Whitepoint Optics was born while running, in 2016.

Two guys behind the origins of Whitepoint Optics are lens engineer Timo Ala-Talkkari and colorist and post production producer Jussi Myllyniemi. Although both had experience with cinematography, they weren’t introduced through work, but marathon running, which is a long-time hobby of both.

Ala-Talkkari had worked as a Lens Engineer at Zeiss and had an ambition to design lenses that could generate flawless and clear image and capture the world as it is. Myllyniemi approached the matter from a different perspective: as a colorist, his work was to modify the image so that it becomes interesting – not just a realistic depiction of the world, but something more, something beyond realism.

In chats during their running exercises, Ala-Talkkari and Myllyniemi shared the realisation that usually filmmakers are not interested in shooting the world in a realistic way. They rather seek to distort the image to make it expressive and impressive. This gave rise to the idea of creating a new kind of film lens: one that does not seek ice-cold, realistic precision, but instead aims to serve the needs of filmmakers, who want to present their own view and interpretation of the world.

In 2017, it was time to stop running and start making film lenses. Jussi and Timo brought the spark to the parent company Whitepoint and the founding team was strengthened by the executive producer Turkka Syrjäläinen taking the business development lead and Jouko Manninen as the Visual Director. Whitepoint Optics was founded with the main focus of supporting cinematographers to tell better stories in cinema, television and commercials. Soon the first lens, the TS70 series, was released to the market. The series uses the same glass that was used in Apollo missions to record the Earth for the first time in human history: Hasselblad glass.