60mm performance

I bought a used 50mm f2.4 a few years ago, and it's always worked fine. I'm embarking on a project where I'll be copying b/w negatives and will be using the lens near its closest focus distance.

My results today weren't encouraging: good sharpness in the center, poor at the edges. I put my extension tubes on my 50mm f2 and got results that were just as good, but not any better.

I'm pretty familiar with copy work; I spent thirty years as an art museum photographer and realize the importance of alignment in an application like mine.

I"m wondering if my copy of the 60mm isn't quite right. Has anyone on the forum used the 60 in the kind of application I'm describing? How did it do?

When it comes to comparing border performance I'm always checking quite objective test results on OpticalLimits (used to do so with Nikkor lens before moving to Fuji).

Here are MTF charts for both lens:

Fujinon XF 50mm F2

Fujinon XF 60mm F2.4

As you can see on both charts center is excellent at wide open aperture, however optimal sharpness for borders/corners is reached only at F5.6.

This is expected behavior for Fuji XF 60mm and looks like you have a good copy. I'm also using it for detailed pictures, and it's very sharp in the center, but I never expect elevated level of details in borders.

Resoman wrote:

I bought a used 50mm f2.4 a few years ago, and it's always worked fine. I'm embarking on a project where I'll be copying b/w negatives and will be using the lens near its closest focus distance.

My results today weren't encouraging: good sharpness in the center, poor at the edges. I put my extension tubes on my 50mm f2 and got results that were just as good, but not any better.

I'm pretty familiar with copy work; I spent thirty years as an art museum photographer and realize the importance of alignment in an application like mine.

I"m wondering if my copy of the 60mm isn't quite right. Has anyone on the forum used the 60 in the kind of application I'm describing? How did it do?

I trust you have your negatives between glass sheets. With close focusing distances such as what you use (0.270 m), it's critical that your subject is flat.

Stopping down to lens to f/5.6 will not only optimise its performance, but also increase your depth of field from about 1.8 mm to about 4.4 mm, which should help.

Although sample variation with this lens is possible, it is not one that is known for this.

Are you able to perform a sharpness test with that lens at that subject distance? That might help answering your question about the quality of your copy of the lens.

Good luck with your project.

The 60mmf2.4 as a macro lens has a razor thin depth of field. At f2.4-2.8 it’s only a few mm if you are up close. I find even at f4 the dof is very thin. So try f8 to f11 if you are doing copy work, that’ll solve your out of focus problems. This is a great lens BTW, very sharp just thin DoF

Thanks to all who have replied!

My setup uses electronic flash as a light source and my camera settings are 1/250 @ f8.

I'll do a test with my glass carrier.

It's funny, when making prints in the darkroom I always used the glass carrier, and had very little issue with dust spots. When I've used the glass carrier in my current setup, dust is a major problem, though I'm using the same neg cleaning techniques.

Negative flatness is extremely important, of course. When I was working in the darkroom with generally recent negatives, the inherent curl of the film was enough to make edge to edge sharpness impossible, so I went to the glass carrier with excellent results.

Now, I'm working with negatives that are fifteen to fifty years old and have been stored flat in binders all their lives; they look very flat.

I'll post again after trying the glass carrier.

Resoman wrote:

I bought a used 50mm f2.4 a few years ago, and it's always worked fine. I'm embarking on a project where I'll be copying b/w negatives and will be using the lens near its closest focus distance.

My results today weren't encouraging: good sharpness in the center, poor at the edges. I put my extension tubes on my 50mm f2 and got results that were just as good, but not any better.

I'm pretty familiar with copy work; I spent thirty years as an art museum photographer and realize the importance of alignment in an application like mine.

I"m wondering if my copy of the 60mm isn't quite right. Has anyone on the forum used the 60 in the kind of application I'm describing? How did it do?

Ok, I have the same lenses and extension rings and based on my experience the 60mm macro with the extension rings can definitely focus closer to your subject and achieve a higher magnification ratio. Regarding sharpness at corners I think my 50mm/f2 is a bit better, but for macro the 60/2.4 with the extension rings is definitely better.

I dId a test with the glass carrier this afternoon and was reminded of an issue that pretty much rules it out for this purpose. The anti-Newton surface on the one piece of glass is recorded in the image, giving an odd texture visible in parts of the image. Why this was never an issue in twenty years of using this carrier in an enlarger I don't know.

Anyway, more testing to come, I'm off for the weekend...

Hi,

I can't tell from your OP - were you using the 60mm with or without an extension tube?

My experience with the 60mm is that it gives a flat field and good resolution to 1:2 at MFD without accessories, particularly at middle apertures.

My experience is that this changes if you mount the 60mm on extension tube(s) to get magnifications higher than 1:2.  Yes the outer image gets softer.  The center remains sharp, but the outer image becomes soft by the time you add enough extension to get to 1:1.  This doesn't matter so much for subjects like bugs where the corners may not matter.  It matters a lot for planar subjects like stamps, bank notes, engravings, slides and negatives.

If I use my old Minolta MD 100/4 with it's matched 1:1 tube as an alternative to the 60mm with the two Fuji tubes to get to 1:1, it's sharp across the frame where the 60mm with both Fuji tubes is soft in the outer image area.

Don't know if that helps.....

Regards, Rod

It tried the 60mm macro for negatives and was only able to get a sharp image without an extension tube. This meant that I wasn’t maximizing the image to sensor size at MFD. But turned up about a 16MP image.

Tried the macro extension tubes and wasn’t able to get a sharp image across the field. In general the macro extension tubes make the edges soft.

Instead of this I got a vintage 55mm macro able to go 1:1. Been able to get very good results filling the sensor with the image and since the lens was designed for 35mm cameras, the projected part onto the APS-C sensor is sharp at f/8.