Pro Prime Pancake f4 series?

Trollshavethebestcandy

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With diffraction is usually kicking in around F4 or F5.6 is normally the most optimal F-stop for lenses designed for m43 sensors, why not have a "Pro" series of F4 Pancake Prime lenses like the 300 Pro or the 12-100 Pro zoom in pancake form that are high quality, environment sealed etcetera? Imagine real pancake lenses and real quality in a pro body!!! Keep the smaller and lighter ethos! Street shooters would rejoice!

what focal length in f4 would interest you?
 
With the high quality F1.8 lenses out there, who needs an f4 prime?
 
With the high quality F1.8 lenses out there, who needs an f4 prime?
It's about size! And Pro grade. True pancake lenses at f4 would be awesome for those who want to take full advantage of all the smaller size and IQ the newer sensors can and will deliver. Think panny 20mm but smaller and all the Pro environmental sealing.
 
With the high quality F1.8 lenses out there, who needs an f4 prime?
It's about size! And Pro grade. True pancake lenses at f4 would be awesome for those who want to take full advantage of all the smaller size and IQ the newer sensors can and will deliver. Think panny 20mm but smaller and all the Pro environmental sealing.
I would rather not to call any prime lenses slower than f/1.4 as pro. Back to the film days 50 f/1.8 is a kit lens and in the zoom land, a touch of f/3.5 (except for long tele) is regarded as a consumer graded product. If there will be any f/3.5 prime (except for UWA), I suppose people would just ignore it not to mention a f/4 prime lens for 15, 25, 30....

BTW, as 12-32, 14-42 PZ and 14-42 EZ could be so tiny because of their collapsible design, no reason we can't have prime also in similar design for a pancake size. Speed of the lens might not be the sole factor for the size of a lens.
 
With diffraction is usually kicking in around F4 or F5.6 is normally the most optimal F-stop for lenses designed for m43 sensors, why not have a "Pro" series of F4 Pancake Prime lenses like the 300 Pro or the 12-100 Pro zoom in pancake form that are high quality, environment sealed etcetera? Imagine real pancake lenses and real quality in a pro body!!! Keep the smaller and lighter ethos! Street shooters would rejoice!

what focal length in f4 would interest you?
Having PRO PRIME Pancake f4.0, I guess you do not think about 4/3 sensor. I guess you think about 3/4 sensor or larger.

:-D
 
With diffraction is usually kicking in around F4 or F5.6 is normally the most optimal F-stop for lenses designed for m43 sensors, why not have a "Pro" series of F4 Pancake Prime lenses like the 300 Pro or the 12-100 Pro zoom in pancake form that are high quality, environment sealed etcetera? Imagine real pancake lenses and real quality in a pro body!!! Keep the smaller and lighter ethos! Street shooters would rejoice!

what focal length in f4 would interest you?
Having PRO PRIME Pancake f4.0, I guess you do not think about 4/3 sensor. I guess you think about 3/4 sensor or larger.

:-D
 
With diffraction is usually kicking in around F4 or F5.6 is normally the most optimal F-stop for lenses designed for m43 sensors, why not have a "Pro" series of F4 Pancake Prime lenses like the 300 Pro or the 12-100 Pro zoom in pancake form that are high quality, environment sealed etcetera? Imagine real pancake lenses and real quality in a pro body!!! Keep the smaller and lighter ethos! Street shooters would rejoice!

what focal length in f4 would interest you?
Having PRO PRIME Pancake f4.0, I guess you do not think about 4/3 sensor. I guess you think about 3/4 sensor or larger.

:-D
 
Sweet spots vary. The pro Panasonics are great wide open at 2.8. The Olympus 12-40 excels wide open, as does the Olympus 75.
 
Sweet spots vary. The pro Panasonics are great wide open at 2.8. The Olympus 12-40 excels wide open, as does the Olympus 75.
But keeping it small you have to go somewhere f4 to f8
There's nothing wrong with a small f4 pancake prime, but please don't label it as pro and charge 100% more for what it really is.

Also pancake prime needs to compromise and cut corners one way or the other to keep the size small, labelling it as pro should suggest superior IQ which can't be mutually inclusive.
 
With diffraction is usually kicking in around F4 or F5.6
Diffraction sets in a fair bit above this with M4/3 though still a bit quicker than most other systems.
is normally the most optimal F-stop for lenses designed for m43 sensors, why not have a "Pro" series of F4 Pancake Prime lenses like the 300 Pro or the 12-100 Pro zoom in pancake form that are high quality, environment sealed etcetera? Imagine real pancake lenses and real quality in a pro body!!! Keep the smaller and lighter ethos! Street shooters would rejoice!

what focal length in f4 would interest you?
 
Diffraction is always present, it's simply an effect caused by light passing through an aperture.

Lens design plays a critical role in minimising the degrading effects, so each lens performs slightly differently. However, I've never seen a good M43 lens that gets any sharper in the centre at F8, so the conclusion I draw is even with the best lens designs, by F8 the diffraction effect has become measurable.

That doesn't mean the lens is putting in a bad performance by then, far from it, the results can still be excellent, and many lenses (zooms especially) have their best edge performance at F8, but that's clearly a lens design factor.

By F11, all M43 lenses are showing a double digit % loss of resolution. Again, it doesn't lead to unusable images (for most lenses), it just means that the image has noticeably lower resolution than at larger aperture. It's down to the photographer to balance the resolution and DOF requirements.
With diffraction is usually kicking in around F4 or F5.6
Diffraction sets in a fair bit above this with M4/3 though still a bit quicker than most other systems.
is normally the most optimal F-stop for lenses designed for m43 sensors, why not have a "Pro" series of F4 Pancake Prime lenses like the 300 Pro or the 12-100 Pro zoom in pancake form that are high quality, environment sealed etcetera? Imagine real pancake lenses and real quality in a pro body!!! Keep the smaller and lighter ethos! Street shooters would rejoice!

what focal length in f4 would interest you?
 
With the high quality F1.8 lenses out there, who needs an f4 prime?
That's what I want. Plus 10% extra resolution compared to the existing F1,7/11,8 primes.

Peter
 
Having read your post, I'm thinking you don't know what it actually means for a lens to be a pancake.

And why would you want f/4 pancake primes is beyond me. This does not sound like it makes much sense.
 
I agree that it would be very nice to have a series of very small, very high grade lenses for Micro 4/3.

We already have several quite small primes, but there is certainly room for some really high quality primes that have been optimised for small size rather than large aperture. I suspect that for some focal lengths the optimum aperture might be f/2.8 rather than f/4 (or even maybe f/2), because much of the size of a small lens is to do with autofocus control and the other electronics in the lens, so there comes a point where reducing the size of the glass does not much reduce the overall size of the lens.

I think the problem for the manufacturers might be that the market for such lenses would be quite small. Many photographers actually like big lenses, and would be very reluctant to pay more money for a smaller lens! I have been told by several photographers that it is not possible optically for a small lens to be a good lens!!!!! The lens manufacturers quietly encourage this misconception as it is generally in their interests to do so.
 
I agree that it would be very nice to have a series of very small, very high grade lenses for Micro 4/3.

We already have several quite small primes, but there is certainly room for some really high quality primes that have been optimised for small size rather than large aperture. I suspect that for some focal lengths the optimum aperture might be f/2.8 rather than f/4 (or even maybe f/2), because much of the size of a small lens is to do with autofocus control and the other electronics in the lens, so there comes a point where reducing the size of the glass does not much reduce the overall size of the lens.

I think the problem for the manufacturers might be that the market for such lenses would be quite small. Many photographers actually like big lenses, and would be very reluctant to pay more money for a smaller lens! I have been told by several photographers that it is not possible optically for a small lens to be a good lens!!!!! The lens manufacturers quietly encourage this misconception as it is generally in their interests to do so.
Personally I think it's difficult to have decent "pro" optics in a small size, also "pro" feature (such as weather sealing) on a pancake isn't what the majority is looking for in such a lens imo.

When people think small pancake primes people think "good enough" optics with cheap pricetag.

I mean would you pay $450 for a "pro" 25mm f4 with WR? I certainly wouldn't.

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More speed is always nice. Make them as fast possible while still keeping ther pancake size and not compromizing IQ or AF speed too much in the process.

The lack of pancake primes is one of the more puzzling thing about m43. I understand not all focal lenghts are suited for this, but after the 14mm f2.5 and the 20mm f1.7, nothing.
 
The lack of pancake primes is one of the more puzzling thing about m43. I understand not all focal lenghts are suited for this, but after the 14mm f2.5 and the 20mm f1.7, nothing.
Reason is simple - those aren't making money for Oly/Pana.

Both Oly/Pana aren't doing so well, they want to go premium "pro" lens like the 25 1.2 to generate more profit.

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Sweet spots vary. The pro Panasonics are great wide open at 2.8. The Olympus 12-40 excels wide open, as does the Olympus 75.
But keeping it small you have to go somewhere f4 to f8
There's nothing wrong with a small f4 pancake prime, but please don't label it as pro and charge 100% more for what it really is.

Also pancake prime needs to compromise and cut corners one way or the other to keep the size small, labelling it as pro should suggest superior IQ which can't be mutually inclusive.

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Most probably the idea of OP was not to make it smaller than possible WITH very high IQ, rather the idea was to make it BOTH small AND having very high IQ, thus his thinking F:4 might be the reasonable "compromise point" where these requirements could be fulfilled.

I´m guessing of course...as maybe he did too. But I´d believe that point (F:4) would be close to the best if we´d ask for and also would expect really high IQ in a very small package..

Such lenses would most likely be a bit larger than the lens cap 8mm F:8 Zuiko, for example, but smaller than the F:1,8 varieties we already have.

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With diffraction is usually kicking in around F4 or F5.6 is normally the most optimal F-stop for lenses designed for m43 sensors, why not have a "Pro" series of F4 Pancake Prime lenses like the 300 Pro or the 12-100 Pro zoom in pancake form that are high quality, environment sealed etcetera? Imagine real pancake lenses and real quality in a pro body!!! Keep the smaller and lighter ethos! Street shooters would rejoice!

what focal length in f4 would interest you?
"This new learning amazes me, Sir Bedevere. Explain again how sheep's bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes."
 

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