Cooke Optics Ltd., a premier manufacturer of precision lenses for the motion picture industry, today announced the rebirth of an iconic lens, the Panchro By Cooke lens. The PL mounted lens for 35mm film and digital production is a modern redesign of the original Cooke Panchro lenses that were instrumental in establishing Hollywood as the centre of 20th century film production. The legendary lens is expected to be available at the end of 2009.
The Panchro By Cooke lens is designed by the same team that produces the Cooke S4/i lens; it is calibrated and colour-matched to existing Cooke lenses and incorporates Cooke’s /i technology, so it is interchangeable with the Cooke range. The new Panchro sacrifices one stop of light (T2.8 compared with T2.0 for Cooke S4), thereby offering a smaller, lightweight and affordable choice when a faster lens is not crucial or when shooting in difficult situations such as crash scenes or VFX shots. The price point also brings the benefits of Cooke lenses to independent filmmakers, film students and documentary makers, while the reduced size, weight and true focal length markings make Panchros ideal for 3D stereoscopic productions.
Les Zellan, chairman of Cooke Optics, said, “We are so excited to bring Panchro By Cooke back to the film industry. With the credibility of film history and over 100 years of development behind it, the Panchro by Cooke lens is a serious yet affordable piece of equipment for professional film makers.”
The Panchro lens has played a major role in the history of Hollywood. Horace W. Lee designed the original Cooke Speed Panchro in 1921; it was a cine prime lens that chromatically enhanced an image when filming under restricted illumination. The advent of sound films created a great demand for faster lenses since arc lamps could no longer be used due to the noise they made, making all existing lenses obsolete. The Speed Panchros were born from the industry need for faster lenses to cope with the new noise requirements on the set. Cooke Speed Panchros combined a relative aperture of f/2 with an angular field of view and definition previously impossible with much smaller apertures. The Cooke Panchro was also instrumental in the introduction and success of Technicolor in the 1930s because the Panchro’s unusually high correction for chromatic aberrations and remarkable vignetting characteristics rendered it suitable for colour photography.
The six Panchro By Cooke prime lenses – 18, 25, 32, 50, 72 and 100mm ‘ will be available to purchase individually or as a set. The lenses are expected to be available at the end of 2009.
