XF 60mm f/2.4 vs. XF 56mm f/1.2

Optically, the 60 is pretty much in 'can't be beaten' territory. Lovely, smooth bokeh (and I'm weird about these things) and silly-sharp across the frame. Perhaps a little less sprightly than the 56 but I wouldn't swap.

s200 wrote:

Optically, the 60 is pretty much in 'can't be beaten' territory. Lovely, smooth bokeh (and I'm weird about these things) and silly-sharp across the frame. Perhaps a little less sprightly than the 56 but I wouldn't swap.

Agreed.

Some people confuse narrow depth of field with bokeh. There are lots of super fast lenses with narrow DoF but still ugly bokeh at certain combinations of aperture, subject and background distance and there are slower lenses with less narrow DoF (though still worthwhile) and a smooth bokeh regardless of aperture, subject or background distance or type. The Fuji 60mm f2.4 is one of the latter at a thoroughly reasonable price.

On the xpro2 the 56 f1.2 is much quickier than the 60, they are both sharp lens in their range.  The 56 becomes very sharp from 1.8 to 8 the 60 becomes very sharp from 2.8, 2.4 is still very good.  The 56 was developed for portriats in mind so it gives more pleasing skin tones and colors than the macro 60.  The 56 and 90 are both amazing portriat lenses the 60 is a amazing macro but not as amazing for portriats, the reason many pros will not use the 60 for portriats.  The 56 also focuses much quickier in low light than the 60 on the xpro2.  Both are great lenses but serve different purposes.  The 60 can focus at a much closer distance than than the 56 and that is what the 60 was designed for.  There are plenty of reviews out for both lenses but it basically comes down to your personal needs and uses for the lens, if it's portriats the 56 and 90 hands down.  If it's for general use its more of a toss up and if it's for macro the 60.

Just wanted to follow up on this and say that I wound up going with the 60mm.  Turns out, I enjoy the semi-macro ability more than I expected, so I'm pretty happy with the purchase.  It's certainly not the fastest focuser, but the manual focus control is very fine, which certainly helps on close up shots.  Here's just a couple of test shots.  Certainly couldn't have gotten these with any of my existing lenses.  Haven't gotten a chance to really put it through the portrait paces.