Many photographers prefer a smaller set-up. That’s because it allows them to travel light, be inconspicuous, as well as you don’t compromise on quality. In fact, for many street and documentary photographers, pancake lenses are perfect for a point-and-shoot set-up, which can make shooting quite an exciting experience. To help those who want to continue to keep their setup smaller, here is a selection of a few pancake lenses that we have grown to love.
Leica Summaron-M 28mm f5.6
Leica has many spectacular lenses, and the Leica 28mm is one of them. The lens features 6 elements in 4 groups, a minimum focusing distance of 3.3 feet, a 34mm filter thread, and 8 aperture blades. This is one of the pancake lenses that has an M bayonet, including a 6-bit code, and is said to offer high contrast. Some of the things we liked include its compactness, colors, flare, and how great it is for street photography. As we said earlier, “It’s at a decent price point and for that price point you’re getting a whole lot of adaptability, classic image quality, low profile, and some solid build quality.”
Panasonic 20mm f1.7 II
Panasonic 20mm is one of the pancake lenses that gives you a wide angle of view (57°), a minimum focusing distance of 7.87 inches, and a magnification of 0.13x. The lens has been created with 7 elements in 5 groups, is a 40mm equivalent on a 35mm sensor, has 7 aperture blades, and has a 1:8 reproduction ratio. The lens excels at fast focus, has film-like color rendition, distortion is negligible, and the build is great. “The overall image quality from the 20mm f1.7 II lens from Panasonic is truthfully pretty damned good,” we said in our review. “There is a healthy amount of sharpness, contrast, and overall solid color rendition built into this lens. When you couple this with its great build quality and focusing abilities you’ve got yourself quite the winner.”
Fujifilm GF 50mm f3.5 R LM WR
Fujifilm GFX 50mm is designed for medium format sensors, and features a 57.4 degrees of angle of view, a 9-blade diaphragm, a focus range of 0.55m, and a maximum magnification of 0.1x. The lens measures 3.31 in x 1.89 in, weighs 335g, and has a 62mm filter thread. It offers spectacular images, has a fast autofocus, is lightweight, and is also easy to use. The lens is weather sealed, and is a f2.8 equivalent, which gives you pleasing bokeh. Street photographer who like a smaller setup with bigger sensors, this is the lens for you.
Canon 22mm f2 STM
The Canon 22mm f2 is a mirrorless lens that is designed using 7 elements in 6 groups. As one of the better pancake lenses from the company, the 22mm has a 0.15m close focusing distance, a 43mm filter thread, and 105g of weight. While the lens is not weather-sealed, it is designed to be sturdy. Some of the things it is good at include sharpness, size, and image quality. But the autofocus is quite slow. As we said in our review, “The Canon 22mm f2 EF-M lens offers fantastic image quality. In fact, I wish every brand made a pancake lens this good. It’s sharp, contrasty, has beautiful bokeh, there’s no chromatic aberrations, etc.”
These four pancake lenses are a few examples of what one can choose if they ever need a simpler gear. You not only get great colors, but some are quite affordable too.