Today I’m sharing my impressions on Pergear 60mm F2.8 lens in Fuji X mount (non affiliated link). The sample is provided by Pergear in April, and it is an early prototype. I also had time to shoot with it and chance to provide feedback on any discovered flaws few months ago, so hopefully they are fixed in a production line lens samples. I’ll mostly focus attention on generic mechanical and optical performance taking into account that it is not a perfect sample, but is good enough to get initial impressions.
First of all – looks like Pergear 60mm F2.8 lens has SLR based optical design, and due to that there is about 1 inch mount section that is basically a built-in adapter for Fuji X mount. When I look into rear area – last glass element is positioned quite far inside from the rear mount, so this lens can be produced for various mounts including popular DSLRs.
Second noticeable thing is the lens size. It is quite large and has noticeable weight as for 60mm lens, though all of that is a result of implementing 2:1 Macro focusing support. Pergear 60mm has compact optical formula when focused to infinity, and front element sits deep inside at that distance.
When you focus closer to 1:1 Macro range, whole front optical module is moving toward the lens front.
Finally at 2:1 Macro focusing distance the front optics is near the filter thread area.
It is interesting to see slightly curved built in “hood-plate” to cut out stray light. Perhaps it is not rectangular to help OOF area look more smooth. However there is also one more important reason to have that front plate – to hide very long aperture control pin located in left-up area of front chamber when looking from the front.
Before I continue about mechanical build details, here are few image samples taken with this Pergear 60mm F2.8 and Fuji X-T1 camera.
Pergear 60mm F2.8 lens has extremely smooth ant precise focusing with large and wide focusing ring. Though the focusing is great for macro and close up, but at far distance the focusing trow is just few degrees, so precisely focusing at far distance requires more patience and accurate ring moves.
Aperture ring does not have click stops, which makes the lens less expensive to produce, but is a feature that many photographers do not like, and I also prefer to have click stops. From the other side, the ring moves with noticeable effort and keeps its selected aperture value very well. It takes some time to get used that focus ring is located far and grabbing it instead of aperture ring when looking into viewfinder – that is my main complaint here, because aperture ring texture is same. Whac may help here is to add diamond-textured rubber ring on top of aperture ring, so it will be easier to recognize it by hand.
Speaking of overall build – Pergear 60mm F2.8 macro lens is constructed like a heavy armored tank – all metal with thick frame and moving parts. This prototype sample does not have protective glass in front area which I see in production sample pictures, and I was not able to unscrew the front nameplate to install internal filter glass, but filter thread allows to easily mount regular protective filter.
Also this prototype sample had slight offset to Fuji X mount red dot by about 5mm radially. I think that should be fixed on production samples already.
Few more pictures of distant scenes.
And now back to macro shots. All pictures in this article are taken handhold, which means there may be some minor motion blur. I have to admit that shooting at 2:1 Macro requires very bright light, steady hand and fast shutter speed. So I had to elevate ISO high very often, especially during rainy day. In many cases I had to hold front lens barrel near the target by putting hand on the surface and holding lens for extra point of support. Definitely good tripod with macro rails is required for elevated precision and image quality as a results. Pergear 60mm F2.8 is front heavy, so you also need a robust Fuji X body made of magnesium alloy – like X-Tx series (I think X-T10 – X-T30 may not hold this lens well in some cases for precise super-macro).
What I like a lot is the way this Pergear 60mm F2.8 is rendering OOF area – it is very nicely blurred with pleasantly soft and smooth details that brings that 3D perspective to the scene.
Conclusions
Pergear 60mm F2.8 2:1 Macro lens is quite good affordable option to be able to take extremely close macro shots if you learn how to properly do it with noticeably large and heavy lens. There are more convenient but much more expensive alternatives on the market. Personally I like using this lens for taking extremely close-up pictures of lens disassembly, when it is put on a tripod and aperture is set to F8. Taking field outdoor macro pictures requires practice, tripod and perhaps extra artificial light for best results.
Focusing precision
When shooting at 2:1 Macro distance it is critical to have proper tripod and macro rails for best image results. Also such a close focusing distance has extremely shallow DOF that is less than 1mm deep, which makes it extremely difficult to get whole field in focus, and is very easy to get out of focus shot due to camera move when pressing the shutter button. With aperture F5.6 things are slightly easier with about 3mm DOF, though still very high accuracy of movement is required.
Below are few pictures of textile surface at 2:1 Macro. That fabric density is four rows in 1mm. First one is taken at F2.8
And following one – at F5.6
One more shots pair at F2.8 and F5.6
And below is a series of shots taken at different Macro modes. The object on the picture has length of 5.4cm or about 2inches.
1:2 Macro (F2.8 and F5.6)
1:1 Macro (F2.8 and F5.6)
2:1 Macro (F2.8 and F5.6)
So there are quite high technical challenges of precisely capturing object at 2:1 Macro. When it comes to a moving target you also need great light source for keeping ISO lower and increasing shutter speed. I personally didn’t have good success of capturing moving insects, especially when shooting without tripod. I think macro shooting experts can take much better pictures with this lens than me : ) Though I hope images in this article are representative enough what results can be obtained straight out of Fuji camera without any post-processing.
Comments
Post a Comment