Fujinon XF 60mm f/2.4 R Macro

SLRgear Review
June 16, 2012
by Andrew Alexander

Early in 2012 Fuji released the X-Pro 1 system, with three prime lenses: the 18mm ƒ/2, the 35mm ƒ/1.4, and the subject of this review, the 60mm ƒ/2.4 Macro.

As the X-Pro 1 uses an APS-C sensor with a 1.5x ''crop factor'', the 60mm lens offers an equivalent field of view of 90mm. The lens ships with a metal hood, takes 39mm filters and is available now for around $650.

Sharpness
The 60mm ƒ/2.4 R offers very sharp results, even wide open at ƒ/2.4. Maximal image sharpness is obtained at ƒ/5.6, but the differences are so minute between ƒ/2.4 and ƒ/5.6, and in fact through to ƒ/11, that you would have to look very hard to see any obvious traces of softness. According to the numbers, diffraction limiting sets in at ƒ/8, but in practical terms you don't really see it until ƒ/16, and more obviously at ƒ/22, where it manifests as some generalized softness across the frame.

Chromatic Aberration
Results for chromatic aberration excellent; according to the numbers there is something to be seen in the extreme corners, but looking at the sample images, it doesn't manifest strongly enough to notice with the naked eye.

Shading (''Vignetting'')
There is some light corner shading when the lens is used in the ƒ/2.4 aperture position; in this case, the extreme corners are a half-stop darker than the center. This reduces to a third of a stop at ƒ/2.8, and at all other apertures, corner shading is negligible.

Distortion
Results for distortion were negligible with the 60mm ƒ/2.4 R.

Autofocus Operation
The Fuji 60mm ƒ/2.4 R focus very quickly with an electrical motor housed in the lens. The lens focuses from infinity to close-focus in less than a second: it's fast, and locks on to your target easily. The front element does not rotate, making life that little bit easier for polarizer users.

Macro
The 60mm ƒ/2.4 R offers a magnification rating of 0.5x, allowing users to record images at half their actual size. Minimum close-focusing distance is 26.7cm, or around ten inches.

Build Quality and Handling
The Fuji XF 60mm ƒ/2.4 R is a well-built lens, harkening back to the days of metal rangefinder cameras. It's small and fairly light (just 215 grams, or just over 7 1/2 oz), textured in a satin black finish. It's slightly longer than its companion Fujinon primes.

There are two rings for this lens: a focusing ring, and an aperture ring, something of a rarity in modern digital cameras. The aperture ring sits closer to the lens body, around 3/8'' wide, with click-stops between aperture settings. We found the aperture ring a bit looser than we would like, which means if you like the be able to move quickly between settings, you'll be happy with this action.

The large focusing ring is about 1 1/4'' wide, made of polycarbonate with deep grooves that offer excellent tactile feel. The X-Pro camera concept uses a fly-by-wire in its lens focusing method, so the focusing ring is not actually directly connected to the lens elements in a mechanical way. Rather, turning the focusing ring moves the elements electronically. In practice this means the focusing ring will turn forever in either direction, and you'll have to rely on the readouts to know if you have reached minimum or maximum focus. There is a slight amount of lens extension when the lens is focused. It's worth noting that there is a very slight amount of lens extension during focus operations.

There are no distance scales or depth-of-field information on the lens, but the X-Pro 1 offers a distance scale on its LCD or viewfinder readout.

The 60mm ƒ/2.4 R lens hood is made of metal, large and circular. It does reverse for storage on the lens, and attaches with a standard bayonet mount. The hood is 2 1/4'' long, adding about 2'' of length to the lens when attached.

Alternatives

Currently, there are no third-party lenses offered in the Fuji XF mount. However, there are several lens adapters which allow non-Fuji lenses to be mounted on the X-Pro 1. Fuji's own M-mount adapter allows Leica M, Carl Zeiss and Voigtlander lenses to be used, but there are only a few macro lenses that would be comparable here: one that comes to mind would be the Leica Macro-Elmar-M 90mm ƒ/4. This lens is only capable of 1:6.7 macro reproduction, so for the effort, it's probably worth getting the Fujinon 60mm.

Conclusion
There's not much more to say that the test results don't already show: exceptional performance, even when used wide open. If you're an X-Pro 1 user with an interest in macro photography, there really aren't a lot of choices, so this is a must-buy.

Product Photos

Sample Photos

The VFA target should give you a good idea of sharpness in the center and corners, as well as some idea of the extent of barrel or pincushion distortion and chromatic aberration, while the Still Life subject may help in judging contrast and color. We shoot both images using the default JPEG settings and manual white balance of our test bodies, so the images should be quite consistent from lens to lens.

Still Life shot

VFA target

As appropriate, we shoot these with both full-frame and sub-frame bodies, at a range of focal lengths, and at both maximum aperture and ƒ/8. For the ''VFA'' target (the viewfinder accuracy target from Imaging Resource), we also provide sample crops from the center and upper-left corner of each shot, so you can quickly get a sense of relative sharpness, without having to download and inspect the full-res images. To avoid space limitations with the layout of our review pages, indexes to the test shots launch in separate windows.