Cooke Varopanchro 20-60 T3.1

[Kip Kubin]

Hi All

I'm looking for your experiences with this lens.

I need a short 4k zoom to compliment/match my 2K Cooke 9-50.

I'm a bit of a Cooke enthusiast ... have Speed Panchros for Primes thus the natural leaning to the Cooke over other brands.

Also... what's the going rate for one.... or at least a ball park range.

Any info and links to examples would be great.

Kip

[Charles Pickel]

Kip,
Recently had a chance to compare one of these somewhat rare units and an even rarer variant: the Technovision /Cooke 18.5-55.5mm T2.4.

A few notes and comments:
Both lenses cover 4K adequately. 20-60 starts to come in at the corners between 25-20mm. Vignetting is "just" visible at corners of sensor, outside of format lines . Both 16x9 and 2:1 are safe.

Lens is pleasantly sharp thru zoom range and has very natural look. Noticeably warmer than Zeiss primes. Markedly warmer than RPP's.

At wide end, easily picks up lens flares, even from non-specular sources.
You really have to watch the front end of this lens for kicks.

At approx. 10" OAL and under 7 lbs., the lenses can be hand-held and zoomed documentary style, or used with electronic controls. At this mass, support is arguably optional. The more massive Techno Coooke should be supported IMHO.

The Techno lens has impressive light gathering for a 4K zoom, but is a hot smoking flare magnet. Not as contrasty as the 20-60, but wider and faster.
You will need to shade that massive 141mm front element.

For the money, old school Rank Taylor Hobson/Cooke optical and build quality is hard to beat. Not thin-skinned and creaky like certain Angenieux units. Cams and bearings baby, not threads and bushings.

Hope you find this helpful.
Charles

[Kip Kubin]

Yes, that helps a lot.

If anyone has an example on line Id love to see it.

Or current ideas on price... private/ebay

[David Rasberry]

Kip

I recently acquired a Cooke 9-50 to use with 2/3" Scarlet when it is released. Do you have any 2k samples shot with your 9-50 posted anywhere?.

Thanks

[Matthew Rogers]

I've shot a ton of stuff over the last year on my Cooke 20-60. It's a very nice lens, although I find often I need it to be just a little bit longer or wider.

Here's an example of something I've shot on it. http://www.facebook.com/v/60143286001

Have also shot some Darius Rucker music videos on it (mixed with the RED 18-50 lens) and recently shot a Collective Soul music video with it and Ziess 14mm/135mm standard speeds.

Expect to pay around $6k for the lens.

Matthew

[David Rasberry]

Heh heh. Very cute film Matthew.
The Cooke looks beautiful on RED.

[chuck colburn]

I agree with what Charles has to say about the internal and external mechanical quality of the somewhat older Cooke zooms. In the early nineties I took a few of the 3 to 1 and the 5 to 1 zooms and had custom extenders designed for them to enlarge the image circle diameter to cover the 65mm 5 perf. format for the Showscan process. The optical quality held up very well and the projected images were quite stunning.

One other nice point about the Cooke 3, 5 and 10 to one zooms is the "universal mount system" they share in common. It makes for very easy adjustment of back focus and change of mount types.

[Dominic Jones]

I can completely confirm Charles' experience - it's a lovely lens, just covers the ~Academy 35mm format of the Red at the wide end (although you'll be in trouble on an Epic/Scarlet S35), warm in colour rendition with the only downside (in a technical sense at least) being that it's very prone to flaring.

It's also pretty big and heavy for a 3:1 zoom, by modern standards.

Lovely lens though, as long as you don't want it to match with Zeiss primes! :)

Cheers,
Dom.

[donatello b]

used the lens back in late 80's - really liked it then ..
recently looked at a 20-60mm ...
i still like the images ... at 20 had to 5.6 to get sharp wide mages BUT still wide open i liked them ..
looking at a test chart .. basically i don't think the test chart looked good till 5.6 ... i prefer images over test charts ... these are older lens so they will vary from lens to lens ...
if you want sharp test charts at all T stops ? then this might not be the lens .. if you like good -looking images then do consider this lens ...

[Matthew Rogers]

Lovely lens though, as long as you don't want it to match with Zeiss primes!

Actually, I disagree. It matches quite well with Standard and Super Speeds. While the Zeiss is a little bit colder, it's not that bad. Now if you were matching with UP's or Masters, yep. I have a music video we shot recently which has Zeiss 14mm and 135mm mixed in my Cooke 20-60.

Matthew