Panavision Ultra Speeds and Cooke Varokinetal 10.4-52 zoom

[Eric Lin]

Hi there. I'm shooting a feature on Super 16mm. Our A camera will be an Arri SR3, PV mount with Panavision Ultra Speeds. We have the option of a donated A-Minima that has a PL mount Cooke Varokinetal 10.4 - 52mm zoom. I already did stock and lens tests with the Panavision lenses and love the look.

 

I won't have a chance to test the Cooke Varokinetal on the A-Minima before we go out. Can anyone with experience shooting these lenses comment if the looks will be close. What's the character of the Cooke Varokinetal?

 

I appreciate your input!

 

Best,

Eric Lin

NYC

DP

[Stephen Williams]

Clasic Cooke look, if you have used a Cooke zoom before you will know what to expect, slightly soft wide open, very sharp stopped down 1-2 stops.

 

Hi there. I'm shooting a feature on Super 16mm. Our A camera will be an Arri SR3, PV mount with Panavision Ultra Speeds. We have the option of a donated A-Minima that has a PL mount Cooke Varokinetal 10.4 - 52mm zoom. I already did stock and lens tests with the Panavision lenses and love the look.

 

I won't have a chance to test the Cooke Varokinetal on the A-Minima before we go out. Can anyone with experience shooting these lenses comment if the looks will be close. What's the character of the Cooke Varokinetal?

 

I appreciate your input!

 

Best,

Eric Lin

NYC

DP

[Eric Lin]

Thanks Stephen. I haven't had the chance to use a Cooke zoom (mostly Angenieux, and Canons) before but have used Cooke Speed Panchros and Cooke S4 primes so I'm going to guess that the look is in the same vein, yes? Good to know about the softness wide open.

 

Best,

Eric Lin

NYC

DP

[K Borowski]

I am not the keenest on different types of lenses, but I always like to shoot color charts of each lens and each emulsion batch to at least eliminate color balance variables automatically.

 

I've heard the look of the Cooke line is, in general, softer than something like a super-speed, but I have never had a chance to shoot with Cooke lenses personally.

 

Having worked with softer Angenieux 12-120mm glass from the early '70s, I've learned that the "sweet spot" is almost always 2-1/2 F/stops down from wide open, which may or may not work with your lighting and location.

 

Do you have zooms available for the Arri? If not, one can always shoot a quick test the first day and see how the dailies look, go from there to decide whether or not to use it. Set up the A-Minima and the SR simultaneously, and even worst case if it is unacceptable, you won't lose any of the scene.

[Eric Lin]

Thanks K. Our Arri does come with a zoom so I may just do a quick comparison with the zooms up on both the Arri and the A-Minima on the first shoot day (does that still count as a test?) and decide from there.

 

Needing to stop down 2+ stops won't work with many of our lighting setups however. I may restrict using it to daylight exterior scenes in that case.

 

Best,

Eric Lin

NYC

DP

 

 

 

I am not the keenest on different types of lenses, but I always like to shoot color charts of each lens and each emulsion batch to at least eliminate color balance variables automatically.

 

I've heard the look of the Cooke line is, in general, softer than something like a super-speed, but I have never had a chance to shoot with Cooke lenses personally.

 

Having worked with softer Angenieux 12-120mm glass from the early '70s, I've learned that the "sweet spot" is almost always 2-1/2 F/stops down from wide open, which may or may not work with your lighting and location.

 

Do you have zooms available for the Arri? If not, one can always shoot a quick test the first day and see how the dailies look, go from there to decide whether or not to use it. Set up the A-Minima and the SR simultaneously, and even worst case if it is unacceptable, you won't lose any of the scene.