"Cooke Look" still lenses ?

[PatrickFaith]

I am trying to find some still lenses that have that nice exponential fall off that the Cooke cinema lenses have. For example cooke prints it's depth of focus charts http://www.cookeoptics.com/cooke.nsf/technical/depth_of_field_charts.html ... which at least are slightly different the the ASC standard charts, but i don't see how i can derive the exponential "well" of what is in focus from them, nor figure out what still lenses have a similar focus curve that gives a similar bokeh of cooke lenses. I really like shooting at low T stop (i.e. 1.5 or 1.8) ... and i cant afford an entire s5 set ... so i was hoping (this might be bogus) ... to be able to mix some still lenses with one or two S5's (i.e. get a 18 and 40 s5 which i would shoot 80% of the time, then use still glass for complete coverage). Has anyone mixed still and Cooke glass in some movies or shorts that I can view?

 

[Christopher Barrett]

I've never intercut them, but I carry a small set of Leica-R's to supplement my Pancro/i's (aka mini S4s). Here are two grabs from the last short... as similar as I have available. I love the Leica R glass and you could do a better comparison by revisiting our Portland Lens Shootout that Tim Whitcomb hosted.

Leica R Summilux 35mm f/1.4

Cooke Panchro/i... I forget which... maybe the 50.

Hope that helps...

CB

 

[sergio arguello]

i believe the Zeiss Jena is a good match...

 

[PatrickFaith]

I've never intercut them, but I carry a small set of Leica-R's to supplement my Pancro/i's (aka mini S4s). Here are two grabs from the last short... as similar as I have available. I love the Leica R glass and you could do a better comparison by revisiting our Portland Lens Shootout that Tim Whitcomb hosted.
Hope that helps...
CB

Perfect, thanks ... I am shooting monochrome so i don't need to worry about chromatic matching. My "gut" feel, not very scientific, is that cooke's match best with Leica ... but I have gotten confused on which Leica lenses work (a lot of the leica shots i see have this deep dof, that might just be them being shot with high f stops). Rewatching the shoot out now ... http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?67463-DEC-10-LENS-SHOOTOUT

i believe the Zeiss Jena is a good match...

I will research those too ... thanks. The Jena lenses have always been a bit tricky for me to understand, due to the history on them. I also do a lot of vfx on the footage, so i get a bit scared on older lenses which might otherwise be great.

 

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

Perfect, thanks ... I am shooting monochrome so i don't need to worry about chromatic matching. My "gut" feel, not very scientific, is that cooke's match best with Leica ... but I have gotten confused on which Leica lenses work (a lot of the leica shots i see have this deep dof, that might just be them being shot with high f stops). Rewatching the shoot out now ... http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?67463-DEC-10-LENS-SHOOTOUT

Oh, ok. Then you should really focus on roll-off, contrast, and other attributes.

That said, there is a reason 5/i's are expensive. You won't likely find a photography lens set vintage or modern that will have as much edge to edge sharpness, even field illumination, and color matching as a set of 5/i's. They are big lenses for a reason, not to mention the mechanical side. This is coming from a guy who wrote a very long article about why cinema lenses are needed in cinema.

But if you must try, from the well done tests of Alfonso Parra, he found Leica Summilux-C's to be lower contrast and 'smoother' lenses than UP's, MP's and slightly smoother than S4's, being just above his findings with Mini-S4's. Perhaps Leica photography lenses, IF similar to their cine lens line, might be a good start. If so, I suppose when it comes to contrast and smoothness, maybe there is something to Leica's and Cookes being smoother... sharp but with less of an edge.

That said, but why not look into the older Speed panchros? They are different then the modern cooke look, but they are probably my favorite vintage lenses ever made. I guess not, since they won't intercut with 5/i's, but they are beautiful despite being more vintage in nature than S4's or 5/i's but they will be made from the same company, same polishers, same etc. That might be worth looking into.

I'd say if you wanted Cooke look but not necessarily to match 5/i's the old speed panchros are worth looking at, in the same class as Super or Standard Speeds. However, if you must match 5/i, that is a tall order. I don't think you will find something that would be exacting as my tastes. Those are the most modern T/1.4 cine lenses ever made, maybe with the exception of Summilux C's. Going to be tough to find.

5/i's are exceptionally expensive.... why not just go S4? You can get 2x as many lenses for the same price and get the cooke look. Are you trying to simply get T/1.4 speed? Can you even find non-Cine lenses that fast?

hope that helps.

 

[PatrickFaith]

Oh, ok. Then you should really focus on roll-off, contrast, and other attributes.

From the well done tests of Alfonso Parra, he found Leica Summilux-C's to be lower contrast and 'smoother' lenses than UP's, MP's and etc. The same designation he gave Panchro/i's (MiniS4's)... So I suppose when it comes to contrast and smoothness, maybe there is some truth to Leica's and Cookes.... seems there are in their cinelenses. I wonder if that translates to their still photography lines. I can't say for sure, but during the Oregon lens shootout, the Leica R's did have some nice results.


That said, but why not look into the older Speed panchros? They are different then the modern cooke look, but they are probably my favorite vintage lenses ever made. Won't they work?

Your right on when you mentioned the words "contrast and smoother", when i switched from color to monochrome i found out that a bunch of my lenses could not be used in adjacent cuts (something where in color, i hadn't really noticed anything).

Nuke has some new nodes that allow lenses shapes to be remapped/normalized, which could allow me to use the older lenses ... but I have not done any detailed testing on that yet.

I'm finding that my switch over to black and white is making me rethink a lot of things, your suggestions are greatly appreciated.

5/i's are exceptionally expensive.... why not just go S4? You can get 2x as many lenses for the same price and get the cooke look. Are you trying to simply get T/1.4 speed? Can you even find non-Cine lenses that fast?

I might just be asking for the impossible, so the S4's look like a rational fall back plan.

 

[Christopher Barrett]

Man, I am totally Jonesin over those Summilux-C's. I just looked into renting a set for our next short. $8k for the week. Yikes.

CB

 

[PatrickFaith]

Man, I am totally Jonesin over those Summilux-C's. I just looked into renting a set for our next short. $8k for the week. Yikes.

CB

I have a "Jacques Tati" type of shooting style, so renting would kill me $ wise, and even if i had the money for purchase some of those lenses take like a year for delivery. To me the Summilix-C's are a dream lens, but I worry that they will be hard for me to really fully utilize. I kind of think of the summilix-c as a motogp superbike of lenses, you can't just twist the throttle. The nice thing on the cooke line is they have all sort of cost points which allow me long test and plot development cycles (i.e. test and preproduction on low end s4mini/s4 that I have purchased, with principle shooting on high end s5 which i could rent as needed). I don't know of a low end lens that i could do pre-production on, then just rent the summilix's - that would have a very similar look.

 

[Christopher Barrett]

I have a "Jacques Tati" type of shooting style, so renting would kill me $ wise, and even if i had the money for purchase some of those lenses take like a year for delivery. To me the Summilix-C's are a dream lens, but I worry that they will be hard for me to really fully utilize. I kind of think of the summilix-c as a motogp superbike of lenses, you can't just twist the throttle. The nice thing on the cooke line is they have all sort of cost points which allow me long test and plot development cycles (i.e. test and preproduction on low end s4mini/s4 that I have purchased, with principle shooting on high end s5 which i could rent as needed). I don't know of a low end lens that i could do pre-production on, then just rent the summilix's - that would have a very similar look.

Absolutely. I have also considered slowly building a set of s5's, filling the gaps with my Panchros over time.

 

[Lee Saxon]

It's been said the Leica-R 80 1.4 is pretty "dreamy" wide open.

 

[Christopher Barrett]

Just a quick grab of my son... the 80mm Summilux at 1.4

 

[PatrickFaith]

It's been said the Leica-R 80 1.4 is pretty "dreamy" wide open.

I have never shot with Leica (actually I had a Leica fixed lens as my first "learning" camera in the in the 1970's ... but that was a different beast). When I went to research Leica R, seems like the lens is discontinued - this kind of bums me out. I was going down the RPP path, and got stinged in them being "discontinued" just as I was buying them. Arghh - I would really like to grow a set of lenses and not have to worry about buidling a set on a discontinued line.

Absolutely. I have also considered slowly building a set of s5's, filling the gaps with my Panchros over time.

This I think is making the most sense, but right now I have lenses with inconsistent T stops - and it drives me crazy. I also have a tendancy to shoot wide open for a shalow focus look, and I think I'd go insane jumping between at T2.8 and a T1.4, as far as looks (that last drop on T stop is huge as far as look .... the difference in look between t8 and t10 is barely noticeable, the difference between T2.8 and T1.4 is massive).

Also buying into S5's right now, is perty expensive - right as the entire lens industry is changing (i do think just starting a S5 set is probably the best approach). My perfect wish is that Cooke got back into still lenses.

The entire Lens Industry is perty much putting my brain into a a giant reentrant conundrum - I wounder how long it's going to take for the lens industry to stabilize?

 

[PatrickFaith]

Just a quick grab of my son... the 80mm Summilux at 1.4

Awesome feel.

 

[Jiri Vrozina]

Is it sharp?

 

[Timur Civan]

I am trying to find some still lenses that have that nice exponential fall off that the Cooke cinema lenses have. For example cooke prints it's depth of focus charts http://www.cookeoptics.com/cooke.nsf/technical/depth_of_field_charts.html ... which at least are slightly different the the ASC standard charts, but i don't see how i can derive the exponential "well" of what is in focus from them, nor figure out what still lenses have a similar focus curve that gives a similar bokeh of cooke lenses. I really like shooting at low T stop (i.e. 1.5 or 1.8) ... and i cant afford an entire s5 set ... so i was hoping (this might be bogus) ... to be able to mix some still lenses with one or two S5's (i.e. get a 18 and 40 s5 which i would shoot 80% of the time, then use still glass for complete coverage). Has anyone mixed still and Cooke glass in some movies or shorts that I can view?

My brain is getting an Error code just thinking about that lens set... 2x i5's and still glass.......

I'd go with Leica's. But if youre going as far as getting 2x 40,000 i5's and you need 3-4 lenses, just get 4 S4's. Or the 2x i5's and a couple panchros.

Or buy my panchros......