Originally posted by Winder Lenses for APS-C or FF really can not be made small enough to be pocket-able.
I seem to recall some mighty small AF pancakes. MF can be even smaller. That's how I'm building a mini-kit of tiny old FF ultralight primes. No, fast AF zooms will never be small. Not nearly as small as the old F35-70 anyway, which is barely larger than the FA50/1.4.
But even fast glass needn't be huge. Case in point: Some thread here dealt with objective sizes. It prompted me to measure some of my 28s, where I found these diameters -- objectives, not threads:
* Vivitar-Kiron 28/2.5: 48mm
* Soligor-Tokina 28/2.8: 44mm
* Vivitar-Komine 28/2 CF: 33mm
* Tamron BBAR 28/2.5: 22mm
That Tamron 28/2.5 objective is pretty tiny; the lens internally is much smaller than the Kiron 28/2.5. Its body is mostly bloat -- the elements occupy only a small central section -- and it's just 4cm thick. A shrunken AF version would likely still be bloated-out a little to fit the fat fingers of feckless fotomaniacs.