Merry Christmas, RIP Acros

[helen.HH]

Fun, Thanks for that ...
Enjoyed watching the hunt, the framing, the final shot

Merry Christmas ~ H

 

[cz23]

I've watched the video a couple more times, and find myself more interested in your presentation than in Acros. I've seen a lot of these walkabout shooting videos and feel your technique and editing is among the best. It must have been a lot of work.

My only suggestion is that photographers don't spend so much time looking at the ground. I'd aim the camera up more to simulate the constant scanning that street shooters do when walking.

Really nice job, though. Thanks again for sharing it. And BTW, I also like your tumblr.

John

 

[j.scooter]

Thanks, nice video.
In which city these shots were made?

Toronto, Canada

 

[css9450]

Which developers did you use, Christopher?
I am asking because I have got normal results with good midtone separation and a linear characteristic curve (measured with a densitometer) with Adox Rodinal 1+74 and Ilford DD-X 1+4.

For how many minutes, I wonder? The reason I ask, is because the recommendations vary. Christopher's website recommends 11 minutes for Rodinal, his favorite developer for Acros. The Massive Dev Chart, which does sometimes contain errors, recommends 13.5 minutes. The now-discontinued Rera Pan 100, which is believed to be repackaged Acros, is supposedly 16.5 minutes. These are all for 1:50 dilution. For the record I find the film rather un-contrasty in normal daylight but the long-exposure night work I've done with it is beautiful.

 

[robert blu]

I never used Acros but enjoyed very much your video, well though and well done (as I commented on youtube as robert kurt).

It's always sad to see a film to disappear...

robert

 

[Kai-san]

I've shot Acros both in 135 and 120 format, but I was not particularly impressed. It got slightly better when I started exposing it at ISO 200 and developing it in Xtol 1+1 (see Massive Dev Chart). It increases the contrast, but it probably does not fix the issues that Christopher points out here.

Always sad to see films disappear, but if there's one Fuji B&W film I would have wanted to keep it's the Neopan 400.

 

[BLKRCAT]

I've watched the video a couple more times, and find myself more interested in your presentation than in Acros. I've seen a lot of these walkabout shooting videos and feel your technique and editing is among the best. It must have been a lot of work.

My only suggestion is that photographers don't spend so much time looking at the ground. I'd aim the camera up more to simulate the constant scanning that street shooters do when walking.

Really nice job, though. Thanks again for sharing it. And BTW, I also like your tumblr.

John

Thanks John, with every video I’m refining the format. It takes a bit of work and having to print everything now it adds time. But it’s worth it in the end.

The camera setup is actually a go pro adapted to the tripod socket and with the M5’s side mount the camera needs to be held up to get a steady straight shot.

Loses stealth a bit that way and also after time my wrist gets tired from holding the cameras up like that. Gotta find a better alternative. I’m thinking maybe a chest mount go pro combined with the camera mount one for future videos.

@argentia1 everything is all shot in Toronto as mentioned. It’s all I’ve got to work with right now but still makes for some nice opportunities 🙂

 

[GarageBoy]

For all you acros fans - what was your favorite conditions for shooting it? My favorite shots came from super high contrast midday sun, but those shots didn't have any midtones

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

For how many minutes, I wonder? The reason I ask, is because the recommendations vary. Christopher's website recommends 11 minutes for Rodinal, his favorite developer for Acros. The Massive Dev Chart, which does sometimes contain errors, recommends 13.5 minutes. The now-discontinued Rera Pan 100, which is believed to be repackaged Acros, is supposedly 16.5 minutes. These are all for 1:50 dilution. For the record I find the film rather un-contrasty in normal daylight but the long-exposure night work I've done with it is beautiful

Longer developing times put the highlight densities too high, making the film harder to print or scan. I agree with you on low-light work. Acros was wonderful for that.

This was a FIVE MINUTE exposure on Acros! It was so dark in there I could barely focus my Hasselblad. Developed in Rodinal 1+50.

 

[Penzes]

Hope you enjoy

I enjoyed a lot, thanks!

 

[fmfche]

Brilliant video! I really enjoy Toronto in summer. I was lucky enough to pick up 5 or 6 rolls of 35mm acros when I was there last.

 

[Ted Striker]

For all you acros fans - what was your favorite conditions for shooting it? My favorite shots came from super high contrast midday sun, but those shots didn't have any midtones

I have shot over 1200 rolls of Acros in the past 7 years. It was my go to film for any and all situations where an ISO 100 speed film could be used. It is an absolutely amazing film and I nearly gave up photography when it was discontinued. I was lucky and was able to buy $1500 worth of 120 size Acros so I'll be shooting for a few more years yet.

I passionately love that film and the results it gives.

 

[raid]

Thank you for the interesting "walk video" and the images too. The discussions posted here are very useful too.

 

[tunalegs]

Personally, love Acros, but only ever shot it in medium format.

I would develop and print with high contrast and it always looked how I wanted it to, in regards to that effect. I did order a couple of 5 packs when I heard it was probably next on the chopping block. I shoot B&W so infrequently these days that that will probably last me a couple of years.

 

[Guest]

Well I just got six boxes of Acros 120 roll film yesterday from B&H in a box of $420 of stuff. I used to use FP4 but got sick of the paper backing, it was leaving marks and ruined many images after 40 years of using it. I have a feeling that the humidity in the south here in the USA was the cause, I moved over here from the UK in 1990 and had no problems unto using it here. So I need to start reading up on my next choice...

 

[Ted Striker]

I used to use FP4 but got sick of the paper backing, it was leaving marks and ruined many images after 40 years of using it.

Never heard of this problem with FP4+.

 

[Noserider]

yeah I never came across that with FP4 perhaps it was older film and/or humidity post exposure.

As for Acros yes I had a good run wonderful film I used it from the very start when Fuji introduced it and a Fuji Rep gave me some sample rolls (remember when that happened at the local lab HA). I pushed the rep to pass on my thoughts and feelings that a 400 or even 800 ISO speed Acros is what I really really wanted as a (then) full time wedding photographer shooting 40-60 rolls of 35mm and 120 per wedding. I then could use a similar emulsion from bright mid-day portraits with lots of fill flash to the moderate light levels of the ceremony to the mixed ambient light of the reception. As it was staying within the Fuji "universe' of film emulsions during one wedding would often complicate the process further down the line; processing times and chemistry as well as printing times and contrast adjustments would often negate the use of Acros for just one segment of the wedding day.

It would often fall that I would take Ilford FP4 HP5 and Delta 3200 as a set up and then Kodak Plus-X and Tri-X and/or Tmax 100/400/3200 as another. Ilford FP4 seemed to make a nice match to Neopan 400 of which I used hundred of feet of.

I came to the conclusion that the Acros was just too different from Neopan 400 and 1600 for most of my shooting then. I did get into using Acros in 35mm with Leica M's and tripods at night for long exposure times mostly Rodinal 1;50.

With Aloha, Christiaan Phleger

 

[Freakscene]

I liked Acros for some purposes. I found it less picky about developer than it was about how it was developed, and found it generally looked better with more agitation and adjusting contrast by modifying development time. It also needed a lot of fixing - Fuji aren't kidding when they said it was a new silver iodide technology that facilitated a lot of the characteristics of Acros.

At EI 100 in Xtol 1+2 with continuous agitation.

In Xtol 1+3 (2 rolls in 1L) intermittent agitation

The most difficult thing about it was that it was so straight line it was hard to print it on most silver papers without a lot of work.

Marty

 

[BLKRCAT]

I could see it being very difficult to print. You have a very linear film and a very linear film.

I've been told that Xtol isn't a great developer for printing because of the way it handles the highlights. With Acros I could imagine it would be worse in the highlights but better in the midtones.

 

[Freakscene]

I could see it being very difficult to print. You have a very linear film and a very linear film.

I've been told that Xtol isn't a great developer for printing because of the way it handles the highlights. With Acros I could imagine it would be worse in the highlights but better in the midtones.

Xtol creates an S shaped curve, whereas most other developers crate an upswept curve.

This makes printing easier, not harder, because negative-positive media have inherently much higher highlight contrast than shadow contrast.

Papers aren't as straight line as you may think. Some papers formulated more recently, and with t-grain or epitaxial films in mind, have lower highlight contrast. Most older tech papers have moderate to high highlight contrast, although nothing made now has highlight contrast as high as the Ilford MG FB from before the "V" upgrade or the Forte and Efke/Fotochemika papers.

The difficulty with Acros is/was(?) that it was the closest to a straight line I have tested, and most papers rendered the highlights poorly. I printed it on lower highlight contrast paper, printing the highlights down somewhat, and used bleach to brighten and increase the highlight contrast. For something like this:

It was still harder to get right than for other films.

Marty