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DILEMMA! TLS COOKE PANCHRO vs TLS LEICA R

R

Rob Webster

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Hey Chaps,

I am in the enviable position of being able to purchase a new set of lenses and I have come unstuck.

I have narrowed it down (largely due to my budget and what is available) to these two fine sets....

1. TLS REHOUSED COOKE PANCHROS T2.2- Set of 7 - (18,24, 32, 40, 50, 75, 100) .......£50,000

OR

2. CINESCOPE TLS REHOUSED LEICA R - Set of 6- (19mm T2.8, 28mm T2.2, 35mm T1.5, 50mm T1.5, 80mm T1.5, 100mm MACRO T2.8).....£40,500

For those of you who are unfamiliar with these, they are a FAR superior rehousing to the shoddy GLS version, Sets are handpicked and matched by a company in the UK called Cinescope, and then the rehousings are done in the classic TLS fashion (Cooke s4 style) Very generously they also come with a custom flight case and offer a free TLS service after 12 months. Oh, and they also COVER FULL FRAME.

http://cinescopeoptics.com/

I've only heard great things about the Leica R glass, have tested them myself and they do exactly what you would expect from LUX and CRON glass. No complaints. The housings are also absolutely top notch. As good as any new cooke or Zeiss cine lens that you could buy these days.

I shoot a variety of stuff these days, mostly commercial and music, so I want something that will be versatile, be able to make a bit of rental money and also hopefully sit in a rental house in LA and go out when I'm not working. My concern here for the cooke's is that every rental house has them, my concern for the Leica's is that they are relatively new and people may not know about them or they exist in that sticky spot in between Cooke S4's and Zeiss MP. Usually people want one or the other. The greatest strength of the Leica R glass (and the Cine LUX and CRON glass) is its versatility in image quality, but I worry that it's not enough of anything to really attract punters.

Cooke's sell themselves and do exactly what they say they will, but I worry that's a saturated market on the west coast. Just looking at ShareGrid alone its clear that there are a lot of small companies and individuals willing to rent out their TLS PANCHRO sets for relatively cheap.

I know there are MAJOR aesthetic differences between the two, and YES it is a question of taste, but I just want to get your opinions, your thoughts on these two sets, as a lens that you would use yourself, a lens that you hope will make some cash in rentals, and indeed hold its value over time; the versatility, the value as an investment, and anything else you might think of.

Currently my head is telling me to buy the Leica's as they may do better renting (everyone and their mum on the west coast has some iteration of a Cooke lens), but my heart is telling me to go with the Cooke's.

Any musings, thoughts, owners opinions, experiences or wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again,

Rob
 
Cooke Speed Panchro’s as great as they are, for what they are, are as you’ve stated, in oversaturation on the rental market, and thus net a relatively small if not diminished return. (In addition to this, the Cooke Double speed’s might be seeing an official revival in Spring 2019.....)

Leica R glass isn’t really in demand, and would likely be even less profitable than the Panchro’s.... on the rental market.

Between the two, I the think the Panchro’s might be the safer bet.... that being said, I’d recommend a set of the Cooke Panchro classic that Cooke recently released, simply for the fact that they are color matched and render a very similar image to the original.
 
I would go for the R’s but I think the lens market is in for a change, so much glass is being sold. Too many people out there do the same calculations you done. They all think they can buy a set for personal use and make the money back on rentals. Its quite a difficult game, rental houses want thier share, and also if they see your lenses going out a lot then they will buy thier own set. And nomatter build quality lenses that goes at as rentals normally need a lot of service, which tend to cost quite a bit. And even if there is quite a large request for monstro and LF covering lenses at the moment all the rental houses are gearing up with Thalia and Suprime Primes etc and simply even if the R’s cover they dont hold up as well as the new builds of larger format cineglas.

So personally I would only buy them if it made sense for my personal use. Sure there would be some money coming from rentals but I think its now more difficult than ever to make the money back on such relativly costly glas. Simply as there is so much new glas comming out in all flavors and price categories.
 
Between those two I would make the decision solely on what you want for your work. Like they've said above, neither set will likely make you a lot of rental money at this point. The owner-op lens market is oversaturated.

As for personal work, I think the Panchros are great, but they have such a specific look that I don't think is suitable for every project. On the other hand, Leica R lenses have a beautiful look to them, but it's not so strong that you can't use them on most gigs. I would go with the Leica's.
 
IMHO I really don't think the Rs are worth that amount of money, but largely depends what you're looking for. As has been touched on, there's no rental market for these.

For the R rehousing do they change the focus on all of them? When i was dabbling with Rs my two issues were the very different focus throws and also that i found the lenses themselves rendered very differently wide open to stopped down. My concern was matching between them. The Mandler lenses glow wide open which is great for stills.

I had a few cookes a while back too, they're lovely, but they're a certain look. There's no magic unicorn dust in them though, there are many lenses of that era that are similar.

So i would ask yourself what is it you're wanting them for?

cheers
Paul
 
Thanks for all your opinions guys, I've mainly shot on cookes up to this point and always feel they get me somewhat in the right direction of where I want to be in terms of softness with most digital sensors.

I totally agree with the concern over the price of the Leica's, considering you can get an excellent set in original housing for only a few thousand, it seems a lot to bump each lens up to £6k for the rehousing. And as someone mentioned, yes they completely re-engineer the lens so they all have 270 degree focus throw, matching front diameter, and the "set" is chosen as the best match. The company who you buy the lens from bought up a huge stock of LEICA glass a few years back so they have been able to offer matched sets that are very accurate, as well as single lenses (cant figure why you would only want 1 in PL though).

And yes, indeed the "new" old cookes are indeed an option going forward, honestly though in side by side tests, the older panchros I think outperform. Its a question of taste ultimately, this video was quite enlightening, personally i think they took too much of the old character away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJYyqTfL5-g&t=94s
 
Mark K. said:
Are the 'new' old Cookes an option? I'd have thought they'd be a safer option moving forward.
Click to expand...

Only issue with this is that Cooke seem to have to go to the moon every time someone wants to buy a lens, so the waiting list is approximately 12-18 months. If i were a rental house I could wait but unfortunately thats just too long.
 
The thing that you are not taking into account is breathing.
Both of your choices breathe a lot, but the Leica's much more so.
The panchro's do not cover full frame at the widest angles either.
Further, they are an old fashioned look, which I like, but it definitely is a look.
i think their may be better and more versatile opportunities out there.
 
I am not a DP but these sorts of questions always get my attention. I wonder if it would be more sensible to buy a set of Sigma primes for, what, half the cost of the Leicas? Didn't Phil Holland test those and like them?

The point is that if they cost £20K or so (US$25K), you won't have to worry about renting them out (because I don't think you will make any rental money from them). They also cover VistaVision. They seem to make sense.
 
I get the history of the Leica Rs, but IMHO i do think you should rent, read and check out the myriad of other options out there. I should have mentioned the breathing too. But for example i don't know what their 28 is based on (because the f2.8 28mm Mk II is perhaps one of the best 28mm available - but then it looks nothing like the other Leicas) it has a really short throw. Now the rehousing can expand that to 270 but is that a linear expand or have they taken the time to change the mark positions?

There is a fantastic book by Erwin Puts called Leica Chronicle. Look for that and it details ALL the models, designs and so on. You can see how many revisions and so were done for each lens. And in fact there's some great online references as well:

https://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-wiki.en/index.php/R_Lenses_x_Focal_Length

I had/have a full set of contax zeiss, then wanted to move to the Rs but actually went back to the contax as found them performing better. Then looked at the sigmas and the usual suspects. Personally i totally fell for the SLR Magic HyperPrime APOs of which there are only 4 so that may not work for you (there's a thread on them here). But in doing so i did test and look at all those mid range offerings and there's some really great stuff in there for all tastes.

And also if you're totally set on the R then why rehouse them? Because rehousing and long focus throws means always using a follow focus (very tough to pull off the barrel) but if you had normal lenses and you did your own pulling then you have that option or you could use a wireless FF and remap the throw to your likes? IMHO i baulk at spending that much on rehousings, but picking up lenses isn't so bad. I never found a good 19mm f2.8 MkII tho! Also the 50s are so different to each other, all the way to the very last 50mm lux E60...

So if you haven't already i'd try out a number of options before committing.

cheers
Paul
 
I have a set of R's. I really like them. I haven't re-housed as I can still use them on my stills camera. I have looked into it though but not sure the cost stacks up. Zero Optics are about to start doing them so thats another option. I bought them through a RED user on here who colour matched the set I have and Duclos cinevised them and I shoot them exclusively on my Monstro. The 19mm doesn't cover the 8k FF. They can be fiddly and focus pullers hate the short throw but for me and what I do I'm ok with that. I'd be interested to see what happens in the 'speed booster' market before investing in vista vision lenses. Massive thumbs up for TLS though. I have a re-housed Nikon 80-200 which is very COOKE esq.
 
Probably get two sets for that budget if shooting for personal reasons?!
Get a set of new sigmas cine pl & buy up some old single speed panchro's and get Les Bosher to rehouse? Will work out less that way then you also have a nice fast FF modern set plus lovely Cooke look set?

As we say in UK: best of both! If I had that kinda personal lens budget, that's what I'd do anyway.

Craig Lees
UK
 
C. Burkhart said:
The thing that you are not taking into account is breathing.
Both of your choices breathe a lot, but the Leica's much more so.
The panchro's do not cover full frame at the widest angles either.
Further, they are an old fashioned look, which I like, but it definitely is a look.
i think their may be better and more versatile opportunities out there.
Click to expand...

I agree here. I guess it all depends on how you are using the lenses. If it's for the look, the consistency in execution, or how rentable they are. My vote would be to get a personal set of Tokina Vista Cinema Primes or the Sigma Cine Primes. The Tokina Vista primes don't really breathe either, so there's that. At least all of those are affordable for the quality they deliver. I've been very happy with my Tokina Vista Primes.
 
The thing that you are not taking into account is breathing.
Both of your choices breathe a lot, but the Leica's much more so.
The panchro's do not cover full frame at the widest angles either.
Further, they are an old fashioned look, which I like, but it definitely is a look.
i think their may be better and more versatile opportunities out there.
Click to expand...

Neither of these sets have floating elements correct? You are just moving the optical cell closer or farther away to focus right? So I am pretty sure that a given focal length would have to travel the same distance to and from the sensor to focus regardless of the optical design. That's just math. So I don't see how one set could breathe more than the other.

Nick
 
Nick Gardner said:
Neither of these sets have floating elements correct? You are just moving the optical cell closer or farther away to focus right? So I am pretty sure that a given focal length would have to travel the same distance to and from the sensor to focus regardless of the optical design. That's just math. So I don't see how one set could breathe more than the other.

Nick
Click to expand...

On the R side it depends which models have been selected as 'matching'. There are some APO R Lenses, especially the newer ones that are fantastic performers but look quite different to the more vintage ones. The E60 lux has floating element and modern design, one of the best SLR 50mm out there, even today. All the R lenses have different designers and different aesthetics - that's really the crux of what i'm getting at - the 24mm is actually a Minolta design. The last 90mm cron was an APO and pretty amazing, but the previous gen 'normal' 90 was not a very good performer, really flare-y and some circular bokeh patterning. When i say flare i mean a normal sky reflected, not just a sun, to the point where i felt it was pretty unusable unless stopped down a fair amount.

If it's a personal set then the suggestion of two sets - a modern cine and a stills based vintage - makes a lot of sense!

cheers
Paul
 
Rob Webster said:
Only issue with this is that Cooke seem to have to go to the moon every time someone wants to buy a lens, so the waiting list is approximately 12-18 months. If i were a rental house I could wait but unfortunately thats just too long.
Click to expand...

Hmm, In the world of rehousing 12 months is quite fast. They also go to the moon. :)
 
Paul, I agree about the SLR Magic APO's, what is also great is that there is a 25 and 32 APO, not many wide APO's other than 28mm Otus. I am trying to piece together an all APO set of the Magics and the Otus's, the Leica M's and R's to get a range of glass and renderings with APO as a baseline. The fantastic thing is that the little Leica M's will cover Monstro VV sensor. Does any body know of any other great APO's out there, particularly wides?
 
scott devitte said:
Paul, I agree about the SLR Magic APO's, what is also great is that there is a 25 and 32 APO, not many wide APO's other than 28mm Otus. I am trying to piece together an all APO set of the Magics and the Otus's, the Leica M's and R's to get a range of glass and renderings with APO as a baseline. The fantastic thing is that the little Leica M's will cover Monstro VV sensor. Does any body know of any other great APO's out there, particularly wides?
Click to expand...

Don't want to derail this thread and i will be posting an update in the SLR one about the 32mm but I'm not aware of an APO wider than 25 at the moment. I have the 135 APO Zeiss at the long end for me, and that's been fine. The only issue with the Ms are the wider ones can cause a problem with the OLPF and also ergonomically they're pretty tough to use - focus barrel too close to the mount for example. At least the R range is better for those reasons!

cheers
Paul
 
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