Fuji Films New Acros II ?

17 February 2020 As many in our film community will know, Fuji Film has released its much anticipated Acros II black & white low speed 100 ISO film. The question mark is because it seems that this new iteration of Fuji's (dare I say, most popular) black & white film may be wholly or partially manufactured in Great Britain by Harman-Ilford. I mean the packaging looks Ilford and rebate text and numbering also remind me of Ilford. Moreover, Acros 120 boxes originally said, "Made in Japan", now Acros II boxes say, "Made in UK". I've also found some chatter about this on the Internet at various sites, so it would be good to have a joint press release from both companies to mitigate the curiosity. Today's roll of Acros II in 120 format was exposed in my Mamiya C330 Professional S with the 105mm lens. The location was BC Hydro's Ruskin Dam Park about 20 minutes west of Mission, BC near BC HWY #7. The light was bright overcast with broken cloud cover.
Dr. Bob's Processing Protocol
01. Pre-soak
02. Developed in HC-110b @ 20 degrees Celcius for 5 1/2 minutes. Agitation 2 or 3 inversions every 30 seconds.
03. Indicator Stop Bath for 60 seconds
04. Water wash to minimise Potassium ion and indicator dye carry-over into the fixer
05. Fixer for 5 minutes with the same agitation as development
06. Wash for 1.5 minutes
07. Perma-wash for 1.5 minutes
08. Final Wash for 2 minutes
09. PhotoPropynol dip and dunk
10. Hang film to dry
The film came out quite good, nice tones and contrast and good sharpness. Is it better than the old Acros? I think not, for what I do, the difference is not significant. One thing is for sure, I don't like the new packaging as much as the older film with the pre-sticky tab to seal the exposed roll. I'll probably use up what little stock I have and change over to Ilford's FP4 plus as my new go-to low-speed film. Here are a few sample images...