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Cinematographers choose our lenses for the ‘Cooke Look’ - a sharp, subtle, smooth rendering that provides dimensionality, high contrast, and pleases the eye.
Early on in our business Cooke recognised the need to design, manufacture and calibrate lenses that produce warm and natural visuals. We’ve never wavered from that commitment, with each of our lenses being designed with an unrivalled understanding of the pipeline between what the DOP sees and the experience in the movie theatre.
Credits Most people equate Cooke lenses with an indelible softness in the image it produces. In actuality, Cooke’s are some of the sharpest cinema lenses being produced today, able to distinguish up to 200 line pairs per millimeter.
When testing a lens’ sharpness, you test to see how many line pairs it’s able to resolve, or how many black and white separate lines on a TV screen it is able to define. For a lens to be rated for a 4K camera, it must be able to resolve at least up to 40 line pairs per mm. Cooke’s, at a 200 line pair benchmark, could be used for systems shooting up to 20K.
“We really pushed these lenses. They are mechanically superb but the sharpness was the best thing. They’re pin sharp when you need it but have a wonderful fall off to creamy softness in the out of focus regions.”
The flares produced by Cookes are subtle, even when pointing them at a bright light source. They’re soft and out of focus, less contrasted than their contemporaries, with colours blending into the scene.
“The Cooke S4 lenses are the ones I turn to when in a tough situation. If I am shooting directly into practical lights, into backlight or shooting with the sun in my face the S4 lenses can handle it. Flare is at a minimum and many times none existent, I love these lenses.”
Probably the most well known feature of a Cooke lens is how they throw focus. When the lens is set to minimum focus, the distortion is almost akin to an anamorphic lens; the middle of the image magnifies, tapering off towards the edges and giving an almost circular distortion. This has been a staple of the Cooke Look since the twenties and a go-to effect for many cinematographers as close ups on Cooke lenses give an almost dream-like feel. Centre framed, a person or object in focus has almost a halo type effect around them.
“These spectacular lenses give lovely, impressionistic, out-of-focus characteristics behind the subject. The sets and locations behind the actors have a very cinematic feel with beautiful bokeh, but their real strength is how they render faces with kindness— never harsh or too sharp.”
Arguably the most important aspect of a Cooke lens. Cooke lenses have long been associated with the warm palettes of the Golden Age and the Seventies. Where does this inherent warmth come from?
It’s a fact that, when viewed through a vector scope on a camera independently white balanced and pointed at a white reference, Cooke lenses possess a yellow bias. Consistently maintaining the colour balance across the range means all our lenses are colour-matched to give a seamless look when shots are mixed in production. This painstaking process in part why Cooke lenses take time and skill to construct.
“...beautiful 'Cooke Look', I admire their balanced colour and smooth contrast. They're sharp and give a real clarity, yet they are never brutal. They bring a consistent warmth to the colour which is natural and close to what the human eye sees...”
Cinematographers choose our lenses for the ‘Cooke Look’ - a sharp, subtle, smooth rendering that provides dimensionality, high contrast, and pleases the eye.
Early on in our business Cooke recognised the need to design, manufacture and calibrate lenses that produce warm and natural visuals. We’ve never wavered from that commitment, with each of our lenses being designed with an unrivalled understanding of the pipeline between what the DOP sees and the experience in the movie theatre.
Credits Most people equate Cooke lenses with an indelible softness in the image it produces. In actuality, Cooke’s are some of the sharpest cinema lenses being produced today, able to distinguish up to 200 line pairs per millimeter.
When testing a lens’ sharpness, you test to see how many line pairs it’s able to resolve, or how many black and white separate lines on a TV screen it is able to define. For a lens to be rated for a 4K camera, it must be able to resolve at least up to 40 line pairs per mm. Cooke’s, at a 200 line pair benchmark, could be used for systems shooting up to 20K.
“We really pushed these lenses. They are mechanically superb but the sharpness was the best thing. They’re pin sharp when you need it but have a wonderful fall off to creamy softness in the out of focus regions.”
The flares produced by Cookes are subtle, even when pointing them at a bright light source. They’re soft and out of focus, less contrasted than their contemporaries, with colours blending into the scene.
“The Cooke S4 lenses are the ones I turn to when in a tough situation. If I am shooting directly into practical lights, into backlight or shooting with the sun in my face the S4 lenses can handle it. Flare is at a minimum and many times none existent, I love these lenses.”
Probably the most well known feature of a Cooke lens is how they throw focus. When the lens is set to minimum focus, the distortion is almost akin to an anamorphic lens; the middle of the image magnifies, tapering off towards the edges and giving an almost circular distortion. This has been a staple of the Cooke Look since the twenties and a go-to effect for many cinematographers as close ups on Cooke lenses give an almost dream-like feel. Centre framed, a person or object in focus has almost a halo type effect around them.
“These spectacular lenses give lovely, impressionistic, out-of-focus characteristics behind the subject. The sets and locations behind the actors have a very cinematic feel with beautiful bokeh, but their real strength is how they render faces with kindness— never harsh or too sharp.”
Arguably the most important aspect of a Cooke lens. Cooke lenses have long been associated with the warm palettes of the Golden Age and the Seventies. Where does this inherent warmth come from?
It’s a fact that, when viewed through a vector scope on a camera independently white balanced and pointed at a white reference, Cooke lenses possess a yellow bias. Consistently maintaining the colour balance across the range means all our lenses are colour-matched to give a seamless look when shots are mixed in production. This painstaking process in part why Cooke lenses take time and skill to construct.
“...beautiful 'Cooke Look', I admire their balanced colour and smooth contrast. They're sharp and give a real clarity, yet they are never brutal. They bring a consistent warmth to the colour which is natural and close to what the human eye sees...”
We asked the people who really know, cinematographers working at the top of their game:
See the full effect of the Cooke Look for yourself by browsing our Shot on Cooke libraries now.
Credits