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Red Lenses made by Cooke? BS or what?

PaulClements

PaulClements

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On the Cooke wikipedia it says that "Cooke Optics also makes two lenses specifically designed for the RED ONE 2540p digital cinema camera."

I presume this is wrong is it not? Unless they are making their own lenses for Red One and this is not referring to the two Red lenses?

If this has been brought up before then I apologise.
 
Interesting,

maybe Cooke and RED already working together but all the thing is still "wrapped" like in every serious business.
As we know in the "gear-we-use.htm" page Cooke is on the list
and is also beloved Jim's RED lenses choice. A near future will tell us more about it for sure.
 
Hi.

I think it is fairly unlikely, Cooke make about 2 sets of lenses a week, I don't think they could gear up to make the volume required. I would like to be wrong!

FWIW I do think the Red 300mm looks like the Cooke 65mm with SF attachment! (That is a major compliment BTW)

Stephen
 
I have always wondered about the production of the lenses, since it is a very specialised topic. Whilst Cooke only make a few lenses a week, as pointed out, if they were making such a large volume for a third party to be rebranded because they were being mass produced rather than hand built it would make some sense, effectively they would be overseeing the production on behalf of Red.

I still think it's bull tho, this would've come out sooner if possibly the worlds best manufacturer of lenses was involved in any way shape or form with Red surely?
 
As noted by taubkin, Wikipedia isn't always 100% reliable.

I suppose this could be true about Cooke making the RED lenses. I suppose if they contracted enough production, prices could be driven down for specific items like this. I would love for this to be true.

...But I'm highly skeptical and will consider it to be nothing more than a wishful rumor until I read an offical statement from Jim or others at RED.
 
Which begs the big Question

Graham, Stuart, Jarred, Jim who is building the RED glass for you?

You have already sold quite a few so why is it such a big secret?
 
Well IF (and I stress the IF quite a bit) Cooke were infact involved in making the lenses then I'd imagine they'd want it to be hush hush and would have all sorts of agreements that at no point could it be mentioned. At the end of the day if people thought that you could buy a Cooke Zoom (Albeit a mass produced version) for less than $10k, why would anyone bother with their normal products.

That said I still reckon it's more likely that it's likely an Asian manufacturer producing such a large quantity of glass at that price, for Red.
 
This is either misunderstanding or out and out speculation. Jim/Oakley have plenty of know how to make their own lenses, and Cooke wouldn't want to build a competeing line of cinema glass priced less than half their own that doesn't even have thier name on it.
 
Cooke Design/Asian Production?

I mean Spike is shown with Cooke glass, tests shot with Cooke glass, and "gear we use" on the website is Cooke glass. It isn't such a stretch. Jim even suggested I buy some Cooke glass when I needed to make some year end tax purchases.

Maybe if we can find out who WuffyZ is...
 
Evin Grant said:
This is either misunderstanding or out and out speculation. Jim/Oakley have plenty of know how to make their own lenses, and Cooke wouldn't want to build a competeing line of cinema glass priced less than half their own that doesn't even have thier name on it.
Click to expand...

Production of the best CINE lenses needs years or even decades of experience, research and development just in the CINE lens field. I would say that Jim/Oakley have another experience that is production of Oakley Sunglasses. But who knows?...
 
Evin Grant said:
This is either misunderstanding or out and out speculation. Jim/Oakley have plenty of know how to make their own lenses, and Cooke wouldn't want to build a competeing line of cinema glass priced less than half their own that doesn't even have thier name on it.
Click to expand...

It doesn't make logical sense to undercut your own products. But I suppose if the Cooke branded lenses were known to be of (even only slightly) higher quality than mass produced RED badged ones, then people would have a choice, and many would still go for the Cooke if they could afford it. After all it is what happens in many other areas. Supermarket 'own brand' products are often made by the manufacturers of the branded version. Not that I'm likening RED lenses to supermarket generic groceries of course!
 
Nick Shaw said:
It doesn't make logical sense to undercut your own products.
Click to expand...

Actually it makes alot of sense in a cottage industry. You have your high end products and name that you will always profit from but you don't lose out to a newcomer making cheap glass because you are infact making the glass for them. The deal for producing so many lenses would be at least a $1 - $2 Million, and the production costs for lenses not built by hand individually will be alot lower. That makes a fair bit of sense when you really think about it and your name doesn't get damaged because it is not related to the product.

All of a sudden Red introduces alot of people into a market that require Cine lenses. Supplying such a large quantity of individuals with a cheaper cine lense is an ideal opportunity for a company of Cooke's scale.

But I still doubt they are making them hehehe!!! :)
 
Checking out his other contributions on Wikipedea and contributions to other forums, he doesn't appear to be someone "in the know" So I think this is BS.

M
 
Time will tell. But as others have pointed out, it's not a totally preposterous idea. Is Apple Computer "undercutting" its Macbook Pro market by making the Macbook - or is the smaller margin compensated by greater sales volume? In the end, it's all about making a buck.
 
I find it curious that no one from RED has chimed in on the matter. But at this point, they probably don't want to spill the beans. Made by Cooke or not, I doubt they're ready to disclose all the details about the lenses.
 
AppliedVisual said:
I find it curious that no one from RED has chimed in on the matter. But at this point, they probably don't want to spill the beans. Made by Cooke or not, I doubt they're ready to disclose all the details about the lenses.
Click to expand...

Hi,

I don't think we will ever know.

Stephen
 
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