New Cooke S4/i Electronic Lens System to Work with
All Film Cameras Including Arri Cameras with LDS
Cinematography Electronics S4/i Display Box
Works Directly with Cooke S4/i Lenses
(Amsterdam RAI, September 2003) - After four years in development, Cooke Optics Limited is pleased to unveil at IBC 2003 their new Cooke S4/i motion picture lens intelligence system (patent pending). (The "i" in S4/i stands for "intelligence".) Designed for all professional motion picture film cameras, the Cooke S4/i lens system provides cinematographers and camera operators with vital information on lens setting, focusing distance, aperture and depth-of-field. The system is designed for use with LDS equipped cameras or on any other film camera using an S4/i Data Display unit, provided by Cinematography Electronics.
Cooke S4 Prime lenses are designed for 35mm and Super 35mm but they are frequently used for shooting in 16mm format. Cooke S4/i lenses provide output for either 16mm or 35mm film formats. The S4/i lens system is capable of displaying focusing distance, aperture, depth-of-field, hyperfocal distance, serial number, owner data, lens type and focal length in both metric and footage measurements and for zoom lenses, the zoom position.
Les Zellan, chairman of Cooke Optics Limited, explains, "The S4/i lens system is optically the same as our standard S4 lens but also provides the operator with a way to remotely monitor the lens settings by means of two outputs - through the lens mount contacts for LDS equipped cameras or through the lens' external connector for any motion picture camera. Cooke's S4/i system truly provides universal compatibility."
The system makes use of absolute encoders positioned inside the lens that monitor the focus, zoom and iris settings to ensure that their outputs are available immediately from "power on." Pre-adjustment or pre-setting is never needed. An electronic microprocessor and software are embedded into the lens that read the focus, zoom and iris settings and calculate important picture format data. This data and the current settings are then transferred via a serial link to either an Arri camera equipped with LDS via the LDS contacts within the mount, or via the lens' external connector to the Cinematography Electronics S4/i Data Display unit.
Cooke and Arri have agreed to make the new Cooke S4/i system compatible with Arri cameras equipped with Arri's Lens Data System (LDS). This cooperative effort will allow Cooke S4/i information to be available directly via the Arri Lens Mount contacts.
Walter Trauninger, head of R&D Camera at Arri said, "This is a unique opportunity for Arri working in conjunction with Cooke Optics. We are excited to offer the industry access to as many lens choices as possible by incorporating the new Cooke S4/i technology on Arricam and 435 Advanced cameras currently offering LDS."
Cinematography Electronics will soon introduce the S4/i Data Display that interfaces the Cooke S4/i lens system with the very popular CineTape Measure System. According to Larry Barton, president of Cinematography Electronics, "The S4/i Data Display adds what's previously been missing in the lens data arena: actual measured subject distance. Now the focus puller knows exactly where the subject falls within the depth-of-field for the particular lens being used."
This calculated subject distance from the CineTape Measure is continuously updated and displayed on the S4/i Data Display. The Cinematography Electronics S4/i Data Display combines the subject distance with the lens information to provide real time information for the focus puller. Barton added, "Our new S4/i Data Display is the complete data system."
Cooke's new S4/i lens system is the latest edition to Cooke's award-winning S4 Prime lenses for 35mm cinematography. Cooke Optics' Chairman, Les Zellan adds, "We will be making a series of announcements describing our new S4/i lens system over the next year."
|