Film and Digital Times - June 2007 - (Page 8)

Cooke’s Tour: The Adventure Continues History Review In Issue 9 of Film and Digital Times, we heard about the history of Cooke, founded in 1886 by the Taylor brothers, “Manufacturers of Optical Instruments” and inventors of the dimpled golf ball. Located in a modern building on the outskirts of Leicester, England, the Cooke factory today employs over 65 highly skilled craftsmen and women. While other optical companies around the world make lenses for many purposes, Cooke still specializes in lenses for the motion picture industry. So, let’s get started and build some lenses. It only takes about 40 hours from start to finish to assemble a Cooke S4/i. How to Build a Lens Grinding globs of glass into fine optical-mechanical instruments is a highly guarded, highly skilled industry matched in secrecy only by that other high-end grinding business: diamonds. This Cooke’s tour was the first time a mortal cinematographer was allowed unrestricted access with a camera into the inner sanctum and holy of holies of lens creation. Lens design is mostly math, physics and formulas. Venerable Taylor Hobsons and Speed Panchros began as long lines of numbers pencilled into voluminous notebooks, still on display and often referred to in the Cooke design offices. Now they use computers. Paul Nettleton uses 3D CAD, middle left. In a switch on stereotypical generational behavior, it’s the dad, David Nettleton who mischievously bounces S4/i lenses off the floor to prove lens resilience. As we’ve said before, although the lens survived, you should not attempt. May void warranty. 8 June 2007

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Film and Digital Times - June 2007

Contents
Red, Green, Blue
Aaton Penelope
Phantom Menace
Oil at NAB
Cooke Tour: How to Build a Lens
Lighting with Paint

Film and Digital Times - June 2007

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