Cooke Optics is bringing back its Speed Panchro lenses from the 1920s-1960s, using the original design but with PL mounts for modern cameras.
The Cooke Panchro Classic line is scheduled to ship from NAB 2017.
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. Developed several years before ‘talkies’ came into being, the advent of sound films created a great demand for faster lenses because arc lamps could no longer be used, making much existing equipment obsolete. 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.
Les Zellan, Chairman and Owner, Cooke Optics, said, “People still love the look they get from the old Speed Panchros, but they are hard to find – and if you can find them, you have to remount them for today’s cameras. In response to this, we have taken the original design and created a new housing to fit a PL mount. The new Panchro Classic lenses will have the same look and feel that people love about the originals.”
Renderings of the new Cooke Panchro Classic range will be available to see at IBC on Stand 12.D10, along with a variety of Anamorphic/i, 5/i, S4/i and miniS4/i lenses.
Jon Creamer
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