Shooting the high end

There are few areas of the industry which have retained their value in the remorseless drive towards IT commoditisation in quite the same way as high-end lenses have. Despite pressure on prices from the manufacturing — and increasingly R&D —powerhouse entrants from the Far East markets, the companies operating at the high end of film and TV production are largely the same today as they were decades ago.

Partly this is due to lenses being a physical thing; advances in computational photography notwithstanding, you cannot virtualise a lens. Partly this is because the companies operating in the field are adroit at listening to their customers. A lens’ appeal to a DoP is largely about the look, but the fashions and trends that underpin that change, and companies such as Cooke Optics are in a constant dialogue with their customers as a result.

“We talk to cinematographers, hire companies and others on the coalface of production, keep our ear to the ground regarding nascent formats and trends, and use our experience to decide which direction to take our development,” explains Les Zellan, Chairman, Cooke Optics.

What’s interesting is some of the language involved, especially when it comes to the relationship with the cameras that lenses mount on.

For camera manufacturers, images are all about fidelity and capturing the world in as much detail as possible. For filmmakers the task is usually to present an artistic interpretation of that, which is what a good, high-end lens enables.

“Cinematographers need lenses that help them break the digital look of the sensors; lenses with character,” says Zeiss head of category management cinematography Christophe Casenave.

“Lenses play a huge role in…