Our Story
TH Swiss Ltd. was created in 2016. But the process of innovation started much earier. It began with a group of photographers who dreamed of creating the photo and video gear they had always wished for. Their goal was to develop a brand that delivered top optical performance with maximum functionality using the latest technologies. By combining Swiss precision, Korean ingenuity and Japanese glass, we have achieved the perfect design and manufacturing process to realize our dream. With its headquarters in Switzerland and manufacturing facilities in South Korea and Japan, our international company now manufactures, markets and distributes lenses and accesories in Europe, North and South America and Asia.
At the outset of the dream brand creation, we realized one of the most important aspects of the process was coming up with a name that represented the passion of the founding team of photographers.
We knew we needed something original and easy to remember. More importantly, it needed to have a firm connection to the motivation for the brand: a love of photography.
After hours of brainstorming and hundreds of propositions, "IRIX" emerged. As you've probably guessed, it's a derivative of the word "iris" and represents that component shared by the human eye and the lenses we manufacture. We see the name as a merger of those components and the imaginations of our customers - the key ingredients necessary in photography.
Irix Lens at PhotoKina 2018
People often ask why we started with a 15mm lens. The answer is simple, we saw a need for a lightweight, wide-angle, non-fisheye lens, moderate in size but highly functional, with superb quality.
To make the lens affordable for all photographers and all budgets, we created two versions with identical optics, the Firefly and a more robust version, the Blackstone.
After realizing the dream of our 15mm lens, we still had another dream: to bring you the widest rectilinear full-frame digital camera lens ever made. That's how the 11mm f/4 lens was created. With our second lens, we again refused to compromise in regard to distortion correction, resolution and funcionality. We produced that lens in both finishes, as well.
Since our 15mm has a front filter thread and a very wide field of view, we knew it needed compatible filters that wouldn't cause vignetting. That's how the Irix Edge filters were born.
Irix Edge filters include our high-quality, ulra-slim round filters and a complete line of rectangular and square filters. Both lines are manufactured with high-quality optical glass to produce optimum results, even with today's high-resolution camera sensors.
With all this performance, it only made sense to offer Irix quality to the pros in the cinematography industry. We already had the optics, along with some amazing ideas for housings. We were, of course, up to the challege of meeting the standards of the industry.
In July 2019, we introduced our first lens in the Cine line. The 150mm T3.0 1:1 macro lens is based on the optics of our 150mm macro still lens, with a new optical formula to suit cinema applications. The housing, of course, has been completely redesigned for those applications, too.
After the extremely positive response from industry pros for the 150 Cine, moved on to the next cinematography innovation: an ultra-wide, 11mm rectilinear lens. Now we have 6 focal lenghts in our Cine line-up and there are still more to come.
We're not done yet!
There's still much more to come from our team! As passionate photographers and videographers, we're always working toward the next innovation for ourselves and for you! New designs are already on the board and we're keeping an ear out for the wants and needs of our loyal customers.
Keep an eye out for new announcements on our blog. While you're there, check out our tutorials, created to help you get the most out of our unique products!