Anamorphic/i SF 35-140mm (T3.1) Zoom

Giving “Special Flair” to Super 35 flares: Cooke Optics creates a new medium-to-tele option for their family of Anamorphic/i SF lenses.

On display for the first time at Cameraimage 2018 in Poland, the Special Flair line of Anamorphic/i SF lenses from Cooke Optics offers a new zoom option in the Anamorphic/i SF 35-140mm (T3.1). Adding a specially developed lens coating for a unique and tailored amount of lens flare, the SF stands for “Special Flair” as they bring “flares, bokeh and other aberrations into new visual territory,” according to the Cooke website.

Sharing the “look” of their other anamorphics, the PL-mount lens is identical in every other aspect to a standard Cooke Optics 35mm-140mm Anamorphic/i zoom. The Anamorphic/i SF 35-140mm (T3.1), as well as the previous 35-140mm Anamorphic/i model, both offer 2x squeeze and cam-style focusing mechanism for smooth focus racking. With up to 33.54mm diameter of coverage, there is an 11-blade iris and true (T2.3) iris throughout the majority of the primes for pleasing, rounded oval bokeh at 2:1 ratio.

Cooke’s /i Technology to give lens metadata for post and other creative management needs such as stereoscopic photography or matte work. The company has ensured that their /i Technology is compatible with all professional PL-mount film and digital cameras. It provides lens settings, focusing distance, aperture and depth-of-field information, hyperfocal distance, serial number, owner data, lens type, focal length, and inertial tracking, shading and distortion data, with both metric and footage measurements.

For the new Anamorphic/i SF 35-140mm (T3.1) and other zooms, zooming position is also captured. To achieve the “Cooke Look” in the new Anamorphic/i SF 35-140mm, “a sharp, subtle, smooth rendering that provides dimensionality and high contrast, and pleases the eye,” the lens has been given the same depth of field characteristics and has been color-matched to other optics like the Cooke 5/i, S4/i, and miniS4/i lenses, as well as the CXX 15-40mm (T2) S4/i zoom, and 10 other primes in the Cooke Anamorphic/i line.

Anamorphic/i SF models are also offered in 25mm, 32mm, 40mm, 50mm, 75mm, 100mm, 135mm, 180mm and 300mm focal lengths, with only the 65mm MACRO remaining, for now, unavailable as a SF version.

Recently, the Anamorphic/i SF range was used by Matthew Libatique, ASC on both A Star Is Born — read the AC story here — and Venom. A Star Is Born plays the Main Competition at Camerimage.

“Cinematographers love the bokeh and the kicked-up flare that they get with the Anamorphic/i SF zoom lenses,” says Les Zellan, Chairman, Cooke Optics, in the press release. “This additional character, combined with the warmth of the Cooke Look, gives yet another option for storytelling. With many cinematographers asking us to add this ‘special flair’ to the family, we were happy to oblige.”

At IBC 2018 in September, Cooke launched a new range of Anamorphic/i Full Frame Plus lenses for large-format coverage, and, with 27mm and 135mm lenses promised for delivery soon, introduced new 65mm Macro and 21mm lenses in the Panchro/i Classic for Super 35.

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