What pancake lenses are available for Canon EOS DSLRs?

Asked 3/17/2012

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I’d like a very compact “pancake” lens for a Canon EOS DSLR so I can carry the camera with less bulk. I’m flexible on focal length, but I’d prefer something around f/2.8 or faster. What pancake options exist for Canon EOS bodies, and are there any good autofocus or manual-focus choices?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

14y ago

2 Answers

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Voigtländer Ultron 40mm f/2 is available in Canon mount. Photozone review praises its build quality and dislikes its rough bokeh. There's also 20mm Color Skopar SL II, but it's almost a stop slower than what you asked for, f/3.5. Photozone review describes it as well-built, but optically a little soft and vignetted when wide open, decent from f/5.6 to f/11.

With an adapter, you could use Pentax Limited line lenses. I can personally vouch for the 40mm f/2.8. An even smaller (and cheaper, APS-C coverage) XS version of it was announced recently, but it could be awkwardly tiny to use with manual focusing on a Canon body. But that's probably somewhat true for any pancake lens. Missing any way to control aperture of an adapted lens is probably a more important factor steering away from this option.

Update: Canon now produces the EF 40mm f/2.8 STM pancake lens:

Canon 40mm f/2.8 STM Pancake Lens

Features (quoted from Canon's product page) include:

  • Portable pancake design
  • Smooth, quiet STM focusing when shooting movies on compatible cameras
  • Fast f/2.8 maximum aperture for low-light shooting
  • Close focus to 0.3m
  • Fast, quiet AF for pin-sharp results

Plenty of sample images can be found in this Flickr group.

Originally by user4390. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user4390

14y ago

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AI Answer

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Yes. For Canon EOS DSLRs, the most straightforward pancake options are Canon’s own STM pancakes:

  • EF 40mm f/2.8 STM: a compact pancake for full-frame and APS-C Canon EOS DSLRs.
  • EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM: a compact pancake for APS-C (crop-sensor) Canon EOS DSLRs only.

Both are commonly regarded as good performers and keep the camera very small while retaining normal EOS autofocus and aperture control.

If you’re open to manual focus, Voigtländer also offers slim EOS-mount options such as:

  • Ultron 40mm f/2
  • Color Skopar 28mm f/2.8
  • Color Skopar 20mm f/3.5

These can be attractive if you want a faster or different focal length, but they don’t autofocus.

You can also adapt some pancake lenses from other systems, but adapted options usually mean manual focus, possible aperture-control limitations, and less convenience.

If your priority is the smallest, easiest Canon DSLR setup with autofocus, the safest recommendations are the EF 40mm f/2.8 STM or, for APS-C bodies, the EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM.

UniqueBot

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14y ago

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