Disassembly – Fujinon XF 60mm F2.4 Macro - part I


Today I decided to clean one Fujinon XF 60mm F2.4 Macro lens. It had some water condensation traces on the one of inner glass surface. I was also curious to check how the first Fuji Macro lens is built. This article describes the process in details.





Disassembly steps

First traditional step should be removing the mount ring. To do so you need to unscrew three black bolts and four silver bolts on the mount ring. Then pull out black ring, release contacts and accurately remove mount ring.




Remove metal shim, and unscrew two black bolts holding rear body ring.



Remove rear body ring.



Remove two brass rings, and accurately detach four ribbon cables shown on the picture below. Keep lens contacts cable on place.



Unscrew three black bolts and remove the board.



Unscrew two black bolts holding rear lens glass frame.



Accurately pull out the glass frame. Now it can be cleaned from the inner side where I found few traces of water. I’m typically using microfiber cloth folded then wrapped into spiral and finally covered with carbon dust.




Primary job is done! Lens is now cleaned. It’s probably time to assemble everything back. Or not… I’ve also removed few more parts to see how the lens is built. So the next step is to unscrew two black bolts holding the autofocusing drive and gears.



Without the rear glass frame it is easy to remove autofocusing module.




Here is the look of the lens. Further disassembly requires more serious reason than cleaning, so I’ll stop at this point. I just tried to move focus gears manually to see how deep the lens goes inside.



And yes I also removed the aperture ring to check how the contacts look, and don’t forget to watch at tiny ball catching aperture stops.





This small drive inside is controlling lens aperture.



I  also decided to take a look at front optics. So unscrewed the front inner tube.



It was good idea, as I was able to clean some dust from the frame area near the dust sealing tape. It is interesting that Fuji are using six guiding metal poles for very precise movement of the inner lens core during focusing.



After manually moving focus gears the lens comes much closer.



It’s interesting to see that all bolts are covered with securing glue. There are also some springs I think Fuji are using during optical calibration.



Conclusions

Fujinon XF 60mm F2.4 Macro lens is an impressive device with numerous smart engineering solutions from Fujifilm. Most outer lens frame parts are made from lightweight metal alloy. Internals are made of durable plastic, and because of that lens is so light. It’s great to see numerous glue sealing in the lens which secures optics on place for stable alignment. I enjoyed this disassembly – it is relatively easy to access rear glass inner surface for cleaning, or to replace lens autofocusing module.


BTW, you may askg why my Fujinon XF 60mm F2.4 lens sample has unusual diamond shaped focus ring texture – that is simply extra rubber ring grip put on the top for more pleasant operation while focusing. 

Tinkering with photo equipment is my big hobby. It's often quite challenging to explore disassembly steps or designing new useful accessories, but also a joy to share them later with people. I keep these activities apart from primary work, though appreciating a small tips for a coffee if you find my shared results useful.