Unlike many forms of art—and art industries—the craft of filmmaking doesn’t stretch back thousands of years. Filmmaking is relatively a new invention, and as such its history is very traceable and clear. For example, if you look back at the earliest moving pictures you can find familiar names like Cooke Optics baked into the very core essence of the filmmaking craft.
This also means that film and video is still very much an art form in progress. Every film and video project you undertake is part of this developing history. With a focus on the future let’s take a look at the rich history of Cooke Optics and how the company that started in 1893 is still innovating new and transformative lenses for filmmakers of all types today.
The Birth of a Legend
Invention has been in the Cooke DNA right from inception over 120 years ago. It began when H. Dennis Taylor, an optical manager of T. Cooke & Sons of York, attempted to eliminate the distortion at the outer edge of lenses destined for astronomical telescopes. In 1893 Taylor designed and patented the Cooke Triplet (British patent no. 1991) – an elegant solution to the design issues that plagued lens designers of the era. A year later, the first Cooke photographic stills lens was engineered and sold under the Cooke brand name. The Triplet was not only the blueprint for lenses at Cooke but a design used almost universally for lenses of intermediate aperture worldwide.
When the first silent movies rolled off the production line in Hollywood, they did so with an evolution of the triplet, the Speed Panchro. Early studio Famous Players-Lasky (later becoming Paramount) standardized production on Cooke lenses to make classics like The Sheik (1921) starring Rudolph Valentino. Charlie Chaplin made perhaps his greatest film, Modern Times, with a Cooke set. So, when Martin Scorsese paid homage to the birth of the movies in his 3D drama Hugo (2011) it was only natural his DP Robert Richardson ASC selected Cooke.
Innovating Intelligence
At the turn of the millennium, the value of metadata was given for archiving but largely overlooked at the acquisition stage. Recognizing this deficit, Cooke set out to create a metadata protocol that would provide the industry with a means to share lens data effortlessly from acquisition to post-production. The result was /i (Intelligent) Technology, a system to enable film and digital cameras and equipment to automatically record and display key lens data for every frame shot.
Integral to all Cooke lenses and adopted as an industry standard, the technology is coming into its own with mixed-reality filming. Precise data of every lens characteristic can be fed into a virtual production workflow to speed production and iterate creative decision making such as on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds shot with Anamorphic/i Full Frame Plus Special Flair lenses.
Evolution by Design
lain Neil is a multiple Sci-Tech Academy Award winning lens designer, ASC associate member and SMPTE Fellow who has been Cooke’s Chief Optics Advisor for over a decade.
“Recently, cinematographers were telling me that images produced by digital cameras mostly looked the same, especially with spherical lenses which they often described as ‘clinical and sterile’,” he says.
To get around this, cinematographers would regularly request that the lens maker ‘de-tune’ lenses to take away some resolution or contrast or other characteristics. Neil decided to approach this problem from the opposite direction to ask “How do you tune the lens for the latest digital imaging technology?”
The result: the S8/i series for Full Frame production, a spherical lens precisely tuned for digital sensors with all the character of the Cooke Look released in 2022. A new reference for Cooke.
Cooke Optics SP3 Prime Lens Series for Mirrorless Cameras
All of this rich history has led to Cooke Optics, the leading developer and manufacturer of high-end cine lenses and intelligent lens technology, to announce the launch of the SP3 range of full-frame prime lenses for mirrorless cameras that are set to transform the pro-video market. The T2.4 range features six focal lengths, a choice of user-changeable mounts, and is of small, lightweight yet robust construction.
“The imaging market has long been viewed as ‘videography’ and ‘cinematography’, with their associated differences particularly evident in budgets and hardware. However, these boundaries are now blurring with vast improvements in the quality of ‘mid-market’ camera performance, and consequently, the creative optical possibilities and ambitions in this area are widening. This ‘democratization’ means that we can now offer truly cinematic glass to the traditional pro-video market at an accessible price point and with the flexibility of camera mounts, enabling more DOP’s to enhance the narrative of their stories.” — Tim Pugh, Chief Executive Officer, Cooke Optics.
The Cooke SP3 full-frame prime lens series is based on the Cooke Speed Panchro, one of the most influential lenses in film history, with a new design optimized optically and mechanically for mirrorless cameras. It offers outstanding definition and resolution yet features fall-off towards the edge of frame, which is a key factor in the famous cinematic look achieved by the legendary Speed Panchro lenses together with the trademark dimensionality and contrast performance that renders faces with remarkable skin tone and character, known as The Cooke Look®. The SP3s also feature specialized cinematic optical coatings that ensure control of excessive flare.
The SP3 range offers 18mm, 25mm, 32mm, 50mm, 75mm, and 100mm focal lengths. The user can choose a second mount free of charge within 90 days of purchase: RF, E, L or M-mount. These mounts are also available to purchase as accessories and can be changed by the user. See here for a step-by-step guide on how to change SP3 lens mounts. The SP3s are Cooke’s lightest lenses, weighing in at between 500g/1.10lbs and 690g/1.52lbs including lens mount, making them practical for use on lighter weight gimbals as well as drones; their robust construction and mechanics will also withstand the rigors of fast-paced shooting environments. The small, ergonomic form factor delivers cinematic quality shooting even in tight or hard-to-reach places. They feature a dual focus scale, and the focus and iris mechanics are aligned across the set to allow for fast lens changes while maintaining focus and iris motor positions.
The SP3 range is available worldwide. Pricing is from $4,500 / £3,250 / €3,900 for a single lens and $26,000 / £18,850 / €22,600 for the complete set of six lenses in a heavy-duty carry case.
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This article comes from No Film School and can be read on the original site.
