The latest Sony ENX lens roadmap shows the three upcoming new lenses, the G standard zoom, the die angle zoom and mid telephoto lens. Those are lenses that will appeal consumers more than enthusiast or professionists. But I am still hoping Sony will also announce some fast lens and panckes as soon as possible. Carl Garrard has a small talk with Sony and told them: “I let Sony know there is a big desire for smaller lenses for the NEX system, and in the end of that conversation I came to the conclusion that it’s not like they aren’t aware of this desire/need. I was told that their lens engineers are at full throttle trying to keep up with designing lenses for both the Alpha and NEX systems. “That’s fine” I said, “But the consumer wants smaller lenses now- maybe Sony ought to think about prioritizing that demand” I added.” (Source: Dpreview forum).
Now let’s hope Sony will respond my (and your) call for pancakes!
93 Responses
Only appeal to consumers ? Depends on the quality of the glass ! If the G lens is a 16-80 similar to the a-mount Zeiss then it is not a “consumer” lens.
I agree, you don’t see to many consumers with Canon Rebels walking around using high grade zooms or ultra wide zooms (wish that ultrawide were also G grade).
However, I’m glad Sony is listening. Now give us some G grade pancakes ASAP; starting with a 30mm f/2, then with a better 16mm f/2.8, then perhaps a small ultrawide prime. I don’t require a ton of pancake lenses, I mainly just need a wide angle as well as a standard prime. All other focal lengths can be larger for all I care.
Completely agree – but I’ll doubt we’ll see a tiny 30 f/2 for some time because of the recent Zeiss. The NEX7 is crying out for a 16-something high grade zoom. Just one high quality lens does limit its appeal.
I don’t care about zooms personally, I want some quality glass like M43 has. I really like using my manual focus ZIESS, and NOKTON, and LEICA but its not always practical, especially when i give someone else the camera. So please sony improve the 16mm, or make it an 18mm f2.5 or a 20mm 1.7 like the panasonic, many of these options are welcome. I am excited for the 24mm Zeiss, interested to see its performance as a finished product
I use three zooms – a fast walkaround 16-50, an ultrawide, and a fast telephoto. Primes are great for more specific tasks like macro, dof control, portrait, low light, etc, so a good system needs them all. The NEX is still just an infant system until it covers all these needs.
So yes, I want pancakes, but if I want to adopt the nex as a main system, I need a lot more.
That array (30mm f/2, a better 16mm f/2.8, a small ultrawide prime) would be my preference too.
Most of us hope for Sony… and
Samsung already have this pancakes 30 F2.0, 16 F2.4, 20 F2.8 and compact kit zoom 20-50 mm.
http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/Lenses/Camera-Lens-Database/Samsung
Look at NX 30mm F2.0 pancake test
http://www.photozone.de/pentax/534-samsung30f2
It’s quality like Panasonic 20mm 1.7 for just half price.
Smaller and better…
Smaller is never better, just smaller.
The M4/3 pancake lenses are heavily software corrected.The 16mm Sony pancake lens looks good also after software correction with the new NEX-5N. Sony now uses in camera software lens correction, so the possibility for Sony to make pancake is higher?
Well I guess a smaller debt is better (unless it HUGE than you go broke). A smaller cancer lump is generally also better than a bigger one. For lenses things may be different though 😉
Ok , no problem, so just better than the ones available….same size…
Sorry not interesting in NEX system and can’t see the point of it!
We want more alpha G and Carl Zeiss lenses.
alpha-man.
That’s my wish, I’d like a sony nex-7, but the lenses are too long for my life, so I might have to buy a oly pen p-3 with the new zoom pancake from panasonic, …
Four lenses in 2011 is “full throttle”?
yes. It takes a lot to bring a lense to production, so 4 in a year is good.
The problem is it was the wrong four.
We need a fast normal and not anoth f3.5 200mm zoom, etc.
Sorry, but I just don’t buy it. The 4 a year (or 6 a year in Nikkor land) is an arbitrary decision. It seems to come from a fear of expanding the optical side and instead trying to fulfill optical needs over very long periods (e.g. over 10 years you’ll get a wide range of lenses). In some ways you can understand this. If NEX is going to be around for 15 years, building 40 lenses in the first three years and few in the remaining 12 years would mean that you’d have first build a big staff, then downsize dramatically once you’ve built a strong base.
What concerns me is that Sony so far has given us only one compact lens, the 16mm. That’s one out of 10 lenses. Meanwhile, their competitors are quickly honing in on “size matters”. Olympus, Panasonic, and Samsung have all gone to collapsing and compact lens designs. I have to ask, is Sony competing against themselves (NEX versus SLT) or against the competition (NEX versus m4/3)? It appears to be the former, which seems strange to me.
Sony is a big company, with engineering capacity that exceeds Canon’s. They are capable of bringing out more lenses per year than their competetors, they just don’t want to.
To make things worse;
1. They’ve more or less given up on A mount
2. They completely misread the market for E mount
Carl,
You’re misinformed. Sony’s photographic department is not as strong as Canon’s. And there is no sign of them giving up on A mount. I don’t know where you get such an idea from. As for the E mount, they are selling pretty well at the moment. People are demanding for pancake lenses, even though the camera is not pocketable either way. For P&S, I can understand the need for small lenses, but it’s not balanced on the body to keep the system steady. I do see the need of pancake lenses to drive the sale, but I wouldn’t place my purchase solely on such thing. The NEX-7 and the new Zeiss are good enough for all of my needs.
Well, one interesting bit is the video side, which now has multiple E-mount cameras, but hardly any suitable lenses for them. Think FS100u for a moment: given Sony’s current and future E-mount choices, most FS100u users have simply gone to another mount via adapter. That represents a loss of opportunity. Not a good thing in the long run, and something that needs to be fixed. Soon.
1. Sony’s yearly turnover and yearly production is much larger than Canon’s. The fact that they put less resources into their SLR division than Canon and Nikon do is a business decision, not something that they are somehow limited to.
2. One new lens in a year is hardly what I call support.
3. The NEX-7 isn’t pocketable, but I’d say the 3 and 5 are, assuming we’re not talking about tight jeans pockets. They’re no bigger than a wallet or larger sized smartphone.
Sonys got one major problem. They bought minolta. The minds at minolta were so good they thought themsleves out of business. From the lame a230 330 grips to the auto framing modes on their new alpha a57 camera. they crippled themselves with their nex pancake bodies and their lenses like the zeiss prime is longer than their kit zoom. How is that possible that a wide angle prime is longer than the kit zoom….and on a compact camera system? well, only from the mind of Sonolta.
yeah, Sony is a big company…split between Cybershot, Alpha, Alpha NEX, Handycam, NXCAM, CineAlta, Betacam, etc…and that only in the imaging division…
And if you think they’ve given up on A-mount, then why hesitating developing FF SLT cameras??? O_o
even samsung creates 5 nx lenses each year!
and a lot of them are prime lenses (and pancakes)
http://www.x-rumors.com/2010/11/24/x4-samsung-nx-lens-roadmap-2011-2013/
That is an impressive array of lenses. Next year will be an exciting for MILC. I see no problem switching to Samsung if the plan materializes, and Sony won’t come out with FF MILC. Nonetheless, we will have to wait to see if these actually come out.
+1
+1
yeah, before Samsung new lenses line up, one could say that the NEX system was younger than the m4/3 or that SONY was alone when the m4/3 had at least two manufactures. but Samsung’s lenses choice are way, way better then Sony’s. Is Sony stupid or something?
I like to think they have less lens engineers then a person has fingers.
hey… wait. Wasn’t exactly the same said by UK Sony guy during their live session?
It isn’t anything new he says, nor anything he personally “let Sony know”. Random people “let Sony know” this as well on many occasions. Or is it just Carl trying to raise his importance?
People named Carl are always full of self-importance, so probably.
Anyone who’s seen Carl pontificate, bloviate and huff n’ puff on dpreview well knows how self-important and grandstanding he is.
Why don’t you give us an example?
As a wedding videographer who owns the VG-10, I don’t want smaller lenses. I would like Sony to incoporate SteadyShot Inside to the NEX-VG10/20 line (just like they do with the A65, A77). I would really like an e-mount 70-200 2.8 with image stabilization. This way I wouldn’t have to buy an LA-EA2 and a Sigma 70-200 OSS. If the NEX line had built in image stabilization and some larger faster lenses, it would be better from my perspective.
Well, how stupid you must be to make the smallest camera and sell it only with huge bulki lenses…
Wake up Sony!
I would like to see an ultra wide angle pancake lens myself. Something in the 10-12mm range. I would also love to see an f/2.8 16-40mm or so….
Is a 85 f/1.4 or even 1.8 Prime asking to much? I think the demand is there.
Jay
so true, nice body but a BIG nose. No offense
It is actually pretty difficult to make an extreme wide angle pancake with AF. Besides, we already have the 16mm pancake plus Sony wide angle adapter that gives you a 12mm f/2.8 lens. It is soft in the corners at f/2.8 but most people using extreme wide angle lenses stop down to f/5.6 or more for better sharpness and DOF.
Yes, Sony’s SEL-16F28 plus VCL-ECU1 Super Wide Angle Converter is big fun at f/8, where extreme corner sharpness isn’t good, but compared to other and all much more expensive solutions quite acceptable:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1042&message=38671211&changemode=1
More disturbing is a tendency to Purple Fringing towards the corners, therefore I’m also hoping on Lens Compensation with Firmware 05 for NEX-5/3, that’s coming with NEX-5N now. Anyway, with SEL-16F28 + VCL-ECU1 + VCL-ECF1 one is getting a quite price worthy solution for Wide Angle, Super Wide Angle & Fish Eye, that’s not performing bad at least from f/5.6 to f/11, so this range seems completed for a while. Nevertheless something like a high quality SEL-10F40 might become an interesting Pancake once…
We need not only fast pancake lenses, but quality fast pancake lenses, just like m4/3 20mm, not like E-mount 16mm.
Just produce a 30/1.8 good pancake with optical quality like A-mount 35/1.8 and nex systems will be top of all sales charts.
SEL35F18 with OSS pancake style please (for us videousers)
Thanks 🙂
I would like to see a 35mm 1.8 OSS as well, but with the 24mm Zeiss coming soon I don’t think Sony is going to make a 35mm lens a priority. Still, I would pre-order one TODAY if I could.
I would have agreed with you 2 weeks ago, but the reports about the build quality of the NEX 5N do not sound good (overheating and clicking noise). So even if they did have a quality small lens, I’m not sure I would get it.
ps, I clicked reply to Snapperbox’s comment, so not sure why it ended up down here.
are you serious? O_o
All I care about is fast primes. I have no problem with lenses the size/weight of the Zeiss 24mm f1.8. High quality is more important to me than pancake size.
No interest in any zoom lens.
a 20 F2 or F2.2 would be possible to make as a pancake ! and could be more useful than the 16 mm
Sony just copy Samsung, ok?
I already said this before but as we are in this topic I’ll repeat myself.
Samsung NX system has/will have soon:
– 3 pancakes! 16mm, 20mm and 30mm and all of them are fast ones!
– 20-50 compact zoom – doesn’t it make sense in a CSC??
– 60mm Macro! Which BTW makes more sense than a 30mm Macro and it’s f/2.8!
– a portrait 85mm f/1.4
for 2012 it seems like it will have a 35mm f/1.4, 50mm f/1.4 and a 135mm f/2!
If I had a NX camera and money, I would buy a lot of this lenses like a 30mm f/2 pancake, 60mm f/2.8 macro, 85mm f/1.4 portrait, 50mm f/1.4, 35 f/1.4 and 135 f/2. maybe the 16-80 as well.
so if you are not that dumb Sony, just copy Samsung, ok?
What good is a small body with a lens like brick?!
I’m with you on this, Renato.
Until Sony makes decent pancakes, I will continue with my NX with 20mm & 30mm.
6 rumors out of the last 7 are about the NEX.
Pity.
this is pretty cool !! and I hope the 7 next rumors will be “Nex rumors” !!
selfish or what!
I have to say, I hate the samsung camera, but love their lens road map
Carl is a tool who cant take a pic to save his life, but gets to sit down with Sony? Doesn’t Sony have any real photographers it can lend it’s equipment too?
And he doesn’t even understand the business he’s opining about. He abdurdly equates Sony’s camera division with the entire company, as you can see in his reply above to Thom Hogan. Sony Semi has its own profit goals and budget, and so do ALL the subsidiaries, so for him to wax on about how “Sony” has bigger resources than Canon (in just the very latest example) demonstrates his ignorance … and ego.
I think it’s a different Carl – That is, the Carl that replied to Thom H, (who discussed Sony as a whole), is probably not Carl G. At least, his writing style appears different here.
Regarding comparing Sony’s Alpha group with the company as a whole, that point is actually right. Sony uses a shared services model for Research & Development. That means the Alpha guys have to share R&D support with all of the other product lines.
On the other hand (although I can’t tell you for certain), the Alpha group’s leadership probably has hired some smart engineers to develop Alpha specific technology, anyway. (They probably won’t call ’em researcher scientists or development engineers, ’cause they wouldn’t want them to get absorbed into momma Sony’s R&D group)
Lastly, in regard to Carl G’s ego, I can tell you he doesn’t have one any more than you or I. A couple of years ago, he did not have much communication with Sony and he was honest about that. In the past year or so, he was able to reestablish communication with them.
As you may know, some companies understand the value of working with new media journalism, bloggers, etc. So, if you had a website and wrote camera reviews for another (e.g. Imaging Resource), you could gain access to Sony product managers, too. In short, I don’t read any ego in Carl G’s statements.
Yes, different Carl.
I’m not Carl Zeiss, either, though it would be kinda cool if I was.
“…it’s not like they aren’t aware…”
When people use two negatives to relate a positive (“is like they are aware”), it means nothing more than “wishful thinking”… and no confirmed plans.
It means Sony feels the grumbling stomach hungry for pancakes… but they have no idea how or when they will serve those pancakes.
“…the G standard zoom, the die angle zoom and mid telephoto lens. Those are lenses that will appeal consumers more than enthusiast or professionists…”
Urhhmmm… you sure about that? No shortage of comments from “consumers” requesting smaller lenses to match the smaller cameras.
______
Child cries: “I want pancakes”
Mommy answers: “Eat what’s on your plate first”
Child cries: “But I don’t like it”
Mommy answers: “Tough shit… eat it or go somewhere else”
Well, so far I haven’t seen any Pancake as thin as those I’m cooking in my pan and I don’t wish anybody to eat a pancake as thick as usual pancake lenses, so these childish illusions about E-Mount Pancakes usually make me smile. It’s quite obvious that an E-Mount pancake would be sized between their μ4/3 and full frame equivalents with their length counted from the sensor, of course. Additionally with a little experience one knows how much more heavy glass and correction is needed to make a lens fast, while this on digital cameras is usually causing Purple Fringing anyway. Looking forward to SEL-50F18 & SEL-24F18Z reviews soon, concerning this. I really doubt with E-Mount lenses Sony has got that much space for size reduction as most of those Pancakers think, maybe a little, but not much…
Dude, most people would be happy if sony could make a prime no longer than a traditional 50mm prime, as seen on most dslrs. 50mm lenses have been around forever, and they arent as big as that zeiss sausage they made for the nex…which is longer than their kit zoom. At this point, Sony cant even make a prime that isnt sausage long. their 50mm is almost as long as their zoom, that is hardly even compact. no ones asking for miracles, just a prime that isnt the length of a pen.
While I completely agree the NEX system needs pancakes (one of the main reasons I still prefer the M4/3 system), the major issue is really that all of the glass has been mediocre so far. They need more Zeiss lenses more than anything else. While the Zeiss 24 1.8 looks quite large, I know it will be quality which makes we more and more interested in a NEX-7. If they added a 15mm equivalent, 50mm equiv, and 90mm equiv Zeiss lenses to the system, it would be perfect.
Admin,
Where are the Alpha lens rumours??
+1
at least a hint of when please.
before selling new lenses, Sony should put all their efforts in solving the problems they are having the NEX 5N
Carl’s able to make everything about himself, doesn’t he? This way he gets everyone to know that HE made it his business to tell Sony about pancakes (anyone think they haven’t known about this for literally years with Panny primes?) and then he gets to try to take credit if some time down the road a long-planned Sony pancake appears.
IMHO… Pancake lens should be defined. I suggest Pancake should designate any lens which does not protrude beyond the furthest frontal portion of the stock camera, thereby not increasing the camera dimension.
That’d leave about 1/4″ to build a lens for NEX-7 that doesn’t protrude beyond the grip.
Very doable. The original Oly Pen FT had a 38mm f2.8 APS-C format lens that was only 13mm in length. I can put one on the NEX, but the adapter doubles the thickness. Still very compact even with the adapter though.
You can’t just shorten a lens without affecting optical quality. The required telephoto elements to dramatically widen the throw angle would introduce massive chromatic aberrations in that lens.
I don’t think the people begging for NEX pancakes have the slightest idea just how incredibly hard it is to make a good pancake. It’s basically impossible. The existing 16mm is actually *very* good for the engineering challenge and price point. Even extending the price out to the $1000 range, to retain AF (Sony’s not going to make a manual lens for this system, forget it) you won’t get much, if any smaller than the physical size to focal length ratio of the 16mm which means a 30mm pancake is going to be nearly twice as long even with the most expensive glass and design available.
The best bet for more portability in the NEX system is to offer collapsible lenses like the MFT system offers.
Personally I think it’s a still waste of time, and Sony should focus on actual useful lenses like a NEX sized 16-50mm ƒ/2.8 (a sister to its newest APS-C sized same lens) and a 50-150 ƒ/2.8 portrait zoom.
Just look at Pentax’s limited series. And, yes, add the 25 or so mm, still extremely compact. No need to make them 1cm though, of course.
extremely compact on a dSLR design…but on mirrorless doesn’t look that compact…don’t even know how do you mention the registration distance and try to make it appear non-critical by saying extremely compact…
As I said, no need for them to be 1cm long, but do I really need to make the calculations for you? The 40/2.8 DA plus the adapter would be around 4cm. The 70/2.4 would be the same. That’s already pretty decent and as you said these weren’t even designed for the E-mount. I am sure they can make them even smaller, plenty of examples out there.
Most pancake lenses are actually quite simple designs (hence the slower apertures), so It isn’t really that difficult. When you consider SLR designs they may be around 38-47mm away from the film/sensor, but the designs have allowed for that – they could still be small and much closer to sensors. A 30mm f2 lens could be 20/25mm long on the 18mm NEX flange distance, very compact by any standards, and cheap enough to be a kit lens option. I rather suspect that those who would want it would choose instead to go for the better IQ of the 24/1.8 Zeiss lens already announced.
Perhaps collapsible zooms would fit the target market for the NEX 3+5 better. The high sales of Nikon’s 35/1.8 lens seems to suggest the enthusiast market (think NEX 7) is still keen on primes, but perhaps not so concerned about minimal size.
I also suggest, and would accept, that pancake lens be designed without a manual focus ring, or mechanism. Make it fully AF, and they’d probably gain some valuable space to save on size.
Now… this does not mean that manual focus would not be possible. A simple firmware upgrade could allow one of the tri-Navi dials to be custom functioned for a focus wheel. The old Olympus OM88 had focus by wire this way. No focus ring on the lens, but a rear control dial on camera acted as focus ring. It was very accurate and satisfying to work with… and had the benefit of allowing manual focus and shooting with one hand.
NO THANKS…
*
Sign the NEX pancake Petition please!
Leave your mark, feel free to write anything in the comments, like the specs of the lens
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?NEX30mm
I do not have the slightest interest in more pancake lenses. All pancake lenses in all systems are garbage in one way or another, they always come with compromises for what is a minimal and ultimately meaningless savings in space (none of the NEX cameras are pocket cameras, even with NO LENSE AT ALL).
So frankly, all this whining for pancakes is annoying. I hope Sony knows not to listen to it. A NEX-sized 50-150 ƒ/2.8 would be amazing and far more attractive than another optically weak pancake wide angle lens.
16, 35, 50, 85 pancakes. All 1.8 or 2
I’ve never seen a pancake that didn’t suck optically. The only reason for them is to keep the camera+lens pocket-sized. Anyone who cares about optimal picture quality stays clear of them.
Panasonic 20mm? Pentax 43mm? Zeiss 45mm?
Pentax 43mm??? really? That’s for big SLR..! put an adapter and is no longer a pancake. Try achieving 43mm on a pancake for mirrorless…
Panasonic 20mm corrected in-camera software. m4/3 sensor size. It doesn’t applies for APS-C. And don’t even try to mention Samsung pancakes because they got 7.5mm more of registration distance that helps a lot at the moment of designing lenses and make those lenses achieve the “pancake” category.
Well obviously a pancake’s length is relative to the flange distance of the camera you are mounting it on. You can hardly stick your fingers into your camera to focus a lens that’s 10mm shorter than the flange distance.
Give me Zeiss
1) Biogon 12/5.6 or 14/4 (ref Contax G16/G21)
2) Distagon 16/2.8 (ref Contax Distagon 25/2.8)
3) Tessar 30/2 (ref Contax G45)
4) Planar 60/1.4 (ref Contax Planar 85/1.2)
5) APO Vario-Sonnar 35-70 with 1:1 macro
Please Please Please
too many people here wants fancy lenses…physics laws cannot be overridden…you want compact design, you loose image quality (either by lens flaws or in-body correction)
If people says that they’re ok with a 30mm f/2 but with the size of Samsung 30mm f/2 + 7.5mm more of lenght then I do agree with them, but for sure they are going to complain by saying, “That’s not a pancake..! Samsung is smaller blablablabla”
laugh at me when Sony comes with something small, good quality and fast aperture, but for now…please, get real.
Losing what quality? That would imply that the upcoming 30 and 50 are really really good. What if they are not? We’ll end up with both big lenses and average IQ. So they better be good.
Then Sony is screwed and users will jump out to other ship or just buy body to use with MF lenses or less lens sales will occur (for those who wants AF, they are going to stick with those lenses and find a work around for the quality) and that’s it.
But as I said…ultra compact design on APS-C with such a short flange distance have compromises. One of them is image quality. Samsung with their NX-mount is fine there, but at the cost of loosing the capabilities of mounting Contax G and M-mount lenses and making the body bigger. E-mount is fine with mounting almost everything you can find in this world, but for native lenses this traduces in harder-to-achieve designing compact lenses.
There’s no real limitation there per se, it just means higher refractive index glass is required to achieve the same rear nodal point distance. In other words, it’s a question of cost, not physics.
How many people here wants a pancake for more than 400USD without OSS? If now, they’re complaining about the 349USD asked for the SEL50F18 even if it has OSS… People have unreal expectations unless they’re ok with a 30mm f/2.8 sized as the current pancake lens because I don’t see a f/2 with that size unless they make it a bit bigger than SEL16F28.
Think of it this way; people pay how much for Leica Elmarits? They don’t even have auto apertures and auto focus, let alone stabilsation.
Strange that every time the NEX is being discussed, people slams it for the large lens size and starts to make comparision to Samsung NX pancakes.
Fyi I wasn’t aware of this article until someone told me about it just today. I’ve read through most of the replies here.
If anyone has any questions about what I talked about with Sony I’m more than willing to share that information. Probably not best to do it in a reply here as it’s hard enough to keep up with two sites, a new baby, and a dayjob as it is.
But if anyone has any criticisms, comments, or questions about me or my talks with Sony I’m more than willing to address them on AMW on our forums openly and honestly. Hard to keep up with some of the replies I’ve seen here and I think its only fair I’m given the opportunity to answer criticisms I see here. Elliot, I’m more than willing to chat with you anytime you have time.
Thanks,
Carl Garrard (yes C.Garrard)
Perhaps Sony can develop a FF NEX body with ARRI PL mount. Sensor size either APS-H or FF 35mm.
With the increased flange distance, perhaps pancake lenses can be collapsed into the camera body.
Below is an example of a Canon 550D ARRI mod
http://406club.dyndns.org/ognn/viewthread.php?tid=1922
I understand there are some ARRI-NEX adaptors in the market, but the existing NEX bodies are just too small to mount those wonderful Cine lenses from Zeiss, Leica, Angneniux, Cooke, Dallmeyer, Kinoptik.
And, if the video capabilities of such NEX camera can match that of Sony PMW-F3K, it will KO all DSLR-based video cameras.
Just my 2 cents
Best comment in the whole boring thread…