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 based in Wellington, originally from Berlin. He moved to New Zealand in 2004 and has since built a diverse career spanning audio engineering, optical restoration, and creative technology.
Benni is best known as a recording engineer and as the founder and CEO of Sandbox Studio, which he operated at 104 The Terrace in Wellington from 2016 to 2024. Alongside his work in audio, he is an internationally recognised lens technician specialising in vintage photographic lenses.
He is the founder of the world’s largest Facebook community dedicated to vintage lenses, with over 60,000 members worldwide. In 2023, Benni also founded the Wellington Lens Club, which meets fortnightly in Wellington’s CBD for photo walks and regularly hosts community events for photography enthusiasts.
After closing Wellington Lens Repairs in late 2024, Benni launched vintagelenz.com, an online store offering restored and custom-adapted vintage lenses for modern camera systems.
Benni holds formal qualifications in Audio Engineering and Music Production, Music and Event Management, Creative Enterprise (Business Administration), Piano Tuning and Repair, Art and Creativity, and Agile IT. He is also a certified IT Solutions Architect with over 20 years of experience, primarily in government and banking environments.
His work as a lens technician is self-taught, refined through seven years of focused practice before opening his repair business. He has successfully restored thousands of lenses, including many considered beyond repair, achieving a consistently high success rate.
Benni has developed specialised dry lubricants using sub-micron graphite, tungsten disulfide, and molybdenum, as well as a highly effective light-absorbing black coating for optical applications. He has also designed low-cost optical alignment tools, precision jigs for re-bonding cemented doublets while preserving factory alignment, and alternative methods for binocular collimation using accessible materials.
He is currently expanding his capabilities in precision metal fabrication—including machining, welding, galvanisation, powder coating, and enamel finishing—to further support the restoration and customisation 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 worked in graphic design for over 20 years, creating brand identities for a wide range of organisations and projects. His logo work is known for its precise proportions and a distinctive visual language that blends mid-century (1950s) design principles with a modern, minimal aesthetic.
Alongside his design practice, Benni brings more than two decades of experience in audio engineering and recording studio work, with engineering credits on over 300 productions. Music, sound, and craft remain central to his creative life.
Benni maintains a long-standing practice across photography, music, craft, and abstract art. Since 2014, he has produced thousands of abstract artworks, primarily working with tempera paints and often without the use of brushes. His work also includes a substantial body of hybrid pieces that combine physical painting with digital processing.
His background includes hands-on work across a wide range of practical and creative disciplines, including luthiery, furniture making, carpentry, framing, upholstery, finishing, and general fabrication. This breadth of experience informs his approach to design, restoration, and problem-solving, with a strong emphasis on materials, structure, and process.
Benni has operated recording studios internationally, including in Germany, New Zealand, and Chile, where he lived between 2012 and 2014.
Beyond his professional work, he maintains a strong interest in industrial tools, materials science, and experimental systems, including the collection and restoration of vintage machinery. He has also undertaken extensive independent research into water filtration and the lesser known properties of water such as memory capabilities within the molecular structure of H2O, resulting in the development of a highly refined ultra-filtration system which restructures water at a molecular level.
