Cooke Optics of Leicester has a strong claim to having actually invented the first practical zoom lens in the 1930s, but that’s a story for another time. Today, the focus should be on just how great the appropriately named Gordon Cook’s 1971 Varotal still is, and how it has improved over time.
First presented in September of 1970 at Photokina in Cologne, and released to the Market the next year, many consider it to be the first modern approach to a cine zoom.
We would agree for a couple of reasons: the Varotal was the first fully contained zoom, meaning the front didn’t move or rotate, so you could use convenient clip-on matte boxes and filter holders. The lens was the first one to use Cooke’s proprietary Varomag multi-coatings which definitely helped to realise impressive transmission and resolution for the time. We could go over all the specs you might already know, but everything from its resolution, close focus, field of view, weight, and even the front diameter is, at worst, well-balanced, and at best, absolutely outstanding for its time. Gordon Cook’s Varotal would become an absolute workhorse in the industry but sadly often overlooked in retrospect.
There is a 1975 film about the machinations of an Irish upstart which you hopefully have seen but have definitely heard about. The director went to great lengths to shoot one single and atrociously static scene under abysmal lighting, all because he wanted to use some wonky speed boosted German prime lens. Jokes aside, the Varotal was used for a whopping 36 scenes in Barry Lyndon and the entirety of the surviving version of Tarkowski’s Stalker was also shot using a Varotal. Its successor is the only zoom Deakins deems acceptable.
20mm or 58 degrees angle of view on Academy 35mm might not be wide enough for most people today and more modern gate sizes and eventually digital sensors required larger coverage. While Cooke developed a myriad of different lenses tackling the minor issues surrounding the original Varotal, this one here is the approach of the legendary Henryk Chrosicki and his head engineer, Guiseppe Mani.
This modified 15-75mm t3.1, manufactured by Technovision in Rome in the early 1980s, covers Alexa mini open gate from 18mm on and barely vignettes if you go wider than that. We offer multiple different expanders if you plan on shooting Alexa 35 or larger formats. The lens shines with its medium contrast, good sharpness and big, but easily controlled, magenta and green flares. Even though it has a considerably larger front diameter than the original version at 172mm, we’ve got you covered with a custom matte box. The lens clocks in at 6.5kg or just 14.3 pounds, being significantly lighter and smaller than the comparable WA Varotal 14-70mm. Technovision made a myriad of different Varotal modifications back in the day, but this is the only 15-75mm we’ve ever seen. Knowing Technovision, it might as well have been a one-off.
This zoom is a perfect pairing for many vintage primes we offer like Panchros, Canon FDs or even Zeiss Super Speeds.
