Ya Never Kin Tell - The Tale Of The Fujifilm Pancake Lens

As soon as you say the word " pancake" people tend to narrow their thoughts - some of us envisage maple syrup and bacon, and some of us see flat-faced travel lenses. In either case sometimes people are dismissive - pancakes are only for breakfast at trucker's road stops and pancake lenses are only good for quick holiday snaps.

Nothing of the sort.

The Fujifilm company make a 27mm f:2.8 that is only 22mm from front to back. It will stop down to f:16 and focus as close as 34cm. Tiny little 39mm filter size. Weighs less than a macaroon.

You'd expect it to be just a soft travel lens but you would be dead wrong. I clapped one onto my X-E2 and tried it out in the studio on short-range subjects. Look at the result.

Then again, here it is outside looking at the distance.

And for a portrait.

This focal length is nearly perfect as the "normal" lens for an APS-C sensor. If your film days were spent profitably with a 50mm lens on your 35mm camera or an 80mm on your medium format filmer, this is going to be a familiar view of the world...with a difference. There will be a great deal more depth of field for your studio and landscape shots.

I suspect this will be a good performer in my Fujifilm X stable.

Here it is.