Fujifilm disappointed a lot of people when they discontinued Acros. However, Fuji Acros II is now available. Does it live up to its legacy?

Fujifilm Acros 100 was a legendary black and white film. It was loved for its fine grain, tonal renderings, near zero reciprocity failure, and more. Fuji discontinued the film and then later revived it as Acros 100 II. Here’s a look and my opinions of a roll of Acros II I recently used.

Fuji Acros 100 II, as good as its predecessor?

By most reports, Fuji Acros 100 II lives up to its namesake. Its rendering is nearly identical. It retains its impressive resistance to reciprocity failure. Also, it still delivers a nice, fine grain. My own experience with this first roll was quite good! I’m actually excited to get my hands on more of it in the future.

To give it a test, I took this roll of film on a hike and landscape photography trip to Lake Leatherwood near Eureka Springs. I used a Canon Elan 7 and either a Canon 28-105mm or a Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens for all of the photos in this article. I then developed the film in Cinestill DF96 and scanned it with a Plustek 8200I using Silverfast 9. These images have all been resized for web display.

Fuji Acros 100 II for landscape photography

Landscape photography is likely one of the most common uses for Fuji Acros. Its fine grain and versatile exposure latitude lend themselves well to this genre. On the day I took these photos, it was an earlier morning with heavy overcast and low cloud. The clouds and reflections on the lake were often quite bright and the foliage quite dark. I found that Acros handled these conditions very well.

Compared to the last roll of the original 35mm Fuji Acros 100 I used, these images are very similar in characteristic. I think they may be slightly more contrasty. However, that could partly be due to different developers. That said, I’m more than happy with these results. I wouldn’t hesitate to take Acros II on another landscape trip, and probably will do so.

Fuji Acros 100 II on the street

I’m not much of a street photographer and often approach street scenes like quick-fire landscape photos. I usually tend to take 400-speed film into town. However, 100 isn’t a bad choice in many conditions. So long as you don’t need fast shutter speeds to freeze motion, 100 ISO film should be up to the task. I’m actually even more impressed with the rendering I got from the Fuji Acros film once we moved into Eureka Springs and started taking photos in town.

While it doesn’t quite give the classic feel of a film like Ilford FP4, I really enjoy the look of these photos. The contrast is lovely. The tonality in the midtones is great. There really isn’t much to criticize about the film’s performance from this roll. On the full-size scans, it’s impressive how much detail was captured. In these city shots and in the landscapes, I’m able to happily grain peep these photos to my heart’s content.

Processing Acros II

Home processing Fuji Acros II was a breeze. As stated earlier, I developed it in Cinestill DF96 and scanned it with my trusty Plustek 8200i. Going by Cinestill’s recommended times at about 71 degrees F, the negatives came out perfectly fine. I was happy to see the film dried nice and flat as well. There’s little worse than a bowed or curled piece of film when it comes time to scan. Luckily, Acros didn’t disappoint me there. It scanned extremely well in the Plustek and was very easy to get great scans from.

Will Acros II be a regular film in your repertoire?

As much as I loved the images from this roll of film, I’m not sure if it will be a regular in my fridge. Fuji Acros 100 had a great rep for a reason, and the sequel actually lives up to the original. However, it’s quite a bit more expensive than other options. Fomapan has an extremely inexpensive 100 ISO black and white film. Kentmere is also a great budget option. In addition, my favorite low-speed black and white film is probably still Ilford FP4 Plus. All of these films cost less than Fujifilm’s offering.

Having said all of that, I think I’m highly likely to use Fuji Acros II again. Despite its higher cost, I do love the look of it. I need to try it in 120 format as well. However, it’s not going to replace FP4 as my standard slow black and white film. How about you? What’s your favorite black and white film? Have you been using Acros II a lot? Let me know in the comments!