Pancake lenses

[Stephen Coates]

Anyone here got any pancake lenses for their cameras? They seem to have been quite popular recently.

Canon introduced a pancake EF 40mm lens a while back which looks good, but I already have the EF 50mm/1.8 which is small and light, so I don't really have any use for a 40mm. I was pleased to see recently that they are releasing a 24mm EF-S pancake lens. This will be excellent for APS-C digital cameras, as it will give a field of view similar to a 40mm lens (full frame), so should be a good general purpose lens, and of course, being a pancake lens, it will be small and light.

I reckon the pancake form factor will be nice for digital SLRs to make them a bit smaller and lighter, as they are rather heavy compared to modern film SLRs.

Should be quite affordable as well at about £180.

I do have an old manual 28mm lens, with an EF adaptor. This is a nice lens, but being limited to manual focus can be a bit awkward on a modern DSLR due to the small viewfinder, and lack of focusing aids.

I'm quite tempted to get one of these 24mm pancakes when its released next month.