Absence of pancake lenses in the Sony catalogue

A true pancake lens would make this system so much more interesting. The Canon 28/2.8 RF and 40/2.8 EF and the Nikon 26/2.8 are great examples of real pancake lenses (approximately half the length of the Sony 40/2.5). I am curious when Sony will bring pancake lenses to their lineup.









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All the best,
TBri

Sony’s G lenses include a declickable aperture ring, focus hold button, AF that is faster and quieter and IQ that is higher in a lens that is slightly bigger and weighs a little more. The Sony’s cost more to account for the extra features.

travelinbri_74 said:

A true pancake lens would make this system so much more interesting. The Canon 28/2.8 RF and 40/2.8 EF and the Nikon 26/2.8 are great examples of real pancake lenses (approximately half the length of the Sony 40/2.5). I am curious when Sony will bring pancake lenses to their lineup.



--
All the best,
TBri
https://www.flickr.com/people/130803098@N05/

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There is the 35mm f2.8 Zeiss (and the f2.8 Samyangs). But I think it has to do with the mount being too small. The E mount is really made for crop sensors.

LennyLevino said:

There is the 35mm f2.8 Zeiss (and the f2.8 Samyangs). But I think it has to do with the mount being too small. The E mount is really made for crop sensors.

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That's an interesting take... I do keep the 20/2.8 apsc pancake because it is really the only pancake in the system that's worth anything. Even that lens will cover most of the FF sensor, so I am not sure why the couldn't add just a bit more coverage. I also have the 1020pz and the 70350 which also cover substantial amounts of the sensor, so that I can shoot in FF if I use 1:1 ratio, and or Active Stabilization/Focus breathing comp for video.


I have the Cupcake G lenses, (I refuse to call them pancake lenses as they are too thick), and they are Great glass, but when it comes to handling and size, they are a poor compromises compared to the f1.8 glass (the 20G), and true pancakes. Heard about a year ago a pancake 28G might come out, but those rumors have dissipated.

After testing the 40G (with the lens hood), I get little advantage in size over the 67mm prime lenses from Sony. I could definitely go for a little bit bigger 20/2.8 apsc sized lens without all the bells an whistles, that would truly be a FF pancake.

Hi,

I like a small kit, but I'm personally happy with the size and handling of the Tiny G series lenses and the smaller of the Sigma i-Series lenses which are in some ways similar. I don't really see significant advantages to going smaller. I wouldn't want to give up features including the aperture ring and on-lens AF/MF, which the Tiny G's and Sigma i-Series have. I acknowledge that it's subjective,

There is also a glaring gap in the Sony range for compact telephoto lenses. They'd never be pancakes, but there are no truly compact telephoto primes - ie, in a FL longer than the 50G. An 85/2.5, 105/2.8 and/or 135/3.5 in the Tiny G series could have been very useful siblings to the three lenses they did announce. Samyang and Sigma partly addressed the gap with their 75/1.8 and 90/2.8, but there's nothing longer. There's also no 135/2.8-3.5, 200/4, 300/4, 400/5.6 or 500-600/8 - all options widely available in the past. And there's no truly compact short tele zoom from Sony or anyone else. Your telephoto choices are limited to fairly substantial zooms or very expensive heavy fast primes. It's like Sony have abandoned the compact telephoto sector.

I'm not seeking small and cheap here - I'm arguing for small and excellent. I live in hope.

Cheers, Rod

Rod McD said:

Hi,

I like a small kit, but I'm personally happy with the size and handling of the Tiny G series lenses and the smaller of the Sigma i-Series lenses which are in some ways similar. I don't really see significant advantages to going smaller. I wouldn't want to give up features including the aperture ring and on-lens AF/MF, which the Tiny G's and Sigma i-Series have. I acknowledge that it's subjective,

There is also a glaring gap in the Sony range for compact telephoto lenses. They'd never be pancakes, but there are no truly compact telephoto primes - ie, in a FL longer than the 50G. An 85/2.5, 105/2.8 and/or 135/3.5 in the Tiny G series could have been very useful siblings to the three lenses they did announce. Samyang and Sigma partly addressed the gap with their 75/1.8 and 90/2.8, but there's nothing longer. There's also no 135/2.8-3.5, 200/4, 300/4, 400/5.6 or 500-600/8 - all options widely available in the past. And there's no truly compact short tele zoom from Sony or anyone else. Your telephoto choices are limited to fairly substantial zooms or very expensive heavy fast primes. It's like Sony have abandoned the compact telephoto sector.

I'm not seeking small and cheap here - I'm arguing for small and excellent. I live in hope.

Cheers, Rod

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Zeiss have the 135mm f2.8 Batis

200mm f4 is covered by 4 zooms and the Tamron 70-180 gets you nearly there too.

300mm f4 - Doubt there is enough demand for this to be made.

400mm f4.5 - Would be nice to see such a lens but Sigma’s 500mm f5.6 is probably the closest we’ll get on emount for the time being.

500/600mm f8 - Tamron might fulfil this with a zoom.

Rod McD said:

Hi,

I like a small kit, but I'm personally happy with the size and handling of the Tiny G series lenses and the smaller of the Sigma i-Series lenses which are in some ways similar. I don't really see significant advantages to going smaller. I wouldn't want to give up features including the aperture ring and on-lens AF/MF, which the Tiny G's and Sigma i-Series have. I acknowledge that it's subjective,

There is also a glaring gap in the Sony range for compact telephoto lenses. They'd never be pancakes, but there are no truly compact telephoto primes - ie, in a FL longer than the 50G. An 85/2.5, 105/2.8 and/or 135/3.5 in the Tiny G series could have been very useful siblings to the three lenses they did announce. Samyang and Sigma partly addressed the gap with their 75/1.8 and 90/2.8, but there's nothing longer. There's also no 135/2.8-3.5, 200/4, 300/4, 400/5.6 or 500-600/8 - all options widely available in the past. And there's no truly compact short tele zoom from Sony or anyone else. Your telephoto choices are limited to fairly substantial zooms or very expensive heavy fast primes. It's like Sony have abandoned the compact telephoto sector.

I'm not seeking small and cheap here - I'm arguing for small and excellent. I live in hope.

Cheers, Rod

Click to expand...

There’s the Batis 135/2.8 but it’s big. It is beautiful, but I’d love a compact 135/3.5 or 4 sigma. Unfortunately I have to make do with vintage lenses for this gap in my travel kit.

Fully agree that the small G primes and the I series are small enough. I used the 20mm/1.7 (40mm equivalent) Panasonic for many years, but it had slow noisy AF which I think in part was a limitation of the small size. I’m not sure even sony could fit their linear motors into a pancake…

SNJops said:

Rod McD said:

Hi,

I like a small kit, but I'm personally happy with the size and handling of the Tiny G series lenses and the smaller of the Sigma i-Series lenses which are in some ways similar. I don't really see significant advantages to going smaller. I wouldn't want to give up features including the aperture ring and on-lens AF/MF, which the Tiny G's and Sigma i-Series have. I acknowledge that it's subjective,

There is also a glaring gap in the Sony range for compact telephoto lenses. They'd never be pancakes, but there are no truly compact telephoto primes - ie, in a FL longer than the 50G. An 85/2.5, 105/2.8 and/or 135/3.5 in the Tiny G series could have been very useful siblings to the three lenses they did announce. Samyang and Sigma partly addressed the gap with their 75/1.8 and 90/2.8, but there's nothing longer. There's also no 135/2.8-3.5, 200/4, 300/4, 400/5.6 or 500-600/8 - all options widely available in the past. And there's no truly compact short tele zoom from Sony or anyone else. Your telephoto choices are limited to fairly substantial zooms or very expensive heavy fast primes. It's like Sony have abandoned the compact telephoto sector.

I'm not seeking small and cheap here - I'm arguing for small and excellent. I live in hope.

Cheers, Rod

Click to expand...

Zeiss have the 135mm f2.8 Batis

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Yes I forgot that one. Very good but ludicrously big and heavy for a 135/2.8. I use an adapted MF film era 135mm and Sigma 180/5.6 Apo Macro when the need arises. I'd like to see a really small 135mm for reach when you don't want to carry the best part of a kilogram. (My 70-200Gii weighs 970g complete with collar, hood, and both caps. A 135/3.5 could be under 300gm, take a 49mm filter, and fit in a jacket pocket. An 85/2.5 or 105/2.8 could be smaller still - yet Sony offer none of these short tele options.)

SNJops said:

200mm f4 is covered by 4 zooms and the Tamron 70-180 gets you nearly there too.

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Probably. But again, none of them are light.

SNJops said:

300mm f4 - Doubt there is enough demand for this to be made.

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Maybe you're right, maybe not. Canon must have sold a gazillion of their 300/4L and 400/5.6L. They sold because they were well made and optically excellent lenses (far better than typical xx-300 zooms at the long end).

SNJops said:

400mm f4.5 - Would be nice to see such a lens but Sigma’s 500mm f5.6 is probably the closest we’ll get on e mount for the time being.

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SNJops said:

500/600mm f8 - Tamron might fulfil this with a zoom.

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Sigma's 500mm is a good lens, but not actually a light 500mm compared to an f8, and is not TC compatible. If Sony want to limit other manufacturers' telephoto lens sales by controlling TC compatibility, how about offering their own equivalent lenses that are TC compatible?

Canon also offer the collapsible RF 600 & 800/11 options - very portable long reach, and fine in reasonable daylight for some applications. Nothing like that in Sony either.

Cheers, Rod

I did enjoy the jacket pocket-ability with pancakes – for a minute.

I quickly found that the right small case really can be as or even more convenient, and I really do prefer the results I get with slightly larger travel primes.

But that's just me.

LennyLevino said:

travelinbri_74 said:

A true pancake lens would make this system so much more interesting. The Canon 28/2.8 RF and 40/2.8 EF and the Nikon 26/2.8 are great examples of real pancake lenses (approximately half the length of the Sony 40/2.5). I am curious when Sony will bring pancake lenses to their lineup.

Click to expand...

There is the 35mm f2.8 Zeiss (and the f2.8 Samyangs). But I think it has to do with the mount being too small. The E mount is really made for crop sensors.

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That has been debunked years ago. It is just plain nonsense.

--
No life without a camera.

I'm not sure why anyone would want a pancake lens unless they were planning to really use that extra portability.

For me, that means at least the occasional jacket pocket carry - which I tried & found not to be all that worthwhile.

I also used to have bicycle luggage that couldn't easily accommodate anything longer than a pancake lens. Then I got a larger, better-designed handlebar bag, so now I can pedal around with my A7 and two cupcakes! (Or just the camera + lens and a lock.)

Bike touring is the most demanding application I have for portability, and I feel pretty set for that now with my travel primes. (The 50/2.5G is very tempting, but my larger, heavier Loxia 50mm fits, and I love the rendering.)

If someone wants to make their SLR-style body as shallow as possible for some other reason, more power to 'em.

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Genuine question:

Do either Canon or Nikon sell a camera that can mount one of those pancake lenses and be less bulky (weight and dimensions) than an A7C + 2.8/35ZA combo?

Unfortunately I think those of us that actually care about the dimensions of a true pancake may be in a minority these days, and there's probably some real practical limits to what FL/speed combination you can hit with a pancake on any given format and mount...

The EF 40mm benefits from the longer flange distance, if you take that into account it's no smaller than the Sony 40G, but with a far worse AF arrangement... It's probably not coincidence that the two Z/RF pancakes are at 26-28mm, and most Z users seem to think the former is overpriced.

For the money, the Viltrox 28/4.5 looks promising, sure it's 1.3 stops slower than those last two but VCM should in theory lend it faster AF and if the speed trade-off helps with rendering or across-the-frame sharpness then I'd take it, this coming from someone that already owns the 24/2.8 G (and a Samyang 45/1.8, and a TTArtisan 50/2, I like having those small lenses as much as I like my 20G & 35GM).

wheresrunnicles said:

Rod McD said:

Hi,

I like a small kit, but I'm personally happy with the size and handling of the Tiny G series lenses and the smaller of the Sigma i-Series lenses which are in some ways similar. I don't really see significant advantages to going smaller. I wouldn't want to give up features including the aperture ring and on-lens AF/MF, which the Tiny G's and Sigma i-Series have. I acknowledge that it's subjective,

There is also a glaring gap in the Sony range for compact telephoto lenses. They'd never be pancakes, but there are no truly compact telephoto primes - ie, in a FL longer than the 50G. An 85/2.5, 105/2.8 and/or 135/3.5 in the Tiny G series could have been very useful siblings to the three lenses they did announce. Samyang and Sigma partly addressed the gap with their 75/1.8 and 90/2.8, but there's nothing longer. There's also no 135/2.8-3.5, 200/4, 300/4, 400/5.6 or 500-600/8 - all options widely available in the past. And there's no truly compact short tele zoom from Sony or anyone else. Your telephoto choices are limited to fairly substantial zooms or very expensive heavy fast primes. It's like Sony have abandoned the compact telephoto sector.

I'm not seeking small and cheap here - I'm arguing for small and excellent. I live in hope.

Cheers, Rod

Click to expand...

There’s the Batis 135/2.8 but it’s big. It is beautiful, but I’d love a compact 135/3.5 or 4 sigma. Unfortunately I have to make do with vintage lenses for this gap in my travel kit.

Click to expand...

Same here, rocking an FD 135/3.5 but I dislike traveling with it because I'm tragic with MF, getting better tho...

wheresrunnicles said:

Fully agree that the small G primes and the I series are small enough. I used the 20mm/1.7 (40mm equivalent) Panasonic for many years, but it had slow noisy AF which I think in part was a limitation of the small size. I’m not sure even sony could fit their linear motors into a pancake…

Click to expand...

It seems Viltrox might have, see the 28/2.8 VCM that's making the rounds. Panasonic had pretty fast AF on the 14/2.5, granted it made a speed sacrifice vs the 20/1.7. I know unit focus (and thus slower AF vs lenses that only use one element to focus) has often been a staple of the better pancakes tho (from the 20/1.7 to the Canon EF pancakes to their current RF 28/2.8), but maybe there's some hope yet...

I'm mostly fine with the size of the G trio as well, they're just short enough to allow me to fit the A7R4 with the mounted into the same waist pack that I'd often slip an E-M5 II with the 20/1.7 mounted, but I still wouldn't mind seeing an actual 1" or less pancake tbh.

Impulses said:

wheresrunnicles said:

Rod McD said:

Hi,

I like a small kit, but I'm personally happy with the size and handling of the Tiny G series lenses and the smaller of the Sigma i-Series lenses which are in some ways similar. I don't really see significant advantages to going smaller. I wouldn't want to give up features including the aperture ring and on-lens AF/MF, which the Tiny G's and Sigma i-Series have. I acknowledge that it's subjective,

There is also a glaring gap in the Sony range for compact telephoto lenses. They'd never be pancakes, but there are no truly compact telephoto primes - ie, in a FL longer than the 50G. An 85/2.5, 105/2.8 and/or 135/3.5 in the Tiny G series could have been very useful siblings to the three lenses they did announce. Samyang and Sigma partly addressed the gap with their 75/1.8 and 90/2.8, but there's nothing longer. There's also no 135/2.8-3.5, 200/4, 300/4, 400/5.6 or 500-600/8 - all options widely available in the past. And there's no truly compact short tele zoom from Sony or anyone else. Your telephoto choices are limited to fairly substantial zooms or very expensive heavy fast primes. It's like Sony have abandoned the compact telephoto sector.

I'm not seeking small and cheap here - I'm arguing for small and excellent. I live in hope.

Cheers, Rod

Click to expand...

There’s the Batis 135/2.8 but it’s big. It is beautiful, but I’d love a compact 135/3.5 or 4 sigma. Unfortunately I have to make do with vintage lenses for this gap in my travel kit.

Click to expand...

Same here, rocking an FD 135/3.5 but I dislike traveling with it because I'm tragic with MF, getting better tho...

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Snap! Although the canon is a recent addition and I have several others. I like my Carl Zeiss Jena but it loses contrast quite badly into bright light. The Olympus is tiny but not the sharpest. I’m pretty good with MF and have several modern native MF lenses, but it’s a big ask for portraits of kids moving about wide open…

Come on Sigma, please…

Impulses said:

Impulses said:

Fully agree that the small G primes and the I series are small enough. I used the 20mm/1.7 (40mm equivalent) Panasonic for many years, but it had slow noisy AF which I think in part was a limitation of the small size. I’m not sure even sony could fit their linear motors into a pancake…

Click to expand...

It seems Viltrox might have, see the 28/2.8 VCM that's making the rounds. Panasonic had pretty fast AF on the 14/2.5, granted it made a speed sacrifice vs the 20/1.7. I know unit focus (and thus slower AF vs lenses that only use one element to focus) has often been a staple of the better pancakes tho (from the 20/1.7 to the Canon EF pancakes to their current RF 28/2.8), but maybe there's some hope yet...

I'm mostly fine with the size of the G trio as well, they're just short enough to allow me to fit the A7R4 with the mounted into the same waist pack that I'd often slip an E-M5 II with the 20/1.7 mounted, but I still wouldn't mind seeing an actual 1" or less pancake tbh.

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While I do sometimes miss the size of my E-M10 with the Panasonic 20 (never tried the 14), my A7C gets into my non camera small shoulder bag fine with the tiny Gs and even bigger lenses. Lack of the viewfinder hump really helps. That said, I’d probably still buy a true pancake in the normal range…

wheresrunnicles said:

wheresrunnicles said:

I

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While I do sometimes miss the size of my E-M10 with the Panasonic 20 (never tried the 14), my A7C gets into my non camera small shoulder bag fine with the tiny Gs and even bigger lenses. Lack of the viewfinder hump really helps. That said, I’d probably still buy a true pancake in the normal range…

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I had both of those lenses with the gx8, and the 1232 was the best small lens you could get, better than the 14.

I think it's been stated by others, but for FF cameras nobody considers size in bodies outside of Sony. Thats what pancake is about, size right? Canon still makes the big plastic bodies like it's 2008 DSLR world. Nikon does their thing. Big and bulky. A pancake on those is not much a benefit. I'd like a pancake on my A7C but these small lenses that Sigma offers and some manual focus ones are not much bigger than the size of a golf ball. How could I complain.