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I thought I knew a lot about photography, but I was completely taken by surprise when some photographers started talking about pancake lenses. What is a pancake lens? Jessica, Jeju Island.

Photographers are strange people. Sometimes photographers like big lenses, sometimes they like the smallest possible lenses. The smallest lenses available are commonly called pancake lenses because they’re flat, like a pancake.

For quite a while, pancake lenses had fallen out of favour in photographic circles. A little while ago Olympus released a pancake lens for its new DSLR cameras. That kicked off a surge in renewed interest in pancake type lenses.

Why are they so popular? Well, the biggest reason is that they’re small. One benefit of their size is that the lenses are light and easy to carry. However the biggest benefit is that the small, flat lens makes the camera much more discrete.

Pancake lenses are popular amongst street photographers for this very reason. A long lens is quite obtrusive. Pointing it at someone can attract their attention or make them aware of the camera. Since photographers want to capture people in natural situations, a big lens is too noticeable. A pancake lens makes the camera appear much smaller and less obvious. It allows a photographer to remain unnoticed while taking photos of people.

Pancake lenses are usually short range prime lenses. Most pancakes are between 35 and 50mm in length and around f1.8 to f2.8 maximum aperture. These apertures are important and one of the biggest benefits of prime lenses - because it means the lens is fast and sharp.

Often, pancake lenses will be manual focus, due to their small size - autofocus pancakes are rare indeed.

The other important aspect is image quality. Short prime lenses are a playground for bokeh; out of focus area. Bokeh is important to photographers because it determines the aesthetics of any area beyond the camera’s depth of field settings. If a lens is poorly designed, it will not render out of focus areas very well. The bokeh will look harsh and flat. A good prime lens will produce great bokeh, much better than most zoom lenses.

The resurgence in popularity has resulted in a number of companies developing pancake lenses. Nikon and Canon both have new pancake lenses hitting the market. Panasonic and Olympus have already released lenses with various mounts. There are also a number of third party lens makers who have pancakes; the two most popular being Zeiss and Voigtlander.

The only real downside to pancake lenses is their price. Usually, a pancake will be two or three times the price of a similar standard prime lens. The higher cost is due to the engineering required to make the technology work in a ‘flat’ lens.

With photography’s recent surge in popularity, camera makers have been outdoing each other to make newer and better equipment. This will probably result in companies also developing many more lens types. Nikon have already released tilt shift lenses to appeal to architect photographers. It’s likely that there will be more pancake lenses on the market in the next few years.

For now, it’s probably not worth owning a pancake lens, unless you want to practice your manual focusing. Save your money and invest in some good standard prime lenses, such as a 50mm f1.8.

Happy shooting!

David Smeaton

the camera industry has gone insane over the past 12 months. nikon and canon are releasing new bodies at ridiculous speeds, full frame cameras are setting all new standards in photography, and olympus has committed itself to a 2/3rds system in cooperation with other camera companies.

then along comes leica with a completely unexpected announcement: their new S2 camera will have a larger sensor, in a weatherproof slr body. this is astonishing news. the sensor size is 30×45mm and produces 37.5 megapixels. we’re talking medium format photography here, with leica producing an slr sized camera that can compete with hasselblad’s medium format cameras.

leica’s new S2 body

you can read the full press release details at dpreview.com, or read about leica’s new 50mm f0.95 prime lens, the fastest in the world. leica have also released details of three prime lenses, and more lenses are expected to be announced soon.

update: another link lists the price at around US$30,000.

thanks to ryan for the heads up!

I’ve heard a lot of people talking about prime lenses, but I’m not really sure what they are. Are prime lenses better than other kinds of lenses? Mitch, Pusan.

There are two types of lens, primes and zoom lenses. Zoom lenses have a minimum and maximum focal distance and you can zoom between those distances. For example, a zoom lens might be 18mm - 70mm. Therefore the lens can capture any focal length between 18-70mm. This is very convenient for photographers, because you can get close to your subject without having to stand too near. Sometimes it’s impossible to walk right up to your subject. A zoom will help get closer to the action.

Zoom lenses cover various ranges. 12mm - 24mm would be considered a wide angle zoom. 70mm - 200mm would be considered a telephoto zoom. So the type of zoom is defined its range.

Prime lenses are much more simple. Prime lenses have a fixed focal length. So there’s no zoom in the lens. The only way to zoom is with your feet! For example, a common focal length is 50mm.

While it may seem that primes are far less useful than zooms, both types of lens have their advantages. So many photographers keep a combination of primes and zooms in their camera bag.

Thanks to the laws of physics and the wonders of engineering, primes have a few benefits that make them worth using. The first benefit is that prime lenses are often lighter than zooms, because they require less glass and mechanics inside. For the same reason, primes are usually cheaper.

However there are two more important reasons to consider using primes. The biggest reason is that prime lenses have wider apertures. Most zooms (the expensive ones) have a maximum aperture of f2.8. However, it’s easy to buy a prime lens with f1.2, f1.4 or f1.8.

Actually, the 50mm f1.8 lens is one of the most popular lenses that photogrpahers buy. This lens is very sharp and fast. It works well in low light situations and creates wonderful ‘bokeh’ by exploiting the shallow depth of field that results from using wide apertures.

Prime lenses tend to take higher quality photos than zooms. The trade off with zoom lenses is the engineering compromises picture sharpness. Primes are much sharper. Zooms tend to also be less good at bokeh and blurring the out of focus areas. This is also something primes do well.

However, these days zoom lenses are almost on par with primes in both bokeh and sharpness.

It’s worth using both types of lenses, because they give different benefits. Most photographers use a zoom as their base lens (for walking around) and switch lenses for shooting different purposes. I have one prime lens in my kit, a 50mm f1.8, but I’ve chosen to use zooms because as a traveler I need to get more range with fewer lenses.

But every photographer should definitely have one fast sub-f2 prime lens in their kit. It’s a great investment and it usually becomes the photographer’s favourite lens.

Happy shooting!

David Smeaton