Gear Spotlight: Cooke Mini S4/i Lenses

The 'Panchro/i' would eventually become re-named as the 'Cooke Mini S4/i' to avoid confusion with a previous line of lenses. | Camera Ambassador

“We were having trouble finding a set of these lenses to purchase,” explains Lead Technician Eric Silver, “so when we finally found the set in London, we were interested.”

As a result, he set off to London on a venture to check out these lenses for himself. Eric was a man with a Pelican case and a mission.

“Turns out, the original set we were going to purchase had quite a few issues,“ Eric noticed, “so we ended up getting the second set, which was pretty much pristine condition.”

“I feel like I have a lovely connection with these lenses,” Eric adds. “Considering I went to London just to pick them up and it was my first time out of the country, I also made a slight vacation out of it.”

(Top) A beautiful view of the London Eye (Bottom Left) A delicious English breakfast alongside Eric's trusty FujiFilm X100s (Bottom Right) A Lego model of some of the sights of London | Eric Silver

Although the second set was in better condition, it was labeled as the “Panchro i” rather than the “Mini S4/i”. It’s easy to mistake these lenses for another set entirely.

“When Cooke originally released the Mini S4/i’s, they titled them the ‘Panchro i’. This caused a lot of confusion with the Panchro i Classics, which is an entirely different lens made decades earlier,” Eric clarifies. “So, they decided to change the name.”

As a result, our lenses are among the first lenses which would eventually become the Mini S4/i line. However, even though our Panchro i’s were made earlier on, these lenses are still identical in both form and function.

“These lenses have a nice warm tone to them thanks to the coating that Cooke’s created,” explains Lead Technician Eric Silver, “which plays especially well with skin tones.”

The Cooke Mini S4/i lenses also produce images of exceptional resolution and optical quality while employing a smaller design. Furthermore, the sharpness is particularly enticing, producing an image that is definitively in focus while not clinical in its precision.

A Cooke Mini S4/i 100mm lens mounted on an Arri Alexa Mini | Camera Ambassador

All in all, the Cooke Mini S4/i is a gorgeous lightweight lens set that creates images of high caliber. The lens architecture is especially durable in that it’s preventative against dust and moisture.

“Essentially all of the optics are in one sealed-off housing that moves separately from the external parts of the lens,” Eric points out. “There are no moving pieces of glass in any of the lenses, except for the 18mm - the entirety of all the optics moves in unison.”

However, aside from the unique characteristics of the glass, these lenses are also special to Eric in another way:

“The Cooke Mini S4/i were the first lenses that I'd ever handled and serviced,” Eric remembers fondly. “Actually, the first time I ever used them, I put one on the camera upside down and was promptly told that I was doing it the wrong way - I haven’t made that mistake again since.”

Try the Cooke PL Mini S4/i Lenses on your next set!

Hailing from Philadelphia with the mane of an angel, Eric Silver (he/him) is the Tech Lead at Camera Ambassador. When he's not breaking a sweat in the tech department, he works as a Movi Operator and Camera Assistant. Eric spends his free time photographing his life in the city and capturing much needed headshots of his cat, Luna.