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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Cooke Varotal 25-250mm zoom f2.8 on eBay

What do people think of this lens? I've more often seen the Cooke 25-250 in T3.9 / T4.0 denominations... but if the price stays half reasonable I'm thinking of bidding on this.

Mike
 
Mike 'Fireman' Ross said:
What do people think of this lens? I've more often seen the Cooke 25-250 in T3.9 / T4.0 denominations... but if the price stays half reasonable I'm thinking of bidding on this.

Mike
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Hi Mike,
I believe this Cooke was actually first made in the late 70's and is the Mark I. The actual T-Stop of the lens is around T3.1. The Mark II being the 25-250mm T3.9 was the lens that was actually introduced in 1983 contrary too the ebay listing. The Mark III stems from the early 90's and is naturally the best of the three. Whilst the latter two are indeed slower they offered improvements in image and housing, especially the Mark III which are quite hard to come by these days. I can't recall the last time I saw one on eBay. At the end of the day, it's a Cooke. It has a similar look feel to modern ones. Although not nearly as sharp and crisp. It's big and heavy but covers good focal lengths. I can't comment on portholing. But given given the 18-100mm I had showed some signs of vignetting wide open I'd imagine this would be similar if not worse. Still capable of making some nice images though. Don't expect it too rent out much.
Cheers
Paul
 
paul: i am wondering, since it has a b4 mount, how sharp would this lens be on a 2/3" camera. 250 would be a nice long lens, and we are using the center of the glass, but do you think this would be sharp enough for 2k HD on, let's say, an panasonic hpx3000?
 
Thanks very much Paul, that's exactly the kind of input I hoped for. For the kind of work I have in mind, sharpness is more important than a classic talent-flattering look, so Cooke may not be the best choice - but if the price stays low, I think it's a steal - a lot of lens for not much money. If it's cheap I'd never worry about renting it anyway; it'll hang around and I'll use when I want to.

Prices can be crazy on ebay - crazy high and crazy low - we'll see where this ends up.

Thanks again.

Mike
 
We have one. Its a great lens. Opticaly very similar to the more expensive Mk3. Check out CMl I think theres a report there.
 
Here's mine. Cooke site says this model was introduced in 1978 and first used on SUPERMAN.

It's the Cooke SUPER Cine Varotal as it is nearly a stop faster than the later zooms. I had it overhauled by Visual Products. They put in teflon cam followers as the originals tend to wear and crack. I had Long Valley (me) make a PL mount for it as it came in BNCR. Also made a simple billet aluminum support for it and RED.

Haven't shot much with it but I'm sure it will come in handy.

If you use it in B4 mount without an optical converter then you might have some funky chromatic weirdness at wider focal lengths . . .
 

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Douglas Underdahl said:
It's the Cooke SUPER Cine Varotal as it is nearly a stop faster than the later zooms. I had it overhauled by Visual Products. They put in teflon cam followers as the originals tend to wear and crack. I had Long Valley (me) make a PL mount for it as it came in BNCR. Also made a simple billet aluminum support for it and RED.
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How is Visual Products optical shop? I have a Cooke 9-50 in apparently very good condition that I would like to get serviced and converted to PL mount. Also have a couple of rare older lenses that need attention too: Taylor Hobson 8-24mm f1.6 and a 5mm f1.5 Elgeet Navitar. Both are in very good optical shape but need some mechanical attention, clean and lube.
 
Visual Products did great work for me. They were quite familiar with this unusual Cooke lens.
 
Mike 'Fireman' Ross said:
What do people think of this lens? I've more often seen the Cooke 25-250 in T3.9 / T4.0 denominations... but if the price stays half reasonable I'm thinking of bidding on this.

Mike
Click to expand...

the cooke mk1's which this is.. breath the heaviest..
Mk2s also breath quite a bit, but not as much.
the 20-100's have SLIGHT breathing
 
Updated out of interest, as a few were watching this - it went for US $1,415.73 - less than I thought it would. Wonder if it's new home is with a RedUser?
 
We purchased 2 MkIIs from Visual products at well below $12k...
 
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