60mm bokeh samples - Very pleased

iSilentP · January 5, 2016

Just received my new Fuji 60mm Macro Lens and these is how good the bokeh is http://www.buckeyephotography.com/FUJIFILM-X/20160104-FUJINON-LENS/i-mvsWP88

Make sure to see the last two which are animated GIFs that show the progression through the various focus planes automatically. Can't wait to take it out on the field.

January 5, 2016

Hi iSilentP,

Take a look here 60mm bokeh samples - Very pleased. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!

darknj · January 5, 2016

Once you are able to workaround the slower AF speed, the lens becomes really nice to use, even on MF.

Just mind the last 2-3 cm of close focus, the MF gets suddenly very very long to focus and AF speed also take a super dip in speed.

I tend to prefer the bokeh of the 60mm than the 56mm. Also ordered recently an m42 Hellios 44-2 56mm F2.

iSilentP · January 5, 2016

It arrived last night so the only images I was able to get was in my office. I did notice the excessively long (many, many revolutions) of the focus ring to get the right focus in manual mode as I moved closer to the subject. That felt a bit strange, but nothing to complain about unless one needs to acquire focus pretty quickly in manual mode. Good luck with the Helios.

milandro · January 5, 2016

the lens has great performance and of course the image rendering at full aperture ( what’s now known as “ bokeh”) is very much heightened at close distance.

The Helios is also very interesting for its swirly rendition of mostly the highlights, not so noticeable if the picture hasn’t got those. I have one too

darknj · January 5, 2016

[...] I have one too

You were pretty much the one who got me interested at looking at them in the first place. I wouldn't have thought to use old m42 lenses on modern camera :]

milandro · January 5, 2016

happy to have been of service to you.

It’s harmless cheap fun to use them I still have to use the tilt adapter for a serious project though.

darknj · January 5, 2016

Oh I do plan to do that, following the tracking, it should be there by the 12th of Jan.

So just a week away before I learn some MF skills for portraits. If it works well, I will bring it to a wedding event where I would be the second photographer. Trying to branch out from my regular things.

milandro · January 5, 2016

You bought it far away?

These are very common secondhand in the NL and would have taken just two or three days.

darknj · January 5, 2016

While living in Belgium, my dutch is pretty much non existent... So I was not able to tap into the neighbor country and had one shipped from Ukraine.

It has a bit of oil on the aperture blades but the price was around 27€ including shipping.

milandro · January 5, 2016

well, that’s a fair price.

I bought my first recent one locally some time ago, that too was a copy with oil on the aperture blades ( I gather this is a common “ fault”) , for more or less the same price that you paid, but that copy I sold it in order to buy a newer multi coated version (with not as many blades but the amount of blades is irrelevant when you use this lens fully open which maximizes the swirl effect).

Most Dutchies would speak English so, no worries. In case, alongside the English, your other language is French, there are other possibilities like this classified Belgian site

Such as http://www.2ememain.be

darknj · January 5, 2016

Went there, most of the time it's just really bad stuff and every single time I went to search something, there was no hit.

evilBay is maybe evil, but at least it searches quite far and wide if I need to.

milandro · January 5, 2016

I do a fair bit of buying and selling on Marktplaats in the NL, very large marketplace.

Ebay.nl is the owner of Marktplaats but ebay.nl has almost nothing ( marktplaats is free and we are thrifty over here ).

milandro · January 14, 2016

Also ordered recently an m42 Hellios 44-2 56mm F2.

@darknj did you receive your Helios?How do you like it? True these are the dark days and the weather has been horrible lately, so, not the most conducive atmosphere to testing lenses.

darknj · January 14, 2016

Yep got it yesterday and have been having fun with it mostly indoor. I was able to use on a small assignment for a company that wanted some pictures for their intranet.

Please allow me to thank you again for this lens, so far I am having a great time with it!

The f-stop markings are reversed for some reason but coupled with the X-T1 it is simply great to shoot.

On a more technical aspect, I have the feeling the lens is actually more than a F2 lens, my pictures are a lot brighter than they should be and the ISO isn't as high as expected.

Could be just me that is seeing things that not supposed to be. Also haven't got the chance yet to run the raw files into Lightroom yet. Planing to do it later this evening. I will post a small gallery of the pictures on Flickr.

milandro · January 14, 2016

cheers, have fun!

I not sure that I understand what you mean by “ reversed stop marks”.

If I am not mistaken, yours is like the one that I used to have, the 44-2 should look like this

109881d1322079953-helios-44-f2-problem-imgp4961.jpg

If it doesn’t maybe someone opened the lens to clean it or oil it and then put the ring the wrong way up?

I don’t even know if this is possible.

This is a video on how to open and service the lens.

@https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=001Nt6tl-UY

The top is the one where you preset the aperture and then the other ring allows you to open to maximum aperture and then you close it to the value that you have chosen in the preset.

If you fail to do turn that and you have chosen 4 but then you forget to actually close it to the preset value you are shooting at maximum aperture.

As for the aperture value differing from the one of a more modern lens. I am not sure.

My experience is that the automatic exposure of a camera tends to be thrown slightly off when you use manual, adapted, lenses and it can go either way, up, or down.

darknj · January 14, 2016

cheers, have fun!

I not sure that I understand what you mean by “ reversed stop marks”.

If I am not mistaken, yours is like the one that I used to have, the 44-2 should look like this

109881d1322079953-helios-44-f2-problem-imgp4961.jpg

[...]

Yep, that's the one, but somehow my diaphragm ring is fully open when the red dot in on 16 and close all the way down when it goes to 2. A bit weird but I can get used to that.

The Auto ISO is indeed a bit unbalanced, I am getting some either very dark or too light shots even if the balance on the EVF was the correct one. Uploading my tests shots as I write these lines, had a few on my cats along a couple of bokeh one and took it out for a bit of fun and took it for that small assignment. I got an agreement to display one picture as long as we can not recognize the place.

Anyway, the album is here:

https://flic.kr/s/aHskpj4iRm

A couple of highlights:

Really like the bokeh on that lens, it's quite pleasing.

Subject isolation works very well too.

Rather impressive sharpness, focus was on the left eye.

milandro · January 15, 2016

I am not sure why this behavior but I am thinking that it might have to do with the aperture not reaching the correct preset value ( but then again, if you always shoot fully open and you preset your preset at f2 the second ring shouldn’t move anyway).

Anyway well done. Enjoy.

milandro · January 15, 2016

Ok a few examples to make comparisons the balcony balustrade is harp the left side, on the lichens patch, closest to the camera.