Even though my career has been almost entirely in front of the camera, rather than behind it, I’ve long been obsessed with film equipment. How, then, can I resist a party in LA for Cine Gear, a trade show for new film kit? It’s a good place for the ‘creatives’ to meet the technical guys. The director Dan Trachtenberg is there, and we handle the latest Cooke glass. Cooke has been making lenses in Leicester since 1893, and they are still the best cine lenses in the world. I bought my set of Cooke Speed Panchros in the 1980s, when nobody wanted them because they were ‘slow’, but now they are back in fashion. They have a warmth and softness that modern lenses strive to emulate because their coatings involved radio-active elements that are not permitted in manufacture now.

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But Cooke glass and Cine Gear’s cameras can’t compete with Nasa’s new Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. I’ve voiced several Nasa documentaries, so last year it allowed me into the clean room at the Goddard Space Flight Center to watch Roman being assembled. This 300-megapixel wide field camera can capture images as sharp........

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