Oly 60mm f2.8 macro focus limiting

Another quirk of this curious lens is the default focus position for each of the focus ranges:
Closest range 190-400mm: The default is somewhere in that rage. Makes sense.
Full range 190mm-infinity: The default is infinity.
Far range 400mm-infinity: The default is close to 400mm.

It's curious that the Full range defaults to infinity but the Far range defaults to the closest end of its range?  Just curious if there is a purpose in this or just a quirk of the system? It's no biggy, just curious.

BobT3218 wrote:

Another quirk of this curious lens is the default focus position for each of the focus ranges:
Closest range 190-400mm: The default is somewhere in that rage. Makes sense.
Full range 190mm-infinity: The default is infinity.
Far range 400mm-infinity: The default is close to 400mm.

It's curious that the Full range defaults to infinity but the Far range defaults to the closest end of its range? Just curious if there is a purpose in this or just a quirk of the system? It's no biggy, just curious.

Try to beam yourself into the minds of Japanese engineers

The way I see it, it makes sense to have different defaults for full and far range. That way you can use one as infinity preset, the other for near preset.

Other than that, the far only range is IMO not very useful in practice. I guess it is only there, because it was easy and cheap to implement a position between near and full range.

cba_melbourne wrote:

BobT3218 wrote:

Another quirk of this curious lens is the default focus position for each of the focus ranges:
Closest range 190-400mm: The default is somewhere in that rage. Makes sense.
Full range 190mm-infinity: The default is infinity.
Far range 400mm-infinity: The default is close to 400mm.

It's curious that the Full range defaults to infinity but the Far range defaults to the closest end of its range? Just curious if there is a purpose in this or just a quirk of the system? It's no biggy, just curious.

Try to beam yourself into the minds of Japanese engineers

The way I see it, it makes sense to have different defaults for full and far range. That way you can use one as infinity preset, the other for near preset.

Other than that, the far only range is IMO not very useful in practice. I guess it is only there, because it was easy and cheap to implement a position between near and full range.

I think the engineers just got headaches contemplating half of infinity and gave up.

I only wish the two ranges overlapped a bit. At .4m you're forced to use .19m-inf

Bassam Guy wrote:

I think the engineers just got headaches contemplating half of infinity and gave up.

I only wish the two ranges overlapped a bit. At .4m you're forced to use .19m-inf

What would make some logical sense for fly-by-wire lenses in general, is that they defaulted to the hyperfocal distance for whatever aperture was set. Perhaps some do, I don't know.