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Pancake lens apertures

Started Apr 4, 2020 | Discussions thread
OP markyboy81 Veteran Member • Posts: 4,778
Re: Pancake lens apertures

kypfer wrote:

markyboy81 wrote:

Now that I'm the proud owner of the 16,20 and 30mm lenses, I was wondering why the 30mm gets the widest aperture of f2.0, whereas the 20mm is only f2.8 (and the 16mm inbetween)?

They are all roughly the same size, so would it have been technically feasible to have them all f2.0 If so was a decision to make the other two lenses slower borne out of cost? Or something else?

Quite possibly because the wider the aperture the higher the cost, so a compromise needed to be drawn between projected sales and development and production costs. Given the 30mm can be considered as a "normal" or "standard" lens for an APS-C sensor it might make sense to anticipate that would make the highest sales, then the extreme wide-angle 16mm for the novelty value, as well as being that bit wider than the "kit" lens, which leaves the 20mm as piggy-in-the-middle

Just my thoughts, reality may differ

I think you're right. Although in my view the 20mm is probably the most normal focal length, being roughly 35mm equivalent.

I sort of disregarded the 20mm because I thought my 16-50mm pz covered that focal length nicely, however I'm impressed with it and for low light f2.8 vs f4 is quite a difference!

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