How terrible is the 60mm AF?

Valdai21 wrote:

I really wanted to buy this lens but I had the chance to use it for a week before and I found AF horrible. Noisy, pumping and useless for macro. I went for a fully manual lens instead since it feels better than the 60mm in manual mode. However, this was on an old camera, I don't remember if it was X-E2 or even X-E1. It has probably been improved on newer bodies but I think it may be Fuji's worst AF performance. For instance 18mm f/2 is okay, 35mm f/1,4 is audible and not fast on older bodies but it's precise.

On the X-Pro2 and X-H1 it will sometimes hunt through the entire focus range and its motor is very audible (just like that of other macro lenses I've used from other manufacturers in the past), but on the X-T3 with the focus limiter engaged it's really fast and you barely hear the focus motor, it's just a very quick "tick" and it's locked on.

I don't find it noisier or less precise than the 18mm f2. My copy's motor sounds more refined than that of my 18mm and its aperture blades are noticeably quieter.

I wrote in my reply to the OP below that limiting the 60mm to 5m-to-infinity really speeds up the focusing. In fact, you don't need to limit it that much, 2m-to-infinity brings pretty much the same performance gains. I'm not able to conduct experiments now, but using the custom limit setting, it may well be possible to limit the range much less and still get very decent performance without the risk of it ever deciding to run through the full focus range. Dunno. Will test it when I'm in a position to do so (perhaps others here have already tested?)

As for it being useless for macro shots, well, we've all got our own metrics. I took this shot of a green crab spider (~2cm across including legs, handheld/braced, non-stabilised camera) on my first outing with the lens. The shot wouldn't satisfy the likes of Gilles san Martin, I'm sure, but as a very light and relatively compact walk-around lens with great image quality and decent close up ability, it provides a lot of possibilities.