Alternative to Acros 100

[SW Rick]

Yes, I'd seen that, but $100 a box for 20 sheets, plus shipping from Japan, is a bit much for me. This may be left-over stock; if it's not, that's why I thought of trying to get together a buying consortium and having someone like Badger, which imports Shen Hao, View Camera Store, etc. handle it if they could.

Saw on APUG a post from Scott Sheppard that he's going to have a Fuji person on his analog photo podcast "soon" and will raise the subject of 800Z and other related items.

[Turner Reich]

So if people are still willing to pay say 60 per box why would Fuji discontinue the product? Are they in talks with Kodak? Where is the logic here?

[percepts]

Thanks for the replies. Does anyone know a place in the UK that sells Acros 100 in non-Quickload 5x4 sheets? (I am struggling to find anywhere obvious on the internet). It all seems just Quickload from the places I am looking at (eg, Silverprint; FujiFilm Pro Film Shop; etc), but I daresay I could be looking at the wrong places. Thanks.

As far as I'm aware it has never been imported into the UK. There are various international sellers that do ship it such as the link already given.

[percepts]

So if people are still willing to pay say 60 per box why would Fuji discontinue the product? Are they in talks with Kodak? Where is the logic here?

The logic is in the profit margin which is affected greatly by the shipping and packing cost. Fuji UK have to order by the pallet from japan and the dealers have to order by some smaller size from a pallet. If enough dealers order enough from fuji UK then fuji UK will order a pallet from japan. That's how it works. From that you can read that that there are not enough dealers ordering enough to make it financially viable for fuji UK to order from Japan. Its as simple as that.

But if everyone in the UK bought all their fuji products from only one dealer, then it might become viable for that one dealer to put in big enough orders for it to happen.

I believe that is why fuji UK setup the following site to keep orders coming in as dealers closed down.

http://www.fujilab.co.uk/catalog/

if everyone ordered from them direct then supply would be more reliable. But they won't because they are all cheapskates at heart and will complain bitterly when the product dries up because small dealers and discount shops can't make big enough orders. So shoot yourselves in the foot or smarten up and keep supply going.
Switching to another brand because your discount shop can't supply won't help fuji uk keep the stuff coming in. They are trying very hard to keep supply going but if orders aren't big enough they are not going to order it.

If everyone used twice as much film as they currently do then that would make a big difference. So ultimately it is upto us film photographers to keep the supply going.

[semck83]

TMY may indeed look quite different than Acros, but if you can adjust to that and are just interested in reciprocity, I would indeed recommend it for night shots (which I take a lot of, too). It is slightly faster than Acros up over 10 minutes (metered). That is, a shot at which Acros would be metered at 40 minutes and exposed about 56, TMY would be metered 10 and exposed about 40. At some point, obviously, Acros catches up to TMY, but suffice it to say, TMY is a pretty fast night film.

[semck83]

PS. Two more things. First, I looked into it some and I don't think the spectral sensitivity difference between TM* and Acros is as great as claimed, regardless of the different name. You can google this yourself or I can PM you some links.

Second, I forgot to mention one thing that IS a difference. Although TMY is "faster" through a great range, the fact that it does, nonetheless, have a somewhat less linear / constant reciprocity response does mean that contrast will probably be higher, at least without development corrections. Not having used Acros as much yet (though I'm getting into it), I'm not sure whether this is as absent from Acros as Fuji's documentation would have you believe. Actually, since you have a lot of experience with it, I'd love your opinion on that.

[Drew Wiley]

Don't need to Google anything. I've done tons of testing on both films, probably more
than your sources! Outdoors, ACROS will produce lighter more natural-looking greens,
whereas TM has greater red sensitivity - really quite different both in nature and with
many portraits. Filtration only partially corrects this; and at that point TM100 will
be slower than ACROS. But I shoot both kinds of film for many things. Both deserve
testing with your own subject matter. The new TM400 is a slightly different animal,
and I'm just beginning to work with that. It's also quite promising. My only complaint
on ACROS is that the sheets are acetate base, so a bit flimsy (lack of stiffness which
affects how they lie in a filmholder - really only an issue in 8X10, not 4X5).

[Sal Santamaura]

...My only complaint
on ACROS is that the sheets are acetate base, so a bit flimsy (lack of stiffness which
affects how they lie in a filmholder - really only an issue in 8X10, not 4X5).

http://www.largeformatphotography.in...1&postcount=12

[Ken Lee]

Drew -

Outdoors, ACROS will produce lighter more natural-looking greens, whereas TM has greater red sensitivity - really quite different both in nature and with many portraits.

Looking at the spectral response curves, I don't see a vast difference. Am I missing something ?

Can you share some photos that illustrate the difference ?

Thanks for sharing !

Here is FujiFilm's spectral response curve for ACROS:


Here is Kodak's spectral response curve for TMX:


Here is Kodak's spectral response curve for TMY:


The spec sheet for ACROS is available at http://www.fujifilm.co.uk/profession...dfs/acros1.pdf

The spec sheet for TMX and TMY is available at http://www.kodak.com/global/en/profe...4016/f4016.pdf

While we're on the subject, here's Ilford HP5+:


HP5 spec sheet from http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/2007321132461251.pdf

[Ken Lee]