TTH Cooke Soft focus lenses - pamphlet "Pleasing Portraiture"

[mikec]

How do you arrive at that conclusion? Who would be better?

I was very pleasantly surprised when I made a request for info to Barbara Lowry at Cook Optics. I got an almost immediate reply and soon after she sent some data that she has been collating.

It did not unfortunately have any technical specs, and most was take directly from the booklet that I posted here.
Here is what I got:

Series XIV, f/6.3
For use with Panchromatic film

Appeared in Cooke lens catalogues: c.1935 to 1955

Lens construction (if known): “The Series XIV are of the three-glass type, and are intermediate between Process and Portrait lenses” (c.1935).

Photo(s) of lens – 1955
Specs – c.1936 (I did not get the photos or specs.)

Other photos, with captions and anecdotes

Lens is built for:
For portrait and commercial work with Panchromatic film

“The growing use of panchromatic material for general photography has made such lenses essential for certain types of work. Super-sensitive panchromatic plates and films do not require the large aperture so essential in the ordinary Portrait Anastigmat, and assisted by this fact we have been able to produce lenses which focus all colours with critical sharpness and uniform size of image on all types of sensitive photographic material.

Cooke Series XIV lenses are designed to give images varying in scale between one-fourth the size of the object and ‘infinity.’ They are recommended for use in the studio, especially for group work, and are also suitable for colour separation negatives from life or other originals.

For copying work in black and white and in colour, Cooke Process lenses should, of course, be used” (c.1935).

Up to 1947, the lenses were not coated. The 1955 catalogue entry notes that the “lenses are supplied with all air-to-glass surfaces coated, to ensure maximum transmissions and contrast values.” Some time between 1936 and 1955, the 21 inch focal length was no longer offered.

Samples

Series XIV, f/6.3, SN 247343

Series XIV, f/6.3, SN 516885
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I was surprised to see that it had such a long production span, which would indicate that they are fairly common, as I had not seen one advertised before the elements that I had picked up.

She told me that she is at the moment creating a compendium of Cooke lens data that will when completed be added to the Cooke Optics site. I mentioned to her that the user community would be a good source of info (pics, doc etc) so we may get requests here in future.

[Steven Tribe]

Well it was advertised in the 1934 Kodak brochure, which was probably printed in 1933.

Nice to know they are preparing an old lens summary, even though it is hardly their key development area!

[IanG]

Cookeoptics are a comparitively recent organisation. Other than the trademark "Cooke", there is little or no continuity between the company Taylor, Taylor & Hobson which developed the "Cooke" triplet and the present company. Post WW2, there were lots of buy-outs, mergers, rationalisation and an unsound market situation which lead, I believe, to specialisation around the growth markets of Cinema and Television production - as well as Contract optics (Military, NASA, Scientific).

All this means that there is no special knowledge (People or Documentation) about earlier large format designs in the organisation which now owns the trademark "Cooke". I am sure that if there was, it would have been shown in their few pages of Cooke history on their website.

An even worse situation exists for the even older name of "Ross" which has been passed on legally to a very poor maker of cheap telescopes.

It's the other way around really the current TTH company had moved into different areas and separated off the lens division as it was just with a different name, but with all the heritage. it, so the current Cooke company is essentially still the same when it comes to lenses.

It's an interesting PDF and it's important to note that the plain Series II lenses (the Cooke Triplet) aren't included, some people seem to muddle them with the adjustable soft focus Portrait Series II versions and pay to much for them.

Ian

[Ceebee]

Hi excuse my ignorance but is the adjustable soft focus lens a triplet with adjustment that works by moving the position of the rear element only relative to the other two ?

Carl

[Steven Tribe]

Pictorial triplets work by moving the central double -ve lens towards the back of the front lens. The Universal Heliar, Cooke and the late Dallmeyer anastigmat are the best known.

A well equiped lathe, a very experienced operator and a stock of brass or aluminium is all that is necessary to turn this series XIV into a soft lens. Of unknown characteristics, of course!

[karl french]

I'd been watching that set of orphaned cells for a while. Definitely better glass than the somewhat scruffy example I have. I have the Series XIV in 13" and 16 1/2". If you need the length of the barrel of the 13" for shutter mounting let me know.

I've shot a bit with the 16.5. It's a nice lens. Not meant to be soft focus at all. And nothing at all like the Series XV (in terms of lens design.)

Here is a portrait from my first session with the lens (16 1/2" XIV.) I think I shot this at f11.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/summic...in/dateposted/

They do seem to be quite uncommon. I think it was probably the last triplet Cooke introduced. I would love to have the 21" version to complete the trio.

[Mark Sawyer]

Keep in mind that as the aperture size diminishes, so does the soft effect. At f/6.3, you may have to shift the central element's position considerably more than in the faster versions.

[Ceebee]

The reason I ask is because I have a couple of projection lenses that are Cooke triplets and the necessary machining facilities and so will try to sort something out. An interesting experiment and good thread turning practice..!

[Steven Tribe]

Lots of late large triplet projection lenses around. I did this with an Epis which had a simple focussing device between the long sleeve and the barrel with the three lenses mounted. I cut the barrel, just leaving the central lens in place and mounted the front and rear lens in the sleeve tube. The focussing knob just moves the shortened barrel from the original position forward. Results were less than satisfactory - in spite of being careful with measurements, I seem to have got the mounting of the first and last lenses slightly wrong. But the softness does increase as expected. So I went onto to other projects!