Make Red 'intellegent' with Cooke S4/i Lenses

[Greg Voevodsky]

I have a suggestion for the Red Camera. By chance if you missed it, Cooke has a new lense: Cooke S4/i Lenses -The Same Award-winning S4 Optics With "Intelligence."

Since Red is more of a film camera, it should be compatible with the cutting edge film lenses: Cooke's S4/i Lenses with 'inteligence' - "Continuous electronic feedback on lens setting, focus distance, aperture, depth-of-field and more."

The S4/i equipped lenses have the very same Academy Award-winning optics as the S4 lenses but also provide information electronically on lens setting, focus distance, aperture and depth-of-field.

The S4/i lenses differ from the orginal S4s in only four ways:

1. The inclusion of /i electronics
2. A tapered T stop ring
3. A hot shoe contact for use with Arricam
4. An external socket for interfacing with any professional or 35mm camera.

The lenses work on all film cameras. With Arricams and LDS cameras, information is sent through the contacts in the lens mount. With all other cameras, an external connector on the lens attaches by cable to a peripheral device the first one on the market being the /i Lens Display Box made by Cinematography Electronics. In the next few months other manufacturers, like Preston Cinema Systems, Mark Roberts Motion Control Systems, CMotion, Service Vision, Arri and others will be introducing lens control equipment and other unique equipment that takes advantage of the S4/i system.

See this link to download the 34/i Communications v10 protocals and read more info:

http://www.zgc.com/zgc.nsf/c7a68299...f0ea89c601c8dd6485256f5f005f61c5?OpenDocument

Cutting edge RED Camera should have the cutting edge lenses with inteligence and accessory support from other manufactures.

 

[acrochordon]

great idea

great idea

You sound like a Cooke sales rep.

 

[acrochordon]

Cooke sounds like a great company

Cooke sounds like a great company

I admit I had never heard of Cooke before. Most major camera brands would probably like to crush Red like the BiG Three auto makers crushed Tucker cars. I looked Cooke up on the net. They sound like a great company. PCO in Germany owns them. It all makes sense. PCO makes CMOS chips. I like 3 CCDs instead of one CMOS chip, but I understand why PCO prefers CMOS chips for their high speed in detecting flaws in manufactured goods speeding by on conveyorbelts. CMOS chips are a lot faster. I like CCDs for their lower noise. CMOS would be desirable by the military in spy satellites because CMOS chips consume less power. It reminds me of Apple. Apple used Motorola chips, The Motorola chips were generic and Apple was not the major customer for the chips. Motorola was not going to design the chip exactly the way Apple wanted. The relationship lasted a long time but now Apple has moved to Intel for their chips. PCO is not going to design a CMOS chip just for RED. Red is going to make a lot less cameras than Apple made iMacs. RED was lucky to find PCO. The CMOS PCO will sell to RED might not be perfect for RED, but lets hope the relationship between Cooke/PCO and RED lasts as long as the relationship between Motorola and Apple.

 

[acrochordon]

PCO Turbo Inspector

PCO Turbo Inspector

I wonder if the "guts" of RED will be similar to innards the PCO Turbo Inspector (which happens to come in a blue case.)

http://www.pco.de/pco/php/company/news_1-en.php?01020201&nid=37&37;en=

"PCO AG's engineers have come up with something clever, i.e. a special type of inspection system – one that's mobile and hyperfast. It resides in a special case, has its own energy supply via storage batteries and can be transported"

"The special case also contains a heavy-duty, 10-Bit CMOS camera, the pco.1200 hs. Dr. Gerhard Holst, Director of Research and Development for PCO AG, learned that “For applications with high picture rates the CMOS technology with sensor chips has proven itself; meanwhile CCD chips can't keep up.“ At a resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels the nimble eye inspects at 636 images per second, and in VGA-resolution even 1357 images, all without any trouble. Primary storage of 4 GB stands ready to utilize. The camera communicates via a FireWire interface (IEEE 1394) with an integrated tablet PC in the case as the processing unit."

I wonder how much the Turbo Inspector costs in relation to the RED camera one.

 

[acrochordon]

PCO company history, from their website www.pco.de

PCO company history, from their website www.pco.de

In 1987, PCO was founded with the objective to develop and to produce specialized fast and sensitive video camera systems, mainly for scientific applications. Meanwhile the product range of PCO cameras covers digital camera systems with high dynamic range, high resolution, high speed and low noise, which are sold in the scientific and industrial market all over the world.

Currently PCO is one of the leading manufacturers of scientific cameras. Worldwide representatives, together with our own sales department and technical support assure that PCO keeps in touch with our customers and their needs. The actual wide range of specialized camera systems is the result of technical challenge and product specific know-how. A design according to advanced techniques, a high standard of production, and strict quality controls guaranty a reliable operation of the cameras. Our own developments in conjunction with an excellent contact to leading manufacturers of image sensors ensure our access to state-of-the-art CCD- and CMOS-technology for our cameras.

 

[acrochordon]

Greg's website

Greg's website

Hey Greg, I like your website. I know you didn't film Sirens, but do you do underwater filming?

Everyone should check out his site.

I want to pimp my car like this.

 

[acrochordon]

www.cookeoptics.com

www.cookeoptics.com

I didn't know "The Da Vinci Code" was filmed with Cooke lenses. Cooke must be good.

I want a Cooke 25-250mm.

 

[acrochordon]

http://www.cookeoptics.com/cooke.nsf/secondary/s4hdzoom

http://www.cookeoptics.com/cooke.nsf/secondary/s4hdzoom

I changed my mind. This is what I want.

Cooke S4 HD Zoom
8-46mm T1.7 (8 x 5.75, f/1.4)

"The first Cooke video lens for the 21st century created by the pioneers of video lens technology: the S4 HD zoom. Award-winning S4 film lens expertise applied to video has produced a high definition lens for the traditional cinematographer shooting in video.

Cooke incorporated several features for the professional production crew: clear calibrated focus scales positioned relative to the focal plane with viewing windows; easily interchangeable footage and metric focus rings; and two opposing focus, zoom and iris scales.

A novel design incorporating a special cam mechanism for back focus adjustment ensures that optical and mechanical alignment remains true. A graduated ring allows precise and smooth adjustment of back focus of +/- 0.4mm.

The focus and zoom carriages are positioned on precision ball-race mounted rollers for an accurate, non-rotating movement and smooth, low-torque adjustment. Non-pumping internal focus and zoom movements prevent dust intake. Cooke's dust-sealed focus and zoom bearings improve reliability and ease of service.

The S4 HD zoom is supplied with a lens support that adapts onto standard camera support rails"

 

[acrochordon]

no macro?

no macro?

http://www.cookeoptics.com/cooke.ns...d36d951f1587403d85256f9d00685f53?OpenDocument

"Cooke S4/i Telephoto Lenses.
Unsurpassed Close Focus
The Cooke 150mm and 180mm telephoto lenses focus to just over 7x the focal length at 3' 6" and 4' 3", respectively. The 135mm focuses to just 6x the focal length at 2' 9"."

Does that mean macro mode is not possible,with the telephoto lenses?
I want to film insects. Should I not even bother to buy RED camera 1? Someone please tell me.

 

[Greg Voevodsky]

hey acrochordon

hey acrochordon

I think you might want to look into a more a appetizing of a photo... maybe sashimi... rather than liposuction... other than that - Im glad you learned cook lenses rock... like red. (oh and I do do photoshop... some of those pics are a bit photopimped... see more at wavesdvd.com

 

[acrochordon]

liposuction? look up the word ACROCHORDON in the dictionary. You need a scalpel to get rid of me. But I just keep hanging around. I am something that if you rub, just gets worse. It is best to leave me alone, or cut me off for good.

Hey Greg, maybe you can answer a quick question. Are Cooke lenses auto focus?

 

[acrochordon]

It seems that a B4 lens will need an optional optical adaptor. I hear that lenses designed specifically for HD are better than regular lenses. I also heard that you have to be very careful not to get any dust on the lens, or it will show up big time.

 

[acrochordon]

Looks like B4 lenses are something that is the bare minimum in quality to put on RED. S35mm is the way to go. Good thing I don't own any lenses.