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Roll Review: Fujifilm Acros II, a Rollei 35, and some Rodinal
A pretty darn nice 100 speed monochrome film
I don’t shoot film, especially 35mm film, for squeaky clean, perfect results. I have modern optics and digital cameras that fill that role for me. When I shoot film I want character. I want grain and texture. That’s largely why I develop in Rodinal. Not only does Rodinal have basically infinite shelf life, but it gives me that pronounced grain that I love, even in a film stock like Acros II that seems to be designed to be the antithesis of what I look for in a black and white film stock.
Development: I developed the film in Rodinal 1+50 at 11:00 minutes. Gentle inversions every minute. Fixed with Ilford Rapid Fixer.
I messed up about half of this roll up really good. I underexposed a lot of shots by something like 3 or 4 stops. However, as a testament to the flexibility of this film, I was actually able to produce images from negatives that to the naked eye looked completely blank. These images aren’t any good, mind you, but it is nice to know how much you can abuse this film and recover an image from it.
The images that did come out came out great. High contrast, sharp, pleasant rendering all around. It’s not my favorite 100 speed black and white film, but if it goes on sale again I’ll stock back up for sure. As for the "recoverable" images shot at 3 or more stops underexposed, you can check them out below:
Written on Wednesday, 24 August 2022, by Aaron Brown. Last edited on
