Fujifilm 4x5" Neopan Acros 100 Black and White Negative Film (10 Sheets)

Comments about Fujifilm 4x5" Neopan Acros 100 Black and White Negative Film (10 Sheets):

Very sharp, with low grain. Has no reciprocity failure out to several minutes, making it easy to use without any lookup tables for most shots.

The only issue I have is like all of Fuji's 4x5 negative films it has a small hole in one corner, which sometimes intrudes into the image area depending on your film holders.

Comments about Fujifilm 4x5" Neopan Acros 100 Black and White Negative Film (10 Sheets):

This film has the reciprocity range up to 2 minutes! That is great for landscape and low light photography. Also it is very sharp and grain less, specially when developed in PMK or Pyrocat.

Comments about Fujifilm 4x5" Neopan Acros 100 Black and White Negative Film (10 Sheets):

I used this for fashion and portraiture in mostly soft natural light. The skin tones were perfectly smooth.

Comments about Fujifilm 4x5" Neopan Acros 100 Black and White Negative Film (10 Sheets):

I bought this film for my son to get into large format photography it is a good start without buying bulk product.

Comments about Fujifilm 4x5" Neopan Acros 100 Black and White Negative Film (10 Sheets):

A beautiful film. Super fine grain.

Comments about Fujifilm 4x5" Neopan Acros 100 Black and White Negative Film (10 Sheets):

So far i have yet to see the prints but I am in awe of the amount of detail in the negative.

This is the first film I have used with this format and can't compare to anything else.

It is easy to load, with the 3 little notches in the corner.

This is a great value in price when considering you don't have to pay for 50 sheets since i also considered the Kodak.

Comments about Fujifilm 4x5" Neopan Acros 100 Black and White Negative Film (10 Sheets):

First try at 4x5 film, turned out good, so must be a good product.

Comments about Fujifilm 4x5" Neopan Acros 100 Black and White Negative Film (10 Sheets):

It doesn't get any better than this! The most amazing tonal range, clarity that's indescribable when the light is right, easy to expose and hand develop...its even beautiful in D-76 (my standard), it has luminescent characteristics, I tend to shoot at the rated ISO, then overdevelop by 1/2 - full stop...works for me! Just buy it!

Comments about Fujifilm 4x5" Neopan Acros 100 Black and White Negative Film (10 Sheets):

This is the best Black and White film that I know of, that is being manufactured today. You should use it to make sure that it stays in production.
I have only had a professional lab process this film, its grain and sharpness is almost as good as the old Kodak Panatomic X film was, when processed in Agfa Rodinal,1 to 100. Sorry that is the only way I processed that old film years ago, I have no other negatives to compare it to. But I did have some of those old negatives scanned on a Imacon Scanner and I did compare them to scans of Acros.
Acros has beautiful skin tone reproduction.
I have use it with a dark yellow filter for darkening the sky, seems to be a little more than 2 stops closer to 2 1/2.
I truly like this film as a portrait film, I am also using this for landscapes in my 4 X 5 inch camera.
Most of the portraits that I have done with this film are 6 X 6, 120.

Comments about Fujifilm 4x5" Neopan Acros 100 Black and White Negative Film (10 Sheets):

Up until recently Acros Neopan 100 4x5 sheet film has been hard to find in the United States.
Photographers like me who work in fine art and portraiture have long awaited this remarkable film arrival.

In this review I will make mention of this film's characteristic qualities and ways to maximize excellent processing results.
All constituents that are mentioned are available at B&H Photo.

I enjoy working with Acros 100 because of its outstanding fine grain characteristics, and
the ability to achieve excellent tonal separation with convincing detailed blacks. I particularly love its smooth tonal response in Zone 6 to 7 which really makes it great for portraiture and glamour.
It's resistance to reciprocity failure makes this film hands down the fastest sheet film available during very long exposures such as nighttime photography.
I find that this film works extremely well with most all developers, but I find its use in pyro-based film developer formulas to work very well. I have also used it with admirable results in amidol water-bath, simple D-23 two-bath, and in Rodinal and ID-11
(D-76 variants). Photographer's Formulary products are outstanding in quality and provide a wide-range of great formulas from PMK Pyro, Wimberley's WD2D+, ABC Pyro formulas.

Here's what I like to do with this film; use this ultra simple formula for tremendous results. It is ultra economical and only uses one developing agent with one constituent. Pyro-TEA (triethanolamine)— Patrick Gainer formulation. For none staining use I'll provide a wonderful D-23 variant called Thornton Two-Bath. (provided by the late Barry Thornton of the UK) Processing with each of these formulas I give extra exposure with a base EI 50 rating. Don't worry it is hard to blow out highlight values with use of these formulas and skilled use can achieve great tonal scale. (B&H—Photographer's Formulary Bulk Chemistry)

Pyro-TEA
1:50
20ºC
8 minutes (adjust for desired curve density) I use this time for an Omega D2V condenser head enlarger and silver gelatin printing.
Normal agitation (tray processing very slow but constant agitation) is my method.
Triethanolamine 100 ml
Pyrogallic Acid 7 grams
(This is it—a staining/tanning developer that is as simple as D-23 with metol and sodium sulfite)
Mix by carefully heating Triethanolamine liquid in microwave or double boiler or oven. I heat my solution in a glass beaker in the microwave for a total of about 60-90 seconds (boiling point is different with TEA than with water so be careful!!!). At about 30 seconds of heating I remove the beaker and carefully add the 7 grams of pyro and mix the slurry solution together. Then resume the heating in the microwave and about every 15 seconds stir until dissolved. You may need to heat your solution a little longer or less than I do, but don't get carried away with this. Patient stirring will result in a fully dissolved solution. Once dissolved, stop heating immediately and then cool your solution & beaker in a cool (but not too cold) sink of water. The solution responds fast to temperature change and also gels up when stored much under 68ºF in a stock solution. Heat will quickly restore its fluidity. When stock solution is cooled, transfer this to a glass or quality storage bottle. This organic solvent developer in stock solution is practically inactive until water is added. Pyro-TEA can be stored as a stock solution for years with no concern whatsoever. Patrick Gainer has many other formulas and Sandy King provides some good alternative developers using organic solvent formulations. (see forums like AZO and APUG) I just happen to really like the look of the Pyro-TEA which provides me with similar tonality beauty of ABC Pyro and without nearly the fuss or expense. There will be some speed loss with this formula but surprisingly similar to PMK. YOU BE THE JUDGE!

Also here is a wonderful D-23 variant formula.
Thornton Two-Bath
Bath A: 750 ml of distilled water
Room temperature will dissolve all constituents with some patience, but warm as necessary to about 95ºF if you must.
Metol 6.25 grams
Sodium Sulfite, anhy. 85 grams
Water to make 1 Liter of stock solution and store in good quality bottle.

Bath B: 750 ml of distilled water
Add
Sodium Metaborate 12 grams
Mix until dissolved don't bother heating this it will dissolve very quickly.
Water to make 1 Liter of stock solution.

I develop between 20º-24ºC with not much difference in the final density. In Bath A agitate for about the first 30 seconds then followed by minimal agitation several times per minute or 30 second intervals. One does not actually need to agitate at all but some agitation is recommended during its short time in Bath A. Process for 4-5 minutes in Bath A. Then (do not rinse) pour off and save Bath A (if desired—good for several sessions) and transfer to Bath B for about the same amount of development time.

In Bath B development will take place until exhaustion, so very minimal agitation or even no agitation is possible. I will usually agitate initially for about 15 seconds. Then about 2-3 agitations at about the 2 minute mark will do. Around 4 to 5 minutes pour back Bath B into your storage container. It can be used again 3-5 times but because its so cheap, I just throw it out when done. At this point film development is done, transfer to a water bath, then to your normal fixing method (recommend Formulary TF-4) with final rinsing for archival processing method.

Hope my comments and instruction help. Also, I wanted to mention that I HIGHLY recommend Steve Anchell's new book The Darkroom Cookbook (third edition). It has many new formulary recipes and is well worth your read. A section of this book is devoted to the discussion of organic solvent developers and of course pyro formulations and processing practices.

—Mark Booth