My favourite Acros settings on the X100V for better black and white
The X100V turned me into a more confident black and white shooter than any camera before it. Acros is the reason I keep the dial set to a single fixed JPEG profile for whole afternoons, and I have built a small notebook of personal recipes that match the way I see light here in Australia. This post collects the ones I reach for most, the science behind them, and how to save them into the camera so they survive the next firmware wave.
I shoot a lot of street work in Melbourne's CBD laneways, weekend markets in Adelaide, and a fair amount of weather along the Mornington Peninsula. Across all of those, the X100V's Acros engine behaves less like a digital filter and more like a contact print from a small rangefinder. The settings below are tuned for real scenes, not for Instagram previews.
The film heart of Acros
Acros is not just a desaturation filter. Fujifilm built it around the response curve of Tri-X pushed one stop, which is why midtones feel slightly softer than the standard monochrome simulation and why the grain pattern breaks up nicely in flat light. On the X100V, the simulation lives in the film simulation menu and can be combined with grain, colour chrome, and dynamic range tweaks. Those four knobs are where recipes live.
I find the Acros simulation rewards a small aperture and a thoughtful shutter speed. Anything faster than 1/500 tends to flatten the grain and strip the look of its weight, while slower speeds let highlights breathe and shadows gather properly. At a Fitzroy cafe on a quiet Sunday, that approach gives me frames that look like they were scanned from a Tri-X negative.
Comparing the four Acros modes
| Mode | Tone tendency | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Acros | Neutral, classic Tri-X feel | General street, documentary |
| Acros+R | Slightly warmer midtones, deeper reds | Brick walls, terracotta, skin under tungsten |
| Acros+Y | Soft yellow cast, lifted blacks | Fog, misty mornings, dawn along the Yarra |
| Acros+G | Gentle green tint, gentle contrast | Foliage, parks, overcast beaches |
The base Acros profile is what I trust when I do not know what the light will do. Acros+R gives skin a hint of life under streetlights without making highlights look orange. Acros+G is a quiet friend for the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney when I want the canopy to feel moody rather than graphic. Acros+Y is rare but useful for those cold dawns at St Kilda, when the air looks like a print waiting to happen.
If you only save one recipe today, save the base Acros version. You can always tint later in Capture One, but the on-camera tone curve is harder to replicate in post.
A street recipe I lean on in Melbourne laneways
This is the recipe I print for everyday grey work on the streets. Dynamic range set to DR200, highlight tone at -1, shadow tone at +1, colour chrome effect off, noise reduction at -2, and Acros+R as the simulation. ISO stays at 800 most of the time, which keeps the grain visible but not noisy.
The shadow lift at +1 is the most important setting. It opens up the dark side of the histogram so that a black jacket against a grey wall still holds detail. Combined with highlight -1, the curve feels closer to a Tri-X negative than to a digital raw file. I run this on Sunday hardware market mornings at Queen Victoria Market, where the light is mixed and the subjects move quickly.
If you want a touch more snap, push shadow tone back to 0 and turn colour chrome effect on low. That combination works well in harsh Brisbane afternoon sun, where the contrast would otherwise feel too clinical.
Tuning for rain, fog and golden hour
Australia is a wide country with colour, and the weather changes fast. A rainy day along the Yarra needs a different recipe than a clear noon at Bondi. When the sky is flat, drop shadow tone to -1 and add a touch of grain at Strong. When the sun is low and golden, lift shadow tone to +2 and switch to Acros+Y to keep skin tones readable.
Three small tweaks for moody weather:
- Drop highlight tone to -2 when rain is bouncing off glass.
- Set noise reduction to -3 for hand-held street frames in dim laneways.
- Switch to Acros+G under heavy cloud cover to push foliage darker.
For anyone shooting wet conditions, I wrote up a piece on Fuji rain protection that pairs nicely with these recipes. It is worth reading before you take the X100V out in a southerly buster.
Saving and recalling recipes on the X100V
The X100V lets you store up to seven custom presets through the image quality menu. I treat them like film stock drawers. Slot one is the base Acros street recipe from earlier, slot two is the rainy day Acros+Y build, slot three is a high-contrast Acros+R for tough backlight, slot four is reserved for Acros+G when I am walking the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney.
A handful of recipes worth saving today:
- Base Acros with DR200, highlight -1, shadow +1, grain strong.
- Acros+R with DR400, highlight 0, shadow -1 for sun-against-face.
- Acros+Y with DR100, highlight -2, shadow +2 for fog and dawn.
- Acros+G with DR200, highlight -1, shadow 0 for parks and foliage.
- A pure Acros monochrome with grain effect weak for product and architecture work.
If you want to dive deeper into the JPEG engine maths, the startuanit primer helped me understand why pushing the curve too far actually softens the file. It is short, dense, and worth a coffee.
Pick one of these recipes and walk your favourite stretch of footpath for an hour. Limit yourself to the single simulation, the single recipe, and resist the urge to chimp. The discipline of working inside one tonal palette is what makes Acros feel like film rather than a filter. When you find a frame that works, drop the settings in the comments along with the suburb, and I will share a few reader recipes in a future post.
Subscribe to the newsletter for the next instalment, where I will walk through custom white balance tricks that further stretch the Acros palette, and let me know which Australian suburb you want covered next.