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What is a Pancake Lens!
Taking pictures all day can be a lot of work, and lugging around the equipment is even worse.
If you want to make your picnic experience easier, pick up this pancake lens for your camera that’s easy to transport with its compact design!
What Is Pancake Lens
A pancake lens is a compact lens that is flat and is typically made of plastic.
Many people prefer the pancake lens over other options for their cameras. Unlike traditional DSLR lenses, they can be easily stowed away in a camera bag or backpack.
The pancake lens design allows the lens to be made flat and wide. Instead of having one or more cylindrical lenses in shape, the pancake lens is designed for conciseness, where all the components of a lens are fitted within an 18cm diameter disk.
These attributes also make it ideal for capturing fish-eye images and ultra-wide images.
Uses Of Pancake Lenses
Pancake lenses are mainly used by photographers who prefer travelling light and compact rather than having a large selection of lenses.
The pancake lens can be used like other telephoto lenses for getting close-up shots without the hassle of setting up tripods.
Pancake lenses are ideal for vloggers, bloggers and amateur photographers due to their portability.
You can easily carry this lens in your bag or even use it as a smartphone lens attachment without worrying about breaking expensive DSLR lenses.
The pancake lens is also perfect for shooting videos on all types of cameras, including the GoPro, smartphones, DSLRs and camcorders.
Preferred to use it when you need something thinner and takes less space in your bag or luggage.
Pancake lens doesn’t have a protruding barrel as it’s designed to use a flat focal plane. This is one of the major differentiating factors of it.
It’s safe to use as it doesn’t protrude out like different camera lenses, making it take up less space.
What Are The Advantages Of Using A Pancake Lens
1. Itʻs Smaller
A pancake lens is much smaller than other types of lenses, which usually have a cylindrical shape. The small size allows you to carry it everywhere without the hassle of bringing around heavy equipment that takes up too much space in your bag or luggage.
2. Itʻs Lighter
Pancake lenses donʻt have a protruding barrel from the cameraʻs body. This makes it easier to carry around, and there is no risk of damaging it while storing or transporting it.
3. It Has Better Image Quality
Pancake lenses are designed to provide sharp images with vibrant colours due to their superior optical design. Because of this, you can capture high-quality images from far away distances.
4. Itʻs Cheaper
A pancake lens is much less expensive than other lenses as it doesn’t have too many specialized features and components to make it as costly as other options on the market today.
A pancake lens also has fewer glass elements than other lenses, making it an affordable option for those on a budget.
5. It Offers More Creative Control
Pancake lenses have a shallow depth of field compared to other options due to their flat design, allowing you to capture images with blurred backgrounds and detailed foregrounds.
6. It's Easy To Use
Using a pancake lens is much easier than other types of lenses as it doesn’t have too many parts, and it is also designed to enable you to quickly take pictures from a distance with ease of use.
Not only that, but the pancake lens is also fun and easy to use when in manual mode or when using exposure compensation.
7. It Takes Up Less Space In The Bag
Pancake lenses have no protruding barrel, so you can carry and use them without fear of damaging or dirtying them.
It is also compact and lightweight, which means you can easily store it inside your bag with all of your other equipment without worrying about it taking up space.
8. It's Perfect For Vlogging
Pancake lenses are great for shooting videos as they can quickly produce close-ups with a shallow depth of field.
This type of lens is perfect for YouTube content creators who need to take further shots but still want to show details of the subject.
9. Itʻs Perfect For Travelling
Pancake lenses are great to use while travelling or when you need to take photos or videos of yourself without being seen in public.
This is because pancake lenses don’t have a protruding barrel that will make it easier for others to spot and recognise you, perfect for those who want to travel anonymously.
10. Itʻs Great For Low-Light Situations
Pancake lenses are great options to use in low-light settings as they have an aperture range of f/2.8 or lower. This means that you will capture photos and videos with bright backgrounds even when the ground is dark.
Are Pancake Lenses Suitable For Landscape
Pancake lenses are great to use while capturing landscape photos or videos because they offer greater depth-of-field than other types of lenses, which means you can capture images with both the foreground and background in focus.
Are Pancake Lenses Good For Astrophotography
Pancake lenses are not ideal for astrophotography due to their smaller size and inability to produce close-ups of objects in space.
Just because pancake lenses can’t be used for astrophotography doesnʻt mean you canʻt capture photos of the night sky.
Can Pancake Lenses Be Used For Portraits
Pancake lenses are not ideal for capturing portraits of people as they can distort facial expressions and generally produce photos of a lower quality due to their smaller size.
If you want high-quality images from far away distances, then a telephoto lens is the best option for you.
However, if you want to capture close-up photos of your subject without getting too close, a pancake lens can be an excellent option for you.
Can Pancake Lenses Be Used While Filming Videos
Pancake lenses are not suitable to use while filming videos as they can’t focus on faraway features.
Types Of Pancake Lenses
There are different types of pancake lenses available on the market. Some of them are discussed here.
1. A Flat, Compact Lens
Flat Compact lens design with no protruding barrel makes it easy to store inside your bag when you are on vacation, travelling or shooting videos with your vlogging camera.
2. Wide-Angle Pancake Lenses
Offer greater depth-of-field than other lenses, which means you can capture images with both the foreground and background in focus.
These types of cameras are also good for vlogging as they take a broader view that allows you to cover more ground.