Benni Krueger looks out the window in 2025. Portrait by Kevin Peng, taken at the Thistle Gallery on Cuba Street, Wellington, NZ
Benni Krueger is a German New Zealander from Berlin, he is of German and New Zealand European descent (Scottish, English, Polish, Ukrainian, Lithuanian). Benni emigrated to Wellington in 2004, he is known as a recording engineer and CEO of Sandbox Studio, which he operated at 104 The Terrace in Wellington between 2016 and 2024. Besides being a qualified Piano Tuner and Technician, Benni has succeeded in multiple careers and is internationally renown as a Lens Technician specialising in Vintage Lenses. Benni is the creator of the worlds largest facebook group on the subject of Vintage Lenses, which has over 46K members. In 2023 Benni founded the Wellington Lens Club, which meets every second Friday in Wellington CBD for photo walks, as well as organising numerous other community events for people with an interest in photography.
After closing his lens repair business (Wellington Lens Repairs) in late 2024, Benni launched vintagelenz.com which is an online store where he offers restored and custom adapted Vintage Lenses.
Benni has formal qualifications in Audio Engineering and Music Production, Music and Event Management, Creative Enterprise (Business Administration), Piano Tuning and Repairs, Art and Creativity, as well as Agile IT and is a certified Solutions Architect with 20 years experience in IT, where he has mostly worked for government and the banking industry. He is self taught as a Lens Technician, having practiced and fine tuned his craft of lens repairs for 7 years before he opened his repair business. He has a track record for repairing over 1000 lenses, many of which could be considered irreparably damaged and impossibly difficult to restore, despite these difficulties, he has a 99% success rate when it comes to lens repairs.
Benni has developed numerous specialised dry lubricants made of sub micron graphite, tungsten disulfide and molybdenum as well as having developed one of the most effective anti reflective and light absorbing black paints for lens diffraction flocking (blackening). He has developed ultra low cost optical alignment charts by combining the use of fibre optics and resolution test charts. Benni is currently developing a precision glass polishing machine with the use of motors from old cinema projectors. He has successfully developed a self centering jig for re-bonding of cemented doublets, which require precise optical alignment, in this method the native factory optical alignment is preserved via etched markings across the doublet elements, after separating the doublets they can be re-bonded via mechanical alignment, this process saves on otherwise million $ investments for optical alignment tools and test benches such as interferometers, collimators etc. Benni has also successfully found low cost solutions for precision collimation of binoculars with the use of 3D glasses. He is currently in the process of building capability for precision metal engineering such as lathing, sandblasting, welding, electrolytic galvanisation, powder coating and airbrushing epoxy enamel, all of which is utilised for the restoration of Vintage Lenses.
Benni Krueger looks at you in 2025. Portrait by Kevin Peng, taken at the Thistle Gallery on Cuba Street, Wellington, NZ
Benni has a history in graphic design which he has practiced for over 20 years and has created numerous corporate brandings. Benni has a unique style for logo designs which has painstakingly precise proportions which blend 1950's with modern qualities.
Besides looking back on a 20 year audio engineering and recording studio career where he has earned engineering credits on over 300 productions, Benni has a life long passion for music, crafts, photography and abstract painting. Since 2014 Benni has produced thousands of abstract artworks, he mostly works with tempera paints and without paint brushes. Benni has also produced a significant body of works crossing between abstract painting and digital processing.
Benni has in the past been a guitar luthier, marriage celebrant, handyman, tiler, house painter, picture framer, carpenter, furniture maker, upholsterer, plumber, electrician, special needs caregiver. In 2008 he was kidnapped at Beijing airport but freed himself by jumping out of a car while driving down a highway, he peed on a camel in the Sahara desert because there was nothing else to go on and he could not speak Algerian, when he was 9 years old he piloted a Boeing 747 passenger plane from LA to Auckland, though it is possible the plane was on autopilot during the time he was in control. He has operated recording studios in Germany, New Zealand and Chile, he actually lived in Chile between 2012-2014. He collects Walker Turner drill presses as well as minerals and crystals and has conducted extensive research into non physical properties of water, resulting in the development of a highly refined ultra filtration system, which produces molecularly structured water.
