LOMO () is a manufacturer of medical and motion-picture lenses and equipment based in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

, Russia. The company was awarded three

Order of Lenin The Order of Lenin (, ) was an award named after Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the October Revolution. It was established by the Central Executive Committee on 6 April 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration bestowed by the Soviet ...

decorations by the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. Its

Lomo LC-A The LOMO LC-A (Lomo Kompakt Automat) is a fixed lens, 35 mm film, leaf shutter, zone focus, and compact camera introduced in 1984. Its design is based on the Cosina CX-2, with the difference being that it lacks a swiveling front and self-timer ...

consumer camera was the inspiration for the

lomography Lomography, or simply lomo, is a photographic style which involves taking spontaneous photographs with minimal attention to technical details. Lomographic images often exploit the unpredictable, non-standard optical traits of toy cameras (such as ...

photographic movement.

History

The company was founded in 1914 in Petrograd (now

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

). It was established as a French – Russian limited company to produce lenses and cameras. It manufactured gun sights during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. In 1919, it was nationalised. 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. 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. Today LOMO makes

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...

optics, scientific research instruments, criminological microscopes, medical equipment, and a range of consumer products. Known as GOMZ (State Optical-Mechanical Plant), the company was transformed under the direction of

Mikhail Panfilov Michael is a common masculine given name derived from the Hebrew phrase ''mī kāʼēl'', 'Who slike-El', in Aramaic: ܡܝܟܐܝܠ (''Mīkhāʼēl'' ). The theophoric name is often read as a rhetorical question – "Who slike he He ...

, who united several industries and founded the LOMO Association in 1962. In 1990 - 1997 Ilya Klebanov was the Director General of LOMO Association. The company went public in 1993, and was renamed LOMO PLC; it is traded on the RTS Index">RTS RTS may refer to: Medicine * Rape trauma syndrome, the psychological trauma experienced by a rape victim * Revised Trauma Score, a system to evaluate injuries secondary to violent trauma * Rubinstein–Taybi syndrome, a condition characterized by ...

History

References

External links