Oly 60 macro - sharp where?

Adrian Harris wrote:

I received my Olympus 60mm macro last week.

A question regarding sharpness...

It is very sharp with close up subjects - as one would expect.

However - and I know it is not designed for this - when photographing subjects 40 metres/yards away it is only as good as my Panasonic 14-140 mk2.

I realise it needs to be optimised for macro subjects and hence distant subjects are not priority, but as a prime lens I had hoped it would be extremely sharp for far off subjects too.

I have sometimes used my 60mm macro as a short telephoto when I am out for macro shots and did not carry my preferred very sharp 35-100 F2.8. My experience is that when shot as a telephoto, the IQ is decent but not in the same league. That may be a bias for close-up photography, or it may just be that the lens does not reach the very good to excellent IQ range that the 12-40 and 35-100 reach.

So I am curious to find out if my copy is typical: Extremely sharp when subject close. Average sharp for distant subjects?

It is, though, a very good lens for macro - but it may be that when shooting macro one doesn't really evaluate images the same way as one would in shooting landscape. Still, it is capable of giving detail to tiny hairs on a plant for example. It is good enough for me to use the lens for identification of vascular plants based on hair details, and of the shape and size of teeth of certain mosses, also for identification purposes. For me, the 60mm lens meets my expectations.

cba_melbourne wrote:

I see. Makes perfect sense now. Thanks for putting me right , I learned something today.

That's one of the things that makes it worth wading through DPR - we all get to learn things from each other along the way.  I know for me sometimes it even takes seeing the same thing a few times over the years before it finally clicks and I actually get it.

This is an interesting subject. I do not have the O60mm, but I do have the P30mm and I use it often for a walkabout 'single lens' solution when I think there is a chance of an insect or two.

Looking through the images I have taken with the lens, I've found no complaints regarding focusing issues at distance for the P30mm. I wonder if the difference in construction is the factor? My lens seems quite sharp, certainly sharp enough for me, but I wonder it it meets others' requirements. Here's one example....

Traditionally macro lenses from Olympus has been optimised for a focusing distance where the subject is rendered 1:10 on the sensor, whereas other lenses normally has been optimized for infinity. An exception was the 80 mm macro lens for the OM-system, (which needed to be mounted on a bellows), it was designed for an optical optimum at 1:1, hence very good for copying of film/slides.

If this is still correct for the 60 mm, I don't know.

But from this I would in general basically expect the quality of the image from a long distance shot with a macro lens to be roughly comparable to an image shot with a non-macro lens at minimum focusing distance - they could in both cases be expected to work at the limit of what is acceptable optical quality, (which means that making the focusing distance even shorter than minimum focusing distance would result in unacceptable images quality - longer than infinity is not neede to make any spesial fuzz about ....).

DrHook59 wrote:

This is an interesting subject. I do not have the O60mm, but I do have the P30mm and I use it often for a walkabout 'single lens' solution when I think there is a chance of an insect or two.

Looking through the images I have taken with the lens, I've found no complaints regarding focusing issues at distance for the P30mm. I wonder if the difference in construction is the factor? My lens seems quite sharp, certainly sharp enough for me, but I wonder it it meets others' requirements. Here's one example....

Thank you for posting an example. On cursory inspection the edges look sharp, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of texture showing in the stonework, I am assuming this may be a compressed JPG. Or possibly its just me expecting to much from my lens?

Adrian Harris wrote:

Thank you for posting an example. On cursory inspection the edges look sharp, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of texture showing in the stonework, I am assuming this may be a compressed JPG. Or possibly its just me expecting to much from my lens?

I'm not sure how to load photos on here that are original size, Adrian, so not sure what version has popped up here. I can send you the original if it helps, just let me know in a PM how to do it.

Do you visit the m4/3 site at all? There is a showcase thread there with a couple of hundred pages of images from the O60mm. There are several recent landscape photos, too. You can find it here .

HTH

DrHook59 wrote:

Adrian Harris wrote:

Thank you for posting an example. On cursory inspection the edges look sharp, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of texture showing in the stonework, I am assuming this may be a compressed JPG. Or possibly its just me expecting to much from my lens?

I'm not sure how to load photos on here that are original size, Adrian, so not sure what version has popped up here. I can send you the original if it helps, just let me know in a PM how to do it.

Do you visit the m4/3 site at all? There is a showcase thread there with a couple of hundred pages of images from the O60mm. There are several recent landscape photos, too. You can find it here .

HTH

Thank you for your offer DrHook. I shall do a few tests myself tomorrow to check properly how my lens is performing and report back if I still have doubts.

strawbale wrote:

from last Monday's https://www.dpreview.com/opinion/7031211310/roger-cicala-field-curvature-pt-2:

" It’s most common in lenses that allow close focusing, like macro lenses (most macros have flat fields at macro distances, curving fields at normal distances" (Field Curvature Variation paragraph)

Unfortunately that link no longer works.

Guy Parsons wrote:

Funnily enough back in my Nikon film days the Nikkor 60mm macro lens had the "not so good at distance" reputation. I had one and yes it seemed to be true, sold it and bought their 105/2.8 macro for other reasons, eventually sold that too as I wasn't using it enough anyway.

So back to Olympus, that seems like a gentle challenge to do some distance shots with macro lenses and regular lenses and see what happens. In my case it would be...

• 60mm macro vs 35-100/2.8 at 60mm
• 4/3 50mm macro vs 35-100/2.8 at 50mm
• 4/3 35mm macro vs 35-100/2.8 and 12-40/2.8 at 35mm

Don't wait up as that will take some time to organise.

Thanks Guy. I am looking forward to this.

I have heard good things about the Olympus 30mm f/2.8 macro at normal focusing distances. I bought one on sale for $99.00 to duplicate slides but have not used if for anything other than macro.  Does anybody have any experience with that lens as say, a portrait lens?

Tedolph

Valdai21 wrote:

tedolf wrote:

Guy Parsons wrote:

Funnily enough back in my Nikon film days the Nikkor 60mm macro lens had the "not so good at distance" reputation. I had one and yes it seemed to be true, sold it and bought their 105/2.8 macro for other reasons, eventually sold that too as I wasn't using it enough anyway.

So back to Olympus, that seems like a gentle challenge to do some distance shots with macro lenses and regular lenses and see what happens. In my case it would be...

• 60mm macro vs 35-100/2.8 at 60mm
• 4/3 50mm macro vs 35-100/2.8 at 50mm
• 4/3 35mm macro vs 35-100/2.8 and 12-40/2.8 at 35mm

Don't wait up as that will take some time to organise.

Thanks Guy. I am looking forward to this.

I have heard good things about the Olympus 30mm f/2.8 macro at normal focusing distances. I bought one on sale for $99.00 to duplicate slides but have not used if for anything other than macro. Does anybody have any experience with that lens as say, a portrait lens?

Tedolph

Olympus 30mm 3.5 macro is very sharp at all distances in my experience. Very good landscape lens too.

Thanks for letting me know. I bought it for slide/negative duplication when it was on sale for $99.00.  Now I will consider it for other uses.

Still trying to figure out a jig for duplicating APS film negatives!

I don't think the 60mm has field curvature. With macro lenses, you should beware of autofocus accuracy at infinity.

I do most of my focusing manually.

Tedolph

When I buy a new lens, I ususally do a rough and ugly comparison with all the lenses I can get. I climb up a hill and take photos of the village I live in at several apertures. So the distance is near infinity.

My findings: near infintiy my sample of the 60mm is about as sharp as the Olympus f/4-5.6 40-150mm, but less sharp than the f/2.8 40-150 and the f/4 12-100. without direct comparisons I'd say it is as sharp as any Olympus pro lens from 0.4 - 10m.

BTW before I got the 12-100 I bought a PL 12-60 and found the sample very soft at 45mm in the outer 2/3(!) of the frame - very much inferior to the ancient Panasonic 14-45. So I sent it back and got the 12-100.

So perhaps you should try to get a better sample.

Peter

eques wrote:

When I buy a new lens, I ususally do a rough and ugly comparison with all the lenses I can get. I climb up a hill and take photos of the village I live in at several apertures. So the distance is near infinity.

My findings: near infintiy my sample of the 60mm is about as sharp as the Olympus f/4-5.6 40-150mm, but less sharp than the f/2.8 40-150 and the f/4 12-100. without direct comparisons I'd say it is as sharp as any Olympus pro lens from 0.4 - 10m.

BTW before I got the 12-100 I bought a PL 12-60 and found the sample very soft at 45mm in the outer 2/3(!) of the frame - very much inferior to the ancient Panasonic 14-45. So I sent it back and got the 12-100.

So perhaps you should try to get a better sample.

Peter

Hi Peter, that's very good advice. I did in fact do something very similar in practical terms, except I tried it on two cameras, as I found in the past that apparent lens issue's can actually be the camera at fault!

Although my copy of the 60 macro appears a touch soft in the bottom left corner, other than that it is very sharp. And for all intents and purposes in all practical working situations where I am likely to use it it is really good throughout.

I only bought it for macro work, so my expected use will be close subjects and f settings preferably between f4 and f9 where it should be working at its optimum.

For other subjects the focus system is far too slow to be of practical use for any of my other favoured forms of photography.

Adrian Harris wrote:

I received my Olympus 60mm macro last week.

A question regarding sharpness...

It is very sharp with close up subjects - as one would expect.

However - and I know it is not designed for this - when photographing subjects 40 metres/yards away it is only as good as my Panasonic 14-140 mk2.

I realise it needs to be optimised for macro subjects and hence distant subjects are not priority, but as a prime lens I had hoped it would be extremely sharp for far off subjects too.

So I am curious to find out if my copy is typical: Extremely sharp when subject close. Average sharp for distant subjects?

The sky was pretty clear yesterday when I took this picture from the end of the reflecting pool with the Lincoln memorial at my back - 3750 ft.

Judge for yourself but IQ is reduced by DPR.