These are the best Zeiss pancake (and near-pancake) lenses when you want featherweight carry, low profile, gorgeous micro-contrast, and discreet builds for street, travel, everyday doc, and hybrid video—and here’s the straight talk: Zeiss has very few true pancakes today, so the winning strategy is (1) use the classic ultra-thin Tessar and (2) round out with the most compact modern Zeiss primes that behave like pancakes in practice; prioritize tiny barrels with clean T* coatings, de-clickable apertures where available (E/Z Loxia), long, silky MF throws with hard stops, modest focus breathing if you film, and shared small filter threads (39/43/49/52 mm) so one slim VND (plus a gentle CPL used sparingly) covers the kit. True pancake hero (adapted): Tessar T* 45mm ƒ2.8 (Contax/Yashica—and in some runs Rollei QBM)—the classic Zeiss “body-cap” normal with crisp contrast and wafer thin profile; adapts beautifully to mirrorless with a rigid C/Y adapter and makes any full-frame body pocket-friendly. Modern “pancake-adjacent” compacts: Sonnar T* FE 35mm ƒ2.8 ZA (Sony E/ZEISS co-design)—tiny, fast-focusing wide-normal that feels like a pancake and is stellar for travel/night street; Loxia 40mm ƒ2 (E-mount)—not paper-thin but still genuinely small with de-clickable aperture, linear MF, and classic Zeiss micro-contrast; Loxia 35mm ƒ2 and Loxia 50mm ƒ2 Planar—compact, all-metal, declick-ready with long throws for precise pulls; ZM Biogon 35mm ƒ2.8 C and ZM Biogon 28mm ƒ2.8 (Leica M/VM)—svelte rangefinder-style pancakes that adapt neatly to mirrorless and deliver disciplined geometry and gorgeous sunstars. APS-C/light-rig note: ZM 28/2.8 or 35/2.8 on crop gives stealthy 42–53-eq “walk” FoV; Touit primes (12/2.8, 32/1.8) aren’t true pancakes but are compact enough to complement a Tessar/FE 35/2.8-style kit. Practical buyer tips: build a two- or three-lens spine (Tessar 45/2.8 + FE 35/2.8 for ultra-light FF, add Loxia 50/2 for rendering variety; or ZM 28/2.8 + ZM 35/2.8 + Tessar 45/2.8 for a tiny adapted trio), standardize fronts with step-ups so one VND fits everything, pick rigid adapters with zero play (C/Y→E/Z/RF, VM→E/Z), and test flare/ghosting around streetlights—T* coatings are strong but angles matter; if you film, de-click Loxia apertures, add 0.8 focus gears, and enable breathing compensation where supported. Pancake-style shooting tips: travel light and shoot more—run Aperture Priority at ƒ2.8–ƒ4 for people and ƒ5.6–ƒ8 for scenes, set Auto-ISO with a minimum shutter (~1/160–1/250 s for motion), zone-focus at 1–2 m with a small stop for fast street work, get close for foreground depth and keep backgrounds 1–3 m behind for clean separation, and shade the front element to tame veiling flare; avoid heavy CPLs (they cost light and bulk), keep one slim VND for 180°-shutter video, and let the small footprint work for you—whether you’re slipping through morning markets, grabbing café candids, hiking with a pocketable body, or filming discreet walk-and-talks, the best Zeiss pancake choices center on the Tessar 45/2.8 plus compact Loxia/ZA/ZM companions—so your kit stays invisible, your lines stay clean, and your images look polished without weighing you down.