Cooke 20-60 zoom

[Patrick Neary]

Hi All-

 

I had a chance to shoot with an older Cooke 20-60 this past Friday on a commercial shoot. Previously we had used a 17.5-75 Primo, but I was asked to "trim down" the camera package (a G-II) for this spot.

 

I think it's my new favorite lens. It's very small and had surprisingly little flare even with the sun or an HMI shooting down the barrel. Not ultra clean like a Primo, but still pretty good. Just eyeballing it through the viewfinder, it seemed a good match with the UltraSpeed primes we also had.

 

Sooooo, in a roundabout way my question is, has anyone used this lens extensively, really putting it through the ringer on a feature or extended shoot? Any comments or issues?

 

I had a hard time finding any info at all on it before our shoot, is it some kind of well-kept secret?

[Nathan Milford]

Yeah, it's a beautiful piece of glass.

 

Beautiful on the inside too if you ever get to see one apart. Those Cooke engineers are realy somthing >8)

[Adam Frisch FSF]

Not the most modern zoom which makes it "uncool" with nervous shooters of today. There's a serious shortage of light, handholdable zooms. Tried to get one recently, but had to give up and settle for primes. Good to know you were happy with - I'll try to get one next time I need a light zoom.