Used Cooke Speed Panchro Series II 32mm F/2 (T2.3) Arri Standard Mount Lens

Cooke Speed Panchro

Horace W. Lee designed the Cooke Speed Panchro, a cine prime lens that chromatically enhanced an image when filming under restrictedillumination. Developed several years before talkies came into being, the advent of sound films created a great demand for faster lenses because arc lamps could no longer be used, making much existing equipment obsolete. Cooke Speed Panchros combined a relative aperture as wide as f2.0 with an angular field of view and definition previously impossible with much smaller apertures.

Before the Speed Panchro, Cooke Series VIIIB Telephoto Anstigmat, f 3.5 lenses "were used extensively at Hollywood for Cinematographfilm production," according to an early Cooke lens catalog.

September 9, 1926, Kinematograph Weekly, The Observation Window column reports: "Over a hundred Taylor-Hobson Cooke lenses of various focal lengths are used by the photographic department of the Famous Players-Lasky studios. This interesting information is contained in a letter, copy of which has been forwarded by Taylor, Taylor and Hobson, Ltd. to the Bell and Howell Company of Americafrom Frank E. Carbutt, Famous' director of photography. It is a concrete fact which emphasizes the world reputation of British-made lenses and their recognized superiority for all classes of photography. Mr. Carbutt adds that these lenses have, without, exception,given perfect satisfaction and that they have yet to find a poor Cooke lens."

The magnitude of The Famous Players-Lasky's use of Cooke lenses is vast considering the following: The Famous Players-Lasky dominated theatrical distribution through its ownership of production, distribution agencies and theatre holdings. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission investigated the company for restraint of trade. According to excerpted testimony from The New York Telegraph, April 24, 1923, "this combination of effort stifles competition, inasmuch as its competitors are unable to secure first run showingsof their pictures. The complaint also charges that the corporation is the largest theatre owner in the world, and controls showings of the pictures through its ownership of Paramount Pictures, the distribution corporation." At the time, Paramount was releasing sometimes two features a week. Famous Players Lasky, through their various companies including Paramount and Artcraft produced all of the films starring Mary Pickford from 1913 to 1919.