Cookin' with Cooke! Please Post u'r Cooke Portrait lens shots

[Jim Galli]

Very nice Jim ! Love the Bokeh ! Were you using a reducing back or did your full plate took this lens like champ ?

Thanks! The full plate is a reducing back on my venerable Kodak 2D.

Below is a recent one done with Cooke Series II 13" original 1895 version. Full sharp setting, and also on full plate. I was at a bed and breakfast, Winje's Farm north of Lake City, Ca. and this table, really just a sheet of ply on saw horses, presented itself for the taking.

[ederphoto]

I wonder how many steaks i could eat with all those onions ! Very nice composition . My eyes run all over over the picture and always land in the same place .(Leading lines ).My eyes starts at the bottom right and move up diagonally left and than up diagonally right and than up following the highlights and than down to the right diagonally finding the onions again and moving up towards the highlights and down to the center of the pile of onions .I like that . Just for the discussion , this is what i mean , after all a picture is worth one thousand words :

[ScottPhotoCo]

Bringing this thread back to life!

Portrait of a lady. by Tim Scott, on Flickr
10.5" Cooke Series II wide open (f4.5)
Ilford FP4+

Not sure if this is the appropriate place but I have a Cooke question. On my version of the lens the soft-focus is set by turning the front of the barrel. What is the process for setting and using soft focus? Do you focus at SHARP first and then adjust the SF to taste or do you focus as you adjust the SF? I've looked everywhere I can think but I can't find videos or discussion on this lens.

Thanks in advance!

[Tin Can]

Bringing this thread back to life!


10.5" Cooke Series II wide open (f4.5)
Ilford FP4+

Not sure if this is the appropriate place but I have a Cooke question. On my version of the lens the soft-focus is set by turning the front of the barrel. What is the process for setting and using soft focus? Do you focus at SHARP first and then adjust the SF to taste or do you focus as you adjust the SF? I've looked everywhere I can think but I can't find videos or discussion on this lens.

Thanks in advance!

We have had this discussion. The short answer is Cooke itself in their research and published literature changed the techniques. Early they advertised, focus wide, close down and shoot. 30 years later they advertised focus at shooting aperture.

Take your pick, but I think the experts here, and I am not one of them, use the second technique.

Look up old Cooke advertising, from before the Knuckler.

I'm still trying to get results I like with my Cooke. Focus is very tough for this 4 eyed bastard.

[ScottPhotoCo]

Randy,

Thank you for taking the time to post this. I was unable to find much at all so far.

My real question, however, was more about using the soft focus function in process rather than aperture use. My other soft focus lens, a Kodak Portrait lens, is full time soft focus variable only by aperture. So the way the Cooke works is completely foreign to me.

Thanks again for your answer and I hope to see some of your Cooke images here.

Tim

[Tin Can]

Randy,

Thank you for taking the time to post this. I was unable to find much at all so far.

My real question, however, was more about using the soft focus function in process rather than aperture use. My other soft focus lens, a Kodak Portrait lens, is full time soft focus variable only by aperture. So the way the Cooke works is completely foreign to me.

Thanks again for your answer and I hope to see some of your Cooke images here.

Tim

I condensed the story too far. I meant initially they recommended set the lens on full sharp, found focus and then shifted to 1 of up to 5 soft focus positions. Aperture was not discussed in the literature I read. Then later said set SF position and then do focus and shoot. I infer they did either way at the same aperture as they knew it was also a variable.

More to come.

[Tin Can]

I suggest you do some googling.

Start here and dig for history, it's right there inside your computer.

http://www.cookeoptics.com/l/largeformat.html

[Colin D]

Good on you Tim for re-igniting this discussion because I'm yet to learn how to use my Cooke, albeit it is a series VI, and will be keen to hear any insights on how to get the best from it. The focussing technique is worth discussing.

I've done a few low interest test shots to date (see below) just to give it a run, but now I've cleaned and painted out the studio room I'm raring to get back into using the lens. I'm keen to do portraits, perhaps with some persuasion I can get the cook, not Cooke, to let me take some of her.

[Ari]

Maybe this helps, my lens is not SF, but with a Cooke XVa I found that there was a slight focus shift when closing down.
I normally shoot at f8 or f11, and even then there would be some focus shift; I found this out after buying the lens (not that it made any difference), and was told that this is a characteristic of most Cooke lenses.
I've since learned to focus with my loupe at the working aperture.
Here, I missed exact focus by ~2mm from a distance of about 6 feet:

[Colin D]

So Ari, focus with aperture means doing that first then setting the sf last, or set sf first then aperture then focus.