Does anyone have any experience developing Fuji Acros (35mm) with DD-X, Ilfosol-S or Xtol? How does it look? Does anyone have a starting point for dev times with Ilfosol or DD-X? Neither the Massive Dev chart nor the Fuji datasheet list times for either of those developers.

I've been using Sprint Standard (D-76, basically) and I like it, but it's not covenient for me to get it. Also, I haven't really experimented with other developers, so I'd like to try some different things if it's worth it.

-- Alex Barnes (abarnes3@qwest.net), January 16, 2002

Answers

I've shot quite a bit of Acros, developing it in my own catechol developer. It's tonality is outstanding, with a slight flattening on the shoulder. In many ways its like TMX in terms of grain and sharpness, and like TMX, it can look diffuse if processed in a fine grain solvent type developer. I haven't tried it yet, but I would bet Acros would look great in Rodinal @ 1:50. It seems to me the two are a perfect match. Try using the same times you find for TMX. That should put you pretty close.

-- Ted Kaufman (writercrmp@aol.com), January 16, 2002.

Rated at EI 64 or 80 and developed in Xtol 1:1 for 9 to 9 1/2 minutes worked well for the 4 or 5 rolls I've done in it. The negatives also printed nicely when I developed them in PMK. This month's Shutterbug has a test report on Acros. I don't think the author was overly impressed. I just had a friend of mine do some speed tests on the film and he told me that he must have made a mistake - his tests indicated an EI of 32. A couple of days later I read the Shutterbug article and it seems he too calculated an EI of 32.

-- Bill Lester (wlester@lesterconstruction.com), January 16, 2002.

I didn't shoot a lot of Acros but I shot some rolls (120) and developed in Rodinal 1:50 and Perceptol 1:3 (rated 50-64 EI). It's really sharp; I believe it's sharper than TMX. But I don't think it's identical to TMX. It has less of high value separation and the tonal range is not that wide. I think it's something between a coventional 25 ISO film and T-grain straight curve film. I'll try shooting at EI 100 and develop in ID11 1:3 and my favourite DK-50 1:1. I guess I'll get better resluts.

-- Xosni (xosni@gega.net), January 16, 2002.

Compared to the fairly straight-line curve shape of most modern films Acros shows an upward sweep or, iow, has _increasing_ contrast higher up the curve. In practice this results in very brilliant highlights or unprintable highlights, depending on SBR and how you've developed the film to accomodate the SBR. Otoh if you have to burn in highlights they'll still be contrasty rather than muddy.

I haven't found any way to lessen that tendency; "split" D-23 gave essentially the same curve shape as ordinary developers.

Acros is somewhat slower than Delta 100 or TMX in comparable developers, ranging from EI 100 in D-76H 1:1 to EI 64 in Rodinal 1:100 and EI 50 in Beutler 105. I use .10DU above fb&f for Zone I for the speedpoint.

It's pretty much comparable to Delta 100 and TMX in apparent sharpness and graininess.

Spectral sensitivity appears to be normal.

One feature is that Fuji claims that no reciprocity-failure correction is needed out to 120 seconds. I haven't tested for that.

I see this film as perhaps being perfect for landscape and still-life in flat light, especially in large format in which long exposures are common.

I think it'll really want to be printed on a paper that compresses highlights such as Ilford MGIV RC and will be usable on a "normal" paper such as Ilford MGIV FB, but it'll have a tendency to render midtones and shadows darker than usual if you print to hold detail in the brightest highlights. I suspect the reason Fuji designed the film with its curve shape is that Fuji paper(s) may render highlights similar to Ilford RC.

So I consider Acros as being sort of a special-purpose film but I don't have any urge to replace Delta 100 or TMX with it in ordinary usage.

-- John Hicks (jhicks31@bellsouth.net), January 17, 2002.