The Cooke S4/S4i lenses are a cornerstone of cinematographic excellence, known for their distinctive visual qualities that have made them a go-to choice for high-end film productions. With coverage for Super 35mm sensors and a T2.0 aperture across all focal lengths, these lenses provide consistent exposure and depth of field control, ensuring seamless transitions between focus points. The Cooke Look inherent in the S4 series is marked by several key visual characteristics that are highly prized by cinematographers.

One of the most celebrated features of the S4 lenses is their smooth and creamy bokeh, which contributes to a visually pleasing and organic background blur. This smooth out-of-focus rendering ensures that the subject remains the focal point, while the background subtly fades, adding dimension to the composition. This is particularly important for portraits and close-up shots, where skin tones are rendered with exceptional warmth and accuracy, capturing the natural nuances of human features.

The S4 lenses also feature a gentle highlight roll-off, providing a smooth transition from bright areas to shadows without abrupt contrast shifts. This allows cinematographers to capture a greater range of detail in both highlights and dark areas, giving the image a natural, filmic quality. Their warm color rendition results in rich, vibrant hues that enhance the cinematic feel of the footage, giving each frame a timeless, artistic look. Additionally, the lenses are designed with minimal focus breathing, ensuring that the subject remains sharp and undistorted when transitioning between focus points.

For productions requiring modern workflow integration, the S4i version offers "i Technology", which transmits lens metadata for focus mapping and VFX integration, streamlining post-production processes. This added functionality makes the S4i lenses especially suited for high-end commercial work and visual effects-heavy films.

Notable films shot with Cooke S4/S4i lenses include John Wick (2014), Call Me by Your Name (2017), and Longlegs (2024), where the lenses’ ability to capture precise detail, natural skin tones, and cinematic lighting has played a crucial role in the storytelling.