Shooting Expired Fuji Acros 100
Recently I wrote a blog series on Kodak’s full range of black and white films, from the slow to very fast. Perhaps you have been wondering what the other major film manufacturer, Fujifilm, has to offer as competition. Sadly, the range is nowhere near as extensive, in fact there’s no range at all as they only produce a single variety, though one with a particularly special property – Fuji Acros 100 (II) (its full name is Fujifilm Neopan Acros). The original Acros is no longer available due to issues with sourcing raw materials and was discontinued in 2018. However, a new emulsion was released a year later in 2019 as Fuji Acros II with slight but minimal differences in its characteristics. More on the new variety in a future blog.
As this film stock was discontinued before I started shooting film, the only way I could shoot it was by purchasing expired film. Luckily by chance I stumbled upon a seller with multiple fridge-stored rolls, five of which I snapped up at a much lower price than fresh Acros II. Having only expired in 2018 and 2019, and with proper storage, they could be used without much issue though I did shoot many images at ISO 80 to give myself a little bit of leeway.
Being ISO 100, Acros is a fine-grained film similar to Kodak’s T-Max 100, and well suited to capturing high levels of detail. That special property it has? Well, unlike it’s Kodak or Ilford competitors, it has a big resistance to reciprocity failure, with no compensation required for exposures of two minutes or less and only +1/2 compensation for shots up to sixteen minutes. That is nothing short of incredible when many films require compensation after even a 1s exposure, and they can balloon out of control after a single minute. This makes it ideal for long exposure photography and has always had a strong following with pinhole camera enthusiasts.
Of the five rolls, I shot three of them alongside rolls of Portra 800 (120) on my trip to North Wales and the Peak District in the Autumn of last year. Being an often-gloomy time of year, having a film that could easily handle long exposures was ideal as I was often dealing with low light. Due to this I shot them in my Nikon F100 in the same way as I would with my Bronica, on a tripod and taking my time. If you want something for street photography, unless you live on the sunny streets of Barcelona, this isn’t it.
After a rather nerve wracking wait for the images from the developer after a series of postal delays before Christmas, I was excited to see what I had captured and whether the films characteristic resistance to reciprocity failure had held up despite being a bit old. I needn’t have worried as they all came out properly exposed with the high levels of detail you would expect with an ISO 100 film.
Something else I have talked about in the past is my expectations over contrast with black and white film and one of the reasons I was so keen to shoot Acros is that what it produced with deep blacks was more in line with my vision. It held true when I saw my images and it is good to have found a film that I really liked straight away. Thankfully it lives on as Acros II, though much like its Kodak competitor, it ranks among the most expensive black and white film you can buy. There also seems to be perishingly low UK stock at the moment which is ironic seeing as it is now made in the UK and not Japan. Hopefully that will change later this year.
What do you think of Fuji Acros? Is this a film stock you have used extensively in the past? If not, are you tempted to buy the new Acros II? Let me know in the comments down below.
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