Poking around on Megaperls - Fuji sells half-plate ACROS!

[Scott Davis]

Of all the strange things - Fuji sells half-plate size Acros b/w film. I saw it on the Megaperls website. So for those of you into truly esoteric camera formats, a modern emulsion is available for your exposing pleasure!

[Justin Cormack]

I know; I have bought some. Excellent for my old plate camera as it has no shutter so reciprocity matters.

Apparently half plate is a popular portrait format in Japan.

[Donald Qualls]

Half plate is a rather popular size in Japan -- as I understand it, this stems from Japanese camera makers of the 1920s and 1930s copying British folding bed cameras, which were most common and convenient in half plate (quarter plate is too small to make good contact prints, full plate too big for reasonable portability). The result is that half plate is the default size for large format cameras sold in Japan, the way 4x5 is in the USA.

That means Fuji can sell enough Acros in half plate to justify cutting it that size -- which makes them automatically #1 large format film seller in Japan, because there is *no* other film, made anywhere, that's easy to get in half plate size (well, Shantou Era 100 is made in half plate, but Japanese aren't likely to want to use a Chinese film).