New Cooke Panchro Pricing

[Todd Anderson]

As per e-mail for those who signed up for the newsletter (for those of you that haven't heard):

 

"For your eyes only

 

While you've been waiting patiently for information from Cooke, Cooke has been working diligently in Leicester, putting the finishing touches on the new Panchro.

 

You are the first to hear this news - before it goes to press and before it goes public on our website. Therefore, you can be one of the first to pre-order the Panchro by Cooke:

 

At NAB we showed you the drawings and promised great pricing, and we're delighted to confirm the Panchro by Cooke 18, 25, 32, 50, 75 and 100mm lenses start at just $7,400 each. A set of five lenses incorporating the 25 through 100mm focal lengths has a special price of $33,600. Deliveries begin end of 2009.

 

You can order the lenses as a set or individually. Deliveries begin end of 2009.

 

We are beyond mere drawings on paper. We will have the 25mm and 100mm Panchros available for viewing at IBC, Amsterdam, this September in Cooke Optics booth 11.D10. Contact Chris Brnic (chris@zgc.com) at +1-973-335-4460 for more information and to place an order.

 

For updated specifications on the Panchro by Cooke, go to www.cookeoptics.com. If you have other questions, please reply to this email."

 

I still hope they surprise us and make them T2.4. But I guess that may be unlikely for fear of cannibalizing their S4's. Doing the math, the set price would bring the per lens cost down to $5,600 a lens, which is pretty remarkable. Though, I wish the pricing on the single's were closer to the $6,500 range.

 

Todd

[Chris Keth]

T2.8 is a bit of a disappointment. For much, much less than a new set of these, one could buy a set of Series 2/3 panchros that are T2.2. The S2/3 panchros haven't been bought up nearly at the rate that the zeisses have.

[georg lamshöft]

It's easy printing some T-stops on the barrel, make handselected prototypes that work nicely for a few months, using cheaper materials, primitive designs or slave labour because "most people won't notice the difference anway..." :unsure:

 

But staying away from all the marketing-bs, staying true to your standards, doing what makes sense in a technical way and for the customer, not for the shareholder-value... That's a rare thing and I cannot overemphasize the importance of this!

 

Since a prosumer PL-mount/35mm-camera is available, many companies you propably never heard of will try to grab a piece of the cake and offer new lenses. Propably not T2.8 and much cheaper and cooler looking and many people on the net will tell you that those are great... But be careful! Making lenses is state-of-the art engineering, machining, assembling and testing! When you want to make it right (as in the professional-market right now) it won't become cheaper or easier!

 

Just look at the still-photography market, we have 20+Mp-DSLRs but barely any usable lenses. Why? Because it isn't expensive to squetch more photosites on a sensor but very expensive to make proper lenses!

 

Appreciate companies like Cooke that rather disappoint their marketing (T2.8...) than their customers!

[Todd Anderson]

My mistake. As has been pointed out, the price of $33,600 is for a set of "five" lenses (25mm, 32mm, 50mm, 75mm, 100mm). Not six. So, the per lens set price would jump up to $$6,720 per lens.

 

Todd

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Personally I'd like a T2 option, but at the same time on 35 I'd be a bit happier in the 2.8/4/5.6 range. And after looking at Cooke prices for other lenses, a while ago, I can't balk at what they're asking now. Of course this is just me and I'm still working with my Lomos and Optars and dreaming of German/English optics ;)