Is Fujifilm about to update its beloved tiny pancake lens? Patent hints that Fujifilm is working on a smaller 18mm f/2 – but I hope this one feature becomes reality

Blame it on the success of the Fujifilm X100VI, but Fujifilm’s pancake lenses have been selling so well, that they’re increasingly hard to find. A recently published Japanese patent, however, suggests that the company is working on more compact pancake lenses.

A recently published patent in Japan hints that it could be working on an update to the popular XF 18mm f/2 R pancake lens. First spotted by Japense publication Asobinet, the patent details an 18.56mm f/2.07 lens with a compact design.

The translated patent describes “an imaging lens having a small F-number, a smaller size, and excellent correction of aberrations.” But what’s perhaps most exciting to me as a Fujifilm photographer is that Asobinet interprets the patent drawings as a lens that has weather-sealing.

I love taking photos in the rain and the snow, but Fujifilm’s current 18mm pancake isn’t weather-sealed. An updated pancake with weather-sealing would be particularly enticing because these small lenses paired with a more compact mirrorless are excellent X100VI alternatives, but the X100VI needs extra accessories to be weather-sealed.

I don’t think a weather-sealed 18mm f/2 pancake lens is an impossible dream. After all, the new Fujifilm XF 23mm f/2.8 R WR is a weather-sealed pancake, so Fujifilm engineers obviously have the ability to make it happen.

Perhaps the bigger question is whether or not Fujifilm feels the need to have both the 23mm f/2.8 and an 18mm f/2 in the lineup. In full frame equivalency, that’s a 27mm and a 35mm lens. The wider focal length lens is also slightly brighter at f/2 compared to f/2.8. But the 23mm is a little smaller and lighter than the 18mm.

Patents do not always become reality – it’s possible the patent is just research and that a new 18mm pancake isn’t on the way. But, the patent does hint at what Fujifilm engineers are dreaming up behind the scenes – and a weather-sealed 18mm pancake sounds like a fantastic idea.

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