These are the best Sony pancake lenses when you want ultra-compact size, pocketable weight, and quiet autofocus for travel, street, everyday carry, and gimbal work—and here’s what to look for as you buy: prioritize true “flat” dimensions (thin barrel, sub-200g), silent linear AF for video, close-focus for detail cutaways, shared filter threads to keep one CPL/VND, strong flare resistance for backlit scenes, good corner performance stopped to f/4–f/5.6, and weather touches (gasketed mounts) if you shoot outdoors; most pancakes lack OSS, so plan on an IBIS body or higher shutter speeds, and mind hood/cap designs that add bulk. On full-frame, Sony’s compact G trio is the gold standard: FE 24mm f/2.8 G (tiny wide for cityscapes/interiors, great sunstars), FE 40mm f/2.5 G (do-everything “normal” with lovely rendering), and FE 50mm f/2.5 G (lightweight portrait/food pick); all three share metal builds, aperture rings (click/de-click), AF/MF switch, focus-hold button, and 49mm threads—mix any two for a featherweight kit. If you want the smallest zoom that still looks and packs like a pancake, the collapsible FE 28–60mm f/4–5.6 is shockingly sharp for its size and balances perfectly on compact bodies and travel gimbals. Third-party pancake-style gems worth considering on FE: Samyang 24mm f/2.8 FE and 35mm f/2.8 FE—both featherweight with fast AF, great for pocket travel rigs. APS-C shooters get true pancakes in the E 20mm f/2.8 (jacket-pocket wide-normal that’s perfect for street) and the E 16mm f/2.8 (ultra-slim wide; add Sony’s fisheye/ultra-wide converters for playful looks); for a pancake-like zoom, the E PZ 16–50mm f/3.5–5.6 OSS collapses flat, adds stabilization for older non-IBIS bodies, and is ideal for gimbals and vlogging. Practical buyer tips: pick focal length by how you see—24mm for context, 40–45mm for daily storytelling, 50mm for people/food—with the 28–60 as a tiny companion when you need flexibility; standardize 49mm filters across the G trio for one slim CPL/VND, expect best corners one to two stops down, and pair pancakes with an IBIS body for dusk/night travel. Shooting tips: keep a slim hood or your hand to shade flare on bright streets, stop to f/4–f/5.6 for edge discipline on wides, work the surprisingly close minimum focus to build foreground layers, use eye-AF on the 50G for quick portraits, and for video run a light VND and capitalize on the lenses’ quiet linear AF for clean focus transitions. Whether you’re threading alleyways at dawn, pocket-carrying a two-prime kit, or flying a tiny gimbal through cafés and markets, the best Sony pancake lenses combine pocketable builds, modern AF, and clean rendering—so you travel lighter, shoot longer, and still bring home images that look far bigger than your kit.