Shooting Fujifilm Acros II (120)
A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog talking about my experiences shooting expired Fuji (Neopan) Acros 100 (35mm), a popular film stock that was discontinued in 2018 due to difficulties sourcing raw materials. Thankfully a year later in 2019 Fuji announced a new version, Acros II, which was to be released in partnership with long time black & white film producer Ilford, making it in the UK and not Japan. The latter fact made people a bit suspicious that it would just be a rebadged film stock rather than being true to the original Acros, thankfully these fears did not come true.
What made the original Acros so special is not just it’s very fine grain, but its ability to resist reciprocity failure. It did not require any compensation for exposures up to two minutes which is, as far as I know, completely unparalleled. For comparison a film with good reciprocity characteristics would need compensation after ten seconds, and many of Ilford’s black and white films require it after just one second. This unique ability remained the case for Acros II and it makes it the easiest film to use when doing long exposure photography. In fact, I got so used to this that I had to be extra mindful of reciprocity failure when I began shooting something else.
Needless to say, I very much enjoyed shooting Acros II and it is by far my favourite black & white film stock to shoot with. With its high levels of fidelity, strong contrast and its ease of handling long exposures, it works well for whatever you shoot. So long as it doesn’t move too quickly. Being only ISO 100 it’s not as versatile for something like street photography than say Ilford HP5, but it suits the slower and more considered shooting of my Bronica SQ-A in any case.
From what I’ve seen my other photographers, Acros II has slightly more contrast and therefore less shadow detail than the original emulsion, but I’ve not been able to see a significant difference myself. Though I of course did not shoot them side-by-side and I’ve lightly edited the images in post-production to give them a bit more pop. For me there’s just something about shooting monochrome at night that works so much better than the look you get on a digital image. There’s just that bit more atmosphere I feel, and this film stock is perfect for that.
The only real downside is that it is rather expensive at around £12-13 per roll (at the time of writing this, prices seem to be going up all the time). To be fair this is actually cheaper than Kodak’s offerings (since their own hefty price rises in January), but it is double the price of Ilford’s Pan F 50 and Delta 100. Though the way I see it, it is well worth the money for what it provides. It’s one I will continue to use going forward and one I highly recommend to anyone who hasn’t yet tried it.
If you enjoyed this blog then please consider leaving a tip below.