Les Jones

Word of the Day > Word of the Day: Tessar Lens or Pancake Lens

From Wikipedia:

The Tessar is a famous photographic lens design conceived by physicist Paul Rudolph in 1902 while he worked at the Zeiss optical company and patented by Zeiss; the lens type is usually known as Zeiss Tessar.

Despite common belief, the Tessar was not developed from the 1893 Cooke triplet design by replacing the rear element with a cemented achromatic doublet. In fact, Paul Rudolph designed the Anastigmat with two cemented doublets in 1890. In 1899, he separated the doublets in the Anastigmat to produce the four-element, four-group Unar lens. In 1902, he realized that reversing the two rear elements of the Unar and returning to a cemented doublet would improve performance; he named the result "Tessar", from the Greek word τέσσερα (tessera) to indicate a four-element design.

Pancake lenses seem to be limited in focal length and maximum aperture. They also don't have a reputation as being the very sharpest lenses you can get. Their big advantage is their incredible compactness. Some of them aren't much thicker than a lens cap. If I ever spot the Nikon version below three hundred bucks I might be tempted. It would be a great companion to the small, lightweight D40 body.

• Pbase collection of photos made with a Nikon 45mm/F2.8
• Nikonlinks review of Nikon 45mm/F2.8
• Ken Rockwell review of Nikon 45mm/F2.8
• Camera Labs review of Olympus Zuiko Digital 25mm/F2.8
• Pentax DA 40mm f/2.8