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Cooke Speed Panchro S2/S3

Cooke Speed Panchro S2/S3

Manufacturer Cooke

Summary

These legendary Cooke lenses designed in the 1920s provide a beautiful vintage look, perfect for adding character to a digital image. These lenses offer a unique bokeh giving a dream-like feel to the out-of-focus areas, aging coating providing a warm yellow colour palette as well as interesting lens flares.

Focal Length ApertureClose focusFront DiameterWeight
18mmT2.223cm | 9"95mm0.47Kg
25mmT2.223cm | 9"95mm0.47Kg
32mmT2.330cm | 1'95mm0.51Kg
40mmT2.330cm | 1'95mm0.73Kg
50mmT2.330cm | 1'95mm0.77Kg
75mmT2.345cm | 1'6"95mm0.96Kg
100mmT2.868cm | 2'3"95mm1.11Kg

Overview

  • PL Mount
  • Super 35 Coverage
  • 1920 Lens Design
  • Vintage Characteristics

For hire, we have this fantastic set of Cooke Speed Panchro s2/s3 Vintage Lenses in PL Mount, which have been rehoused by Technovision

The original Cooke Speed Panchro, designed by Horace W. Lee in the 1920s, was a cine prime lens that chromatically enhanced an image when filming under restricted illumination. Cooke Speed Panchros combined a relative aperture as wide as f2.0 with an angular field of view and definition previously impossible with much smaller apertures. They quickly gained a worldwide reputation for quality cinema production and were widely used throughout the 20th century.

Characteristics like warped, interesting defocus, generous flaring and forgiving sharpness are some of the reasons why many productions have utilised the Cooke Speed Panchros to get a soft vintage feel from a digital camera. Let’s look at some recent examples…

 

WHIPLASH (2014)

Screenshot of Whiplash showing Cooke Speed panchro characteristics

This frame shows off the interesting bokeh of the Speed Panchros. When the iris is wide open they give the highlights a circular shape, with definition on the outer edges fading away in the centre.  This can exaggerate the defocused background of a shot giving it a dreamy feeling.

 

Screenshot of Whiplash showing flares of Cooke Speed Panchro

In this frame from Whiplash we can see an example of flaring in the Speed Panchros. Due to the older coatings on the lens, vintage lenses tend to flare more easily than moderns lenses, and the Cooke Speed Panchros are no exception. The flare of a Speed Panchro will vary from lens to lens, but most display big vail flaring filling the frame and lowering the contrast, as seen here.

 

THE WITCH (2015)

Screenshot of The Witch

This shot from The Witch, being shot on a wide angle Speed Panchro up close and personal, highlights the warping of the background that can be achieved with a shallow depth of field. The slight circular warping at the edges of the defocus makes this look almost like an old fashioned photograph.

 

TURNER (2014)

These frames from Mr. Turner show that even when used for wide or deep focus shots, the slightly soft sharpness of the Speed Panchros can take the edge off of a digital camera even without shallow depth of field.

Alternatively, productions might opt to hire a set of the Cooke Panchro/i Classic if they require more consistency across the set. In this blog article, we discuss the differences between these 2 fantastic Cooke Lenses.

To hire our set of Cooke Speed Panchro S2/S3 please email [email protected]

For more information on Cooke lenses please visit Cooke website.

 

Hire a Cooke Speed Panchro S2/S3 from us and you’ll find the following included:

  • 1x Cooke Speed Panchro S2/S3 18mm T2.2
  • 1x Cooke Speed Panchro S2/S3 25mm T2.2
  • 1x Cooke Speed Panchro S2/S3 32mm T2.3
  • 1x Cooke Speed Panchro S2/S3 40mm T2.3
  • 1x Cooke Speed Panchro S2/S3 50mm T2.3
  • 1x Cooke Speed Panchro S2/S3 75mm T2.3
  • 1x Cooke Speed Panchro S2/S3 100mm T2.8

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