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Quick Test – Olympus 60mm f/2.8 Macro vs Fuji 60mm f/2.4 Macro

Posted on May 9, 2013May 9, 2013 by Jordan Steele

Contents

  • 1The Lenses
  • 2The Test

Last night I decided to do a quick test between the Olympus 60mm f/2.8 Macro on the OM-D and the Fuji 60mm f/2.4 Macro on the Fuji X-E1.  Both are the same focal length (but give a little different fields of view due to the different sensor sizes), similar in aperture and both are macro lenses.  This first test is simply testing central resolution at about 4 feet and at 1:2 macro.  Due to the fact that this was simply a quick test, I didn’t have the time to completely ensure that the camera was 100% square to the frame, so I didn’t want to compare edges on this shot (even though they do look in focus at the same spot).  I will be doing more extensive comparison between the two (and between the Fuji 60 and the Olympus 45mm) in the coming weeks, but for now, let’s take a look at center resolution.

The Lenses

Fujinon 60mm f/2.4 R Macro and Olympus 60mm f/2.8 Macro
Fujinon 60mm f/2.4 R Macro and Olympus 60mm f/2.8 Macro

The Fujinon 60mm f/2.4 R Macro is a solidly build lens made of metal, with a metal focus ring and metal aperture ring.  It’s solid as a rock and feels wonderful in the hand.  It uses a lens extension focus system, and focus is relatively slow, though not too bad when shooting at non-macro distances in good light.  The inner focusing barrel will extend during focusing, protruding about an inch when focused to 1:2 magnification, which is its maximum magnification.  While the lens doesn’t contain a focus limit switch, the camera’s ‘macro mode’ effectively acts as a sort of loose one, telling the lens where a subject is most likely to be in the focus range.  On the X-E1’s APS-C sensor, 1:2 magnification will fill the frame with an object approximately 47mm wide.

The Olympus 60mm f/2.8 Macro is also quite solidly built, but is made of high quality plastics.  It’s lighter, longer and skinnier than the Fuji 60mm, but utilizes an internal focus system, so the length of the lens never changes.  Autofocus is extremely fast and accurate, and the lens features a three-way limit switch for focusing, which also aids in speeding up focus for the type of shooting you’re doing.  The Olympus 60mm is capable of 1:1 magnification, which on a Micro 4/3 body, means that it can fill the frame with an object approximately 17mm wide.

The Test

For this quick test, I simply set up my tripod, square to my bookcase, and mounted the X-E1 with Fujinon 60mm Macro, with the autofocus point directly over the World Almanac. I reframed the shot with the OM-D and Olympus 60mm so that the framing was the same horizontally (I moved the tripod back so the framing was identical).  I took shots wide open, at f/3.5 (Fuji denotes this as f/3.6) and f/5.6, each with the two second timer to eliminate shake from the shutter press.  Due to the flat subject, the small depth of field differences between the formats should have no impact at all on this test.   This is the full frame of the mid-range test shot.  Focus distance was about 3-4 feet.

The mid-range setup.
The mid-range setup.

Below are 100% crops from each lens, taken wide open, at f/3.5(or f/3.6) and at f/5.6 at the focus point.  Click on the image to enlarge it, then click the green arrow at the bottom of the enlarged image to view at 100%.

Olympus 60mm vs Fuji 60mm - Mid-range shot, 100% crops.
Olympus 60mm vs Fuji 60mm – Mid-range shot, 100% crops.

When I look at the above, the Olympus looks to be slightly sharper wide open, though both lenses are obviously quite sharp with no spherical aberration (which can appear as a glow), high contrast and have good color.  At f/3.5 and f/5.6, it’s very hard to pick between them.

I then tested at macro distances, focusing manually on the crack seen in the crops below. I set the framing with the Fuji at minimum focus distance, then set the Olympus to the same framing.  This is at 1:2 magnification on the Fuji, and approximately 1:2.7 magnification on the Olympus, due to the same framing on the smaller sensor. This was taken at f/5.6, since super close macro work is very rarely done wide open (though both are quite good at wider apertures as well).

100% center crops, click to enlarge:

Olympus 60mm Macro vs Fuji 60mm Macro, 100% center crops at 1:2 magnification (Fuji)
Olympus 60mm Macro vs Fuji 60mm Macro, 100% center crops at 1:2 magnification (Fuji)

Again the Olympus proves to be sharper in this range.  The Fuji still performs quite well, but the Olympus is the class act here.  For center resolution, the Olympus 60mm looks to be the slightly sharper lens.  I’ll take a look at edge resolution, bokeh and more distant subjects in future tests.

As an aside, one area the Olympus does soundly beat the Fuji in is maximum magnification.  To compare the two, here is the Fuji at 1:2 (minimum focus distance), and the Olympus focused to its minimum focus distance at 1:1, to get an idea of how much closer you can get with the Olympus 60/OM-D combo:

Fuji 60mm f/2.4 @ 1:2 magnification
Fuji 60mm f/2.4 @ 1:2 magnification
Olympus 60mm f/2.8 @ 1:1 magnification
Olympus 60mm f/2.8 @ 1:1 magnification

 

 

11 thoughts on “Quick Test – Olympus 60mm f/2.8 Macro vs Fuji 60mm f/2.4 Macro”

  1. Jason Pang says:
    May 14, 2013 at 5:28 am

    Thanks for doing this comparison.

    Now I got poisoned to get the macro lens for my OMD.

    Reply
  2. Ron R says:
    May 14, 2013 at 6:24 am

    Are these JPEG images? If so, would the results then not be largely influenced by how much sharpening has been applied in the camera (even if sharpening has been set to zero)?

    Reply
    1. Jordan Steele says:
      May 14, 2013 at 6:45 am

      No, these are RAW images, processed in Lightroom 4.4.

      Reply
      1. MJr says:
        May 27, 2013 at 3:43 am

        We all know Lightroom doesn’t do well for detail/sharpness with x-trans at its default setting. 🙂

        Reply
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  4. Pingback: miXed zone: “When god was not there”, the enlight photoshow, lenses and more | Fuji Rumors
  5. bartolyni says:
    May 27, 2013 at 3:53 am

    Looks like there is faint misfocus with the fuji.

    Reply
  6. MJr says:
    May 28, 2013 at 3:53 am

    “Looks like”, but then that’s what x-trans in Lightroom at default settings always look like. 😛

    Keep in mind this is a VERY small crop, at 100% size this is like 0,01% of the 16MP you know.

    Reply
  7. ComPas-V says:
    June 2, 2013 at 5:34 pm

    I made the same test.
    Fuji really doesn’t look as sharp as Oly.
    However this is not the lens – it’s the sensor.
    Images from Tokina 90/2.5 on Fuji are less sharp then Tokina on OM-D.

    Reply
  8. Steve Solomon says:
    November 5, 2015 at 10:48 pm

    Jordan, thanks for the interesting comparison. As a Fujifilm XT-1 user, I am finding that I get quite sharp images with my copy of hte Fujinon 60 f/2.4 Macro. If interested, please see my Macro shots at totalqualityphoto[dot]com.
    That said, I’ve always wondered just how much sharper the Zeiss 50 Touit in XF Mount would be, and if it justifies the premium cost, since it wouldn’t use the LMO (Lens Modulation Optimizer) function of the Fuji system. Thank you again, sir!

    Reply
  9. Jessica says:
    July 6, 2016 at 5:19 pm

    Has anyone tried the Oly lens on a fuji body with an adapter? If so, how were the results/ ease of use? Thanks.

    Reply

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