Fujifilm Neopan Acros 100II H+D curves in replenished XTOL with a JOBO

Adrian Bacon

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For reference, and if anybody wants to discuss.

I've made these exposures as carefully as I could and eliminated as many variables as I realistically could. While it is not scientific, and certainly not up to ISO or probably manufacturer standards, it is as accurate as I can make it with what I have available to me, and certainly accurate enough that I thought it would be share-worthy.

Each of the curves is from film base plus fog up to a correctly exposed 18 percent grey card in full stop increments using a studio strobe, and transmission rated lens set to infinity focus. The strobe was incident metered to 1/10 stop and varies less than +- 0.1 stops shot to shot. The intensity of the light to the film plane was controlled with the lens aperture, so once the strobe power was set, it did not change for the duration of the exposures. The 18 percent grey card filled the frame so there shouldn't be any flare.

The densities were measured with an X-Rite Densitometer.

I have 6 rolls left and am reserving 1 or 2 rolls for sample photos. If anybody wants to see anything specific, say so and I'll do what I can to generate it and post it.

 

DREW WILEY

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That looks about what I get in tray or hand-inversion drum results with other developers, so seems quite realistic.
 
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Adrian Bacon

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DREW WILEY said:
That looks about what I get in tray or hand-inversion drum results with other developers, so seems quite realistic.
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yep. EI 64 at 5 minutes at 24C is pretty much bang on for zone contrast. I’m planning to do a run at EI 80:at 7:30, as that should be just about right for ISO contrast. The EI 100 at 7:30 puts zone 1 at 0.05 density, so it’s not quite in range to call it a 0.1 density, and pushing it to 10 minutes got it to 0.06. I think it’s between 80 and 100 in terms of ISO.
 

DREW WILEY

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I usually shoot it at 50, but that habit began in relation to high altitude use where contrast level can be especially high.
 
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Adrian Bacon

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Here's EI 80 at 7:30, the full exposure range. Zone 1 landed at 0.08. A difference of 0.02 is easily inside the margin of error with my setup, so I'm good with calling Acros 100II an 80 speed film with replenished XTOL in a JOBO. At ISO contrast, you can basically shoot it at 160 and still have reasonable shadows.

 
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ic-racer

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I might be misunderstanding, but it looks to me the circle here is Exposure Index 160, assuming the approximate 0.1 log d point is 80. I don't see how any shadow would be imaged on the curve there.
 
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Adrian Bacon

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ic-racer said:
I might be misunderstanding, but it looks to me the circle here is Exposure Index 160, assuming the approximate 0.1 log d point is 80. I don't see how any shadow would be imaged on the curve there. View attachment 244384
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Well, I said reasonable shadows, not perfect shadows. There’s a third of a stop of density until film base plus fog. The next step over to the left from the speed point recorded 0.02 density, and the next step beyond that recorded 0.01. In that third stop of density you’ll be recording very low contrast shadows.

If I shot it at 160, what I’d typically do is place the new lower density middle grey at 0.18, then stretch the contrast so that there was still 4 stops between it and the speed point (instead of three stops), then still put the film base plus fog a stop below that (stretching the third stop of density between the speed point and FB out to a full stop of density) for a total of 5 stops between middle grey and film base plus fog.

that’s if it was scanned. If you are going to wet print it, that is also pretty straight forward if doing a split grade print as you’d basically be punching in your blacks with grade 5 or maximum contrast, which would have a similar effect of stretching out the contrast on the bottom half of the tone curve.

either way, 4 stops down is pretty dark, and if you punched in your film base plus fog until it was at max paper black, it’d be a lot less noticeable that there’s only 3 stops and some change in your shadows instead of 4 stops and some change.
 

DREW WILEY

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Acros is not realistic below Zone II. That's why I rate it at 50 in high contrast scenes. If you want to dig deeper into shadows, you need something like TMax. Just this morning I was sorting out some prints made from 8X10 Bergger 200 film - now that was really something, having a straight line all the way from 0 to 10 or higher, but way too grainy for small format use, just like Super-XX. Acros has a toe similar to FP4, and a real-world similar speed; but it can't be developed to the same degree of gamma. But gosh, it can deliver beautiful results with the right subject matter. This morning I was also sorting out a quantity of mounted 16X20 evening forest and stream shots taken with Acros and my 6x9 RF - the detail for such a tiny format is amazing.
 
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Adrian Bacon

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It’s not my primary emulsion, so I’ll take your word for it, though what I described above does result in reasonably passable images for most emulsions if you’ve got some under exposure happening. It’s better to give it more exposure, but if you don’t, you can still get reasonable results. Again, going back to most film I process tends to be under exposed and you have to try to make it look reasonable despite the fact that whoever shot it under exposed it.
 

DREW WILEY

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Again, like FP4, it's a relatively forgiving film. But I like good deep shadow gradation, so almost never use box speed for b&w films with the exception of TMax products. If it's a modest contrast situation, that's a different story. Speaking of which, the forecast was for a minor heat wave inland beginning today, which has sucked the fog right in here, and caused a cool afternoon with our predictable natural softbox lighting. Ideal Acros weather.
 

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Hi, Adrian, thank you for your effort. I wanna ask you if you consider 1+1 xtol could be similar to this charts with acros. Thank you again
 
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Adrian Bacon

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foen said:
Hi, Adrian, thank you for your effort. I wanna ask you if you consider 1+1 xtol could be similar to this charts with acros. Thank you again
Click to expand...

if you ran it in a jobo, probably, though the time would be different. In a small tank, not likely as the curve would probably be a little straighter and not have the slight uptick in the highlights because you wouldn’t have as much agitation. The dev time would be different as you’d likely be doing it at 20C vs 24C if doing a small tank.

I don’t recall seeing an XTOL 1+1 time in the data sheet, so either way, it’d be subject to running some tests to work out a time if diluting.
 
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