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Cooke Optics Ltd. is a camera lens manufacturing company based in Leicester.

History

The foundation of Cooke Optics is coincident with Taylor, Taylor and Hobson (TTH) in 1886, as the sole activity of TTH was the manufacture of lenses under the Cooke branding. Administratively speaking, Cooke Optics is a spin-off of Taylor-Hobson, created after Taylor-Hobson shifted its focus to metrology instruments.

The brand name Cooke originally came from the company T. Cooke & Sons of York, a manufacturer of telescopes. The optical manager of that company, H. Dennis Taylor (no relation), devised the Cooke triplet lens in the 1890s. Cooke of York was not interested in the manufacture of camera lenses, and licensed this design and others to TTH. Subsequently many of TTH's own designs, though unconnected with Cooke of York, also carried the Cooke brand. The Cooke triplet lens was also made under licence by Voigtländer and other companies.

Throughout the twentieth century TTH produced a series of innovations, and supplied lenses for the (once large) UK camera industry, for photolithography in the printing industry in the USA and UK, and for cinematography. It provided a succession of technical solutions for Hollywood's evolving needs.

Bell & Howell took control of the company in 1930, but it was sold to Rank in 1946. In its later years, Taylor-Hobson's main interest was metrology, and it now operates as a subsidiary of Ametek.

In 1998, Cooke Optics was a new company formed following a buy-out of the Optical division of Taylor-Hobson. Chairman Les Zellan led the buy-out. Dave Stevens was then Managing Director of the Leicester-based facility and remained so until 2008 when Robert Howard replaced him as Chief Executive Officer. In 2018 Cooke Optics was acquired by Caledonia Investments. In 2020 Cooke announced the appointment of Tim Pugh as Chief Executive Officer and Kees van Oostrum as Non-Executive Chairman.

The company now designs and manufactures 35 mm lenses for the film industry. In a reversion to its previous markets, it has also made limited quantities of the PS945, a redesigned Pinkham and Smith portrait lens,^[1] and the Series XVa, a redesigned triple-convertible lens for 10×8 inch format. The company distributes to over 60 countries worldwide and exports 90% of its production.

In 2013, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave the company an award of merit, saying it "helped define the look of motion pictures over the last century," with innovations over the years that have included zoom lenses for movie cameras and lenses that did not require bright lights. resulting in lenses that produce what is known in the industry as the "Cooke look" — warm, natural images on the screen.^[2]

Products

Notable products include:

a soft-focus 'portrait' lens favoured by Clarence White and Alfred Stieglitz
the Aviar aerial survey lens, designed in World War I when German lenses and optical glass became unavailable to the RAF
the Series XV triple-convertible lens for 10×8 inch cameras, favoured by Ansel Adams and others (also see below)
the Opic and Speed Panchro large-aperture lenses, widely used by Hollywood
the inverse telephoto (retrofocus) lens, created for use with the early Technicolor process, and now the standard design for wide-angle lenses in 35 mm and other small-format cameras
high-quality zoom lenses for cinematography and television
high quality lenses for cinema projectors

Cooke / Taylor-Hobson lens diagrams
Triplet (Taylor, 1893)^[3]
Aviar (Warmisham, 1917)^[4]^[5]
OPIC (Lee, 1920)^[6]
Inverted telephoto (Lee, 1930)^[7]

References

^ www.christies.com http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/LotDetailsPrintable.aspx?intObjectID=3954844. Retrieved 20 August 2012. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)^{[title missing]}
^ Greene, David (4 Jan 2013). "Cooke Optics Limited To Be Honored At Oscar Ceremony". National Public Radio. Retrieved 5 January 2013.
^ US Patent 568052A, H. Dennis Taylor, "Lens", published September 22, 1896, assigned to Taylor, Taylor & Hobson Ltd.
^ US Patent 1361207A, Arthur Warmisham, "Lens", published December 7, 1920, assigned to Taylor, Taylor & Hobson Ltd.
^ GB Patent 113590A, Arthur Warmisham, "Improvements in Lenses.", published February 28, 1918, assigned to Taylor, Taylor & Hobson Ltd.
^ GB Patent 157040A, Horace Lee, "Improvements in Lenses for Photography and the like.", published January 20, 1921, assigned to Taylor, Taylor & Hobson Ltd.
^ GB Patent 355452, Horace W. Lee, "Improvements in Lenses for Photography and the like.", published August 27, 1931, assigned to Kapella Ltd.