If you like Cooke lenses, you'll love this...

Ryan Patrick O'Hara

Ryan Patrick O'Hara

Veteran
...Well, except for the part where a Cooke S4 is deliberately thrown to the ground ($20,000 prime lens.) I think 'gear is gear' and I don't baby it, but the photo of the S4 about to hit the ground makes me cringe a little.

There are some really cool facts to be found in this article! Article is one of many by our globe-trotting friend Jon Fauer, ASC and his Film and Digital Times publication.

Article HERE

This Cooke’s tour was the first time a mortal cinematographer was allowed unrestricted access with a camera into the inner sanctum and holy of holies of lens creation.
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A famous British industrialist said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t make it.” So, there is as much measuring as grinding, polishing and fitting at Cooke. Oh yes, and coating. All glass surfaces reflect 4% of the light passing through. If your lens had 22 elements, with 44 surfaces, not much light would get through. Cooke lens coatings reduce refections to .1%. A brew of silicon and titanium, hardened with magnesium fluoride coats each element. It is 1 nanometer thick, which is 1 millionth of a millimeter. Your whiskers will grow longer than that in 1 second after the swipe of your razor.
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^ my favorite bit of info from the article.
 
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No love I guess. It isn't a huge write up like the recent Zeiss, but still.... :P

They still use the same glass polisher from 1913 or something. Pretty cool stuff. I want to work at a lens factory for like a week.
 
Cookes are very interesting. They exhibit the most CA out of all the top cinema glass, have bokeh most people don't like (i find it kind of cool) and really aren't the sharpest either. But their warmth, contrast, and pleasantness with skintones always have DP's and other coming back to it. Just goes to show, that perfect lens doesn't have to be perfect as long as it gives you that mojo you're looking for.

Cookes tend to be the most matched lenses in a set out of all the top glass. So your look is the most consistant from prime to prime. I still wanna get a chance to check out the s5's...
 
Great article! I love cookes, it's a pitty they're so expensive for us here in brazil (and yes, I know they're not that expensive compared to other brands), fricking import taxes.
 
Some love here!

I loved this article and the one on Zeiss. I hope I can afford some Cooke lenses one day. Love the look they produce.

Kind of kicking myself for not picking up a older converted set of S2/S3 lenses that were on Ebay about a month ago.
 
Lol. You're about half a year late to the party, Timur. :)


btw, I'm sending my 135mm Panchro/i deposit in next week. It's not a cheap bugger, that's for sure... but it won't be available until after new years, so I've got time to stash extra cash away.
 
i want my the lens to match the rest of the set.... i under if they match them to your lenses....

can they do that?
 
^ Well that is a two sided coin.


First, all Cooke lenses match super well. You've seen my tests... I've not only compared my Cooke Panchro/i's to each-other with absolute color matched results... but you've also seen my comparisons with Cooke S4's, in which they are spot on matches, but contrast and color were a smidge different. Those lens sets were made years apart, and match better than most professional lenses of the same set... like Superspeeds, CP2's, and etc.

I suppose if your wallet is big enough or you have the free time, you could try and do what Jeremy Benning, CSC did, and fly to Lancaster England, and test many lenses off the line. Then again, I believe he was buying the first two sets ever and using them for 3D work! :) If you are truly a man of the world, you might be able to fly out there with your set, and before they engrave serial numbers, test some 135mm's and see which is best? I'd love to do that, but I'm not sure how easy that is.

I'm sending in my $500 deposit in, but the lenses probably won't ship until January or February... and that is if there aren't delays like I experienced with my 18mm. What I am considering doing, as a compromise, is I might just ask Cooke if I can send them my Cooke Panchro/i's and they can compare which lens looks best. I've already asked they reserve my serial number so all lenses match. Despite being one of the earliest set purchasers, I'm assuming there will be a couple people ahead of me serial number wise who will not order the lens, and I want a matching set. So they might have to skip ahead in the serial numbers for mine and then go back... that is what I will be asking for, anyhow.

So I expect all Cooke lenses to be super-matched to begin with (the S4's, Panchro/i's and 5/i's) but if you want identical match, I mean identical... you better hope the 135mm are made in batches and you can inspect them before they get dished out to customers. I'll be asking about it, but we'll see.

Do you have the 18mm Timur? I assume you do... how does yours match? It's the only lens in my set that isn't super perfectly matched... being about 100*k or 200*k warmer. Do you experience the same? It matches much better than most professional lens sets, but it's not indecipherable like the 5-set. Plus, it's waaaay more matched than the S4 CXX zoom! Yowza

I'm wondering if it's just a side effect of the complexity it takes to make a very nice wide lens, or what. What is your impression with yours? Is it warmer a bit?

See here: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/attachment.php?attachmentid=38742&d=1313805416
 
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I sent ZGC an email and asked if I could either send my lenses in or even be there in person to find the 135mm lens (from the batch mine would be coming from) which best matches my set. I was going to visit the Cooke factory months ago, when I was going to be over there for work, but production lawyers and client lawyers couldn't agree on a final contract and the commercial fell through. :( Les had invited me to visit, as he was in town as well, but sadly I never made it across the pond.

Am I feeling a Timur and RPO take the UK movie here? hahaha.
 
From my earlier statement: Jeremy was hand-picking lenses because of FOV and 3D application... apparently not because of color matching. I must have confused information, wherever I got it from.

BTW: When you said 'match' did you mean color-match or serial number? And how is your 18mm, do you witness the same thing as me?
 
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Front diameter matches 25, 32, 50, 75 and 100mm lenses at 87mm. This 135mm is the Panchro/i... however Cooke also released a 135mm T/1.4 Cooke 5/i.

Not to be outdone, at IBC today, Zeiss unveiled their 135mm T/1.3 Master Prime lens.

IBC seems to have many 135mm lenses this year.

In other optics news, two new Alura zooms. Angeniuex has their 45-120 optimo, which is really light weight. Summilux-C's by Leica are still finding legs. Seems everyone has been excited for them, yet they are relatively absent in the world a year later. The first 8 sets shipped out just last month, so the delay should hopefully be worth it.
 
i tested the angenieux at nab when we shot the slog video. Its a stunning piece of glass. So much charachter. That said it was a prototype, and the production version hopefully has not lost the beautiful flaws of the prototype.
 
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