Omnar 35mm f/3.5 Pantessa FLB

Omnar 35mm f/3.5 Pantessa FLB

The Pantessa, a name compressing "pancake-tessar," is built around the Carl Zeiss 35mm f/3.5 Tessar-type optic originally fitted to the Yashica T, T3, T4 and T5 Super compact cameras, rehoused for the Leica M mount [1][2]. Its defining trait is extreme compactness: at roughly 16.5 mm of protrusion off the camera and 108 g, it is one of the smallest 35 mm rangefinder lenses with dedicated focus and aperture rings and a 39 mm front filter thread, sitting on the camera lower than a typical rear M bayonet cap. It was produced by Omnar Lenses, a UK collaboration between Hamish Gill of the photography site 35mmc and Chris Andreyo of Skyllaney Opto-Mechanics [3].

The four-element design is housed in a hand-assembled, all-brass helicoid mechanism, and the lens is designed, manufactured and finished in the UK. Omnar notes that earlier attempts to rehouse this compact-camera optic suffered from focus shift and focus breathing, problems that are more tolerable on through-the-lens SLR and mirrorless systems but troublesome on a coupled rangefinder. To address this, the optical block was slightly repositioned from stock and given an aperture-dependent floating system that Omnar calls FLB, for Floating Lens Block, in which the optical group shifts subtly within the barrel as the aperture changes to preserve focus accuracy across the coupled range. The lens is rangefinder coupled and is not six-bit coded. Omnar also designed it for medium-format digital use, citing an image circle of around 60 mm that covers 44 by 33 mm sensors on Hasselblad XCD and Fujifilm GFX bodies through an appropriate adapter, where it behaves like a 26 mm f/2.8 equivalent.

The Pantessa was offered as a strictly limited production, with the first run stated as 20 lenses and a model number of YS35-35FLB. As a small-batch hand-built lens rather than a mass-produced product, no broad version or coating variations are documented.

Optical qualities

Rendering Documentation comes mainly from the maker and early coverage rather than a large body of independent reviews. Omnar describes the Pantessa as sharp for its size and effectively free of distortion, qualities consistent with the simple Tessar-type formula, and positions it for landscape, travel, documentary and hiking use where size and weight matter. The company reports that on the newer 100 MP back-illuminated 44 by 33 mm sensors of the Hasselblad X2D and Fujifilm GFX 100 II it showed no corner color shifts, while older 50 MP sensors without BSI and microlens arrays, such as those in the Hasselblad X1D and earlier GFX 50 bodies, can show some corner color casts at longer focus distances.

History

Development and Launch Omnar Lenses began in 2021 as a partnership between Hamish Gill and Skyllaney Opto-Mechanics' Chris Andreyo, with its first product being the CN26-6, a 26 mm lens taken from a Canon compact and converted to Leica M mount. The Pantessa continued the brand's approach of rescuing optics from discontinued compact cameras and rehousing them as coupled M-mount lenses. It was announced in December 2024, with deliveries anticipated by the end of February 2025.

Collector Notes The lens carries the model code YS35-35FLB and was made in a small numbered run, which is the main point of interest for collectors. Two published figures differ from the values recorded here: Omnar's own materials cite a 10-blade aperture and a coupled range starting at 0.65 m, whereas this catalogue records nine blades and a 0.35 m minimum focus, the latter matching Omnar's stated uncoupled close-focus distance of 0.35 m. Because the optic originates from the Yashica T series, buyers should confirm the rehousing, FLB mechanism and brass focusing are intact rather than treating it as a standard factory production lens.