A pancake lens is colloquial term for a flat, thin lens (short barrel), generally a normal or slightly wide prime lens for a camera. There are pancake lenses for two kinds of cameras: Compact System Camera (CSC) and single-lens reflex (SLR).
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Pancake lenses are primarily valued for providing quality optics in a compact package. The resulting camera and lens assembly may even be small enough to be pocketable, a design feature which is usually impractical with conventional SLR bodies and lens assembiles.
An early example is the (Zeiss) Tessar of 1902. The design has seen a resurgence due to the growth of the mirrorless interchangeable lens digital camera (so-called EVIL camera) market, notably the Micro Four Thirds system.
In the 1960s and 1970s the Nikon GN lens was a notable example, while in the 1970s and 1980s pancake lenses were used in compact single lens reflex (SLR) cameras.[1] [2]