Graham Cassely is an optical designer at Cooke. He described the SP3 project, “When we started on the Panchro/i Classic project about 8 or more years ago, we did a lot of digging through lots of paperwork at Cooke to find the original Speed Panchro designs. We found the old prescriptions—the optical designs written down by hand. The SP3 series are essentially another variation of the Speed Panchro design. In terms of the look of the lens, we tried to keep it very similar to what a Speed Panchro or a Panchro/i Classic would look like. We’re using the same types of single layer coatings that they would have used back in the 50s or 60s… read more…