Kase, a Chinese brand known for its ND filters, is building a new tiny pancake lens with an unusual twist. The Kase FE 24mm f/3.8 is a pancake with autofocus and a built-in flip lever cap, to replace standard lens caps.
Kase has confirmed that the full-frame pancake lens is launching in Sony E-Mount, but reports hint that additional mounts may be in the works including Leica L-Mount, Nikon Z-Mount and Fujifilm X Mount.
If you’ve never heard of Kase lenses, you’ll be easily forgiven as the 24mm is only the brand’s fourth lens – building on a history of creating lens filters to creating the lenses themselves.
The new 24mm lens is deserving of the “pancake” category, coming in at 16mm / 0.62 inches thick and about 60g / 2.11 oz, which is about the weight of a tennis ball.
But as someone who loses lens caps on new optics with frightening speed, the feature that caught my attention is that the Kase 24mm has a built-in lever flip cap. Turning a small slide on the front of the lens closes a piece of plastic over the glass, creating a built-in lens cap.
Built-in lens caps are common on compact cameras, but less so on mirrorless optics – though a small number of pancake lenses, including the VIltrox AF 28mm f/4.5 and Olympus Fisheye Body Cap 9mm f/8, have the feature. The lens is not only small but has fewer pieces to try to keep track of.
To get to that size, however, there are some sacrifices. The lens’ aperture is fixed at f/3.8 – no more, no less. But while many budget lenses skip the autofocus, the Kase FE 24mm f/3.8 uses a VCM motor for autofocusing. The lens can focus as close as .3m / 11.8 inches, which translates to a 0.1x macro ratio.
Kase says the lens is designed with six groups and six elements, including components to help reduce distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignetting.
Kase hasn’t yet shared a price or availability date for the new lens. The 24mm joins the Kase 150mm f/5.6 AF Reflex, 85mm f/1.4, and 200mm f/5.6 lenses in a growing list of optics from the China-based brand.
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