Cooke launches SP3 range of low-budget full-frame cine lenses for mirrorless cameras

Legendary Hollywood lens maker, Cooke Optics, has announced a new line of full-frame “SP3” cine lenses (buy here) for Sony E mount mirrorless users. The lenses have a maximum aperture of T2.4 and feature an interchangeable mount.

The lenses appear to be only available for Sony E mount at the moment, although Canon RF, Leica L and Leica M options will be coming in the future. They also cost about a third to a fifth of typical Cooke lens prices.

T2.4 aperture throughout the range

The new Cooke SP3 lens series comprises five focal lengths of lens covering a decent range. The shortest focal length is 25mm (buy here), and the longest is 100mm (buy here). In between, you’ve got 32mm (buy here), 50mm (buy here) and 75mm (buy here). All five lenses feature a fairly bright T2.4 aperture.

All of the lenses are quite compact. And this isn’t just by Cooke’s standards, but cine lenses as a whole. Cooke’s clearly seen a market in the mirrorless sector, likely as a result of other manufacturers also releasing compact cine primes for mirrorless cameras, and they’ve decided to tackle it, too.

That’s probably not the only factor in Cooke’s decision to pursue small cine primes. I expect customer feedback has also played a large part. Drone use in Hollywood movies is becoming quite commonplace. If filmmakers are using Cooke lenses on the ground, they’re going to want lightweight versions to send up into the air, too.

Cooke SP3 – Easy swappability

While each of the lenses in the Cooke SP3 series are fairly close to each other in terms of size, they’re not identical. The MOD 0.8 focus and aperture rings, however, are in the same place in each of the lenses, allowing you to swap them out easily without having to reconfigure your entire rig.

The focus rings on all five lenses have a rotation of 160° from minimum focus distance to infinity. They also all have an aperture iris ring rotation of 78°. So if you’re using motors to adjust your focus and aperture, there may be no need to recalibrate between lens swaps.

With the exception of the 100mm lens, they all feature 58mm filter threads, letting you swap your filters easily between them. The 100mm, though, has a 77mm filter thread.

Low-budget, but not for everyone

For some people, these won’t be considered as being all that low budget. This is especially true when you’ve got companies out there producing cine zoom lenses for $3K and primes for less than a grand. But compared to Cooke’s usual prices, they’re very inexpensive.

Cooke lenses typically command an extremely high price. It isn’t unusual to see them for sale at $35,000 or more per individual lens, and some can reach as high as £60,000. For the new Cooke SP3 series, however, you can buy the entire set of five lenses for less than $22K.

Despite their much lower-than-usual pricing, though, they’re still Cooke lenses. So, they’re still going to be outstanding lenses for anybody who chooses to invest in them.

Cook SP3 Specs

	Cooke SP3 25mm T2.4	Cooke SP3 32mm T2.4	Cooke SP3 50mm T2.4	Cooke SP3 75mm T2.4	Cooke SP3 100mm T2.4
Focal Length	25mm	32mm	50mm	75mm	100mm
Max aperture	T2.4	T2.4	T2.4	T2.4	T2.4
Coverage	Full-frame	Full-frame	Full-frame	Full-frame	Full-frame
Image Circle	43.3mm	43.3mm	43.3mm	43.3mm	43.3mm
Minimum Focus Distance	13.9cm	22.3cm	39.4cm	68.9cm	66.3cm
Focus Throw	160°	160°	160°	160°	160°
Iris Throw	78°	78°	78°	78°	78°
Filter Thread	58mm	58mm	58mm	58mm	77mm
Mount	Sony E (interchangeable)	Sony E (interchangeable)	Sony E (interchangeable)	Sony E (interchangeable)	Sony E (interchangeable)
Dimensions	64 x 98mm	64 x 94mm	64 x 94mm	64 x 98mm	124 x 82mm
Weight	575g	520g	500g	520g	690g

Price and Availability

The new Cooke SP3 series of lenses is available to pre-order now for $4,500 each in 25mm, 32mm, 50mm, 75mm and 100mm focal lengths. Bought separately, that works out to $22,500 for the entire set. If you want to save yourself a little money, though, you can pre-order the complete set for $21,375.

As mentioned, the lenses are currently only available in Sony E mount, but they feature user-interchangeable mounts. Canon RF, Leica L and Leica M mounts will become available at some point in the future.