cameraman Rene Collins needed a wide angle shot while working for a TV station in Western Canada. The station was not about to purchase an expensive wide-angle lens for him, and Rene needing this shot was not about to give up.
He discussed the problem with an old friend who used to work in an optics lab and together, through trial and error they produced a wide-angle lens that was just about right for the job in hand.
But that was almost twenty years ago and much has changed since then.
“The original design was with me and I wanted to produce more but my full time job kept me busy. It wasn’t until in the 90s when the cut backs started at CBC, when they started reducing overtime work and when projects we where doing where not as challenging as they used to be, that I started getting concerned about the need to generate a revenue for myself and my family. Looking at what resources I had I took out the wide angle lens and thought that maybe I could market this.”
“I needed to produce something that would conform to the needs of the cameraman. It had to be small, wide, affordable and able to be used with your existing matte boxes and lens shades avoiding the need to buy even more extras. The coating and materials had to be of superior quality to ensure it performed to professional standards.”
Re-designing the lens to perform to broadcast standards was not an easy task. Rene began reading anything and everything there was about lenses and optics. He exhausted the local library 
to the point that he had to bring books from other parts of Canada to fill in his quest for knowledge. At that time the Internet was booming and that gave him the opportunity to have access to information that was not easily accessible before.
Once satisfied that he understood enough about optics he went about trying to find the right lab to grind the lens and the right machines to design the mounting.
It took no more than 10 prototypes to get the Red Eye just right. “We tried doing it one way and what we would end up with wouldn't work so we would then try another way. In optics, if you look at the lenses there are only two types of lenses, a positive power lens and a negative power lens. How it ended up working was that you put on a negative element on the front of the lens and it showed everything out of focus. By using the macro adjustment on the broadcast lenses you where then able to focus on what is called the virtual image. It’s the image that exists only in a mathematical sense in front of this negative element and what you are doing with the macro is focusing on the virtual image that exists on the lens rather than focusing on the subject” .
The premise behind the Red Eye wide-angle lens is to provide the cameraman with the best possible product at the most reasonable price.
The Red Eye is a screw-on "NON-ZOOM THROUGH" wide-angle-adaptor made out of high quality material. It weighs less than 100 grams and provides up to a 30% increase on the angle. The Red eye converts an 8mm lens into 5.6mm and it fits over existing filters and it can still be used with the existing lens shade. It comes in two sizes, 77mm and 82mm and it fits lenses that are equipped with a macro or back focus adjustment.
