I’ve said for awhile now that Fujifilm should make a black-and-white only camera. There’s actually an advantage to a monochrome sensor. With a typical Bayer color array, only 50% of the light-sensitive sensor elements are recording luminosity information, while the other 50% are recording color information. With an X-Trans sensor, 55% of the light-sensitive sensor elements are recording luminosity information while 45% are recording color information. With a monochrome sensor, 100% of the light-sensitive sensor elements are recording luminosity information. Because of this, you get a higher perceived resolution, as pictures will appear more richly detailed, and there’s more shadow latitude, which also improves high-ISO capabilities. You can also use color filters like with black-and-white film.

Fujifilm has said that they have no plans currently to make a monochrome camera. You can actually convert any Fujifilm camera to be black-and-white only, but it is expensive and extreme. I’ve wanted a monochrome-only Fujifilm camera for awhile, but I’m not willing to convert one, and I’m impatient waiting for an official model to come out. So what did I do? I made my own.

Introducing the Fujifilm X100V Acros Edition!

Note: this was a Creative Collective article, but now it’s available to everyone.

Of course I didn’t actually make a black-and-white only camera. My X100V-Acros is just an X100V, and is capable of capturing color images. There’s nothing unique about it, other than it now says “Acros” underneath Fujifilm X100V on the top. What makes this camera an “Acros Edition” (other than the additional word) is that the C1-C7 Custom Presets programmed into it are all black-and-white Film Simulation Recipes.

The idea for this wasn’t mine. A Fuji X Weekly reader actually used just one recipe—a black-and-white recipe—on his Fujifilm camera for a whole year. Another reader was seriously considering doing the monochrome conversion to his X-Trans II camera, but then he realized that the resolution increase was going to be similar to his X-Trans IV camera, so instead of going through with the conversion he decided to dedicate his X-Trans IV camera to black-and-white recipes. I simply copied his idea.

Let’s talk about that resolution bump of monochrome-only cameras. Because you’re able to tap into the full-resolution potential of the sensor, you get a more detail-rich image. A converted 16mp X-Trans I or II sensor would be equivalent to a 23mp Bayer camera, a 24mp X-Trans III sensor would be equivalent to 35mp, and a 26mp X-Trans IV sensor would be equivalent to 37.5mp, roughly speaking. But, of course, it would also require a lens capable of resolving that much resolution, which many (but not all) Fujinon lenses can. Also, as I pointed out in my Fujifilm X vs GFX article, such a resolution increase only really matters if you print large or crop deep, and otherwise isn’t a big deal at all. In other words, the 26mp sensor in the X100V is already a lot of resolution, so it doesn’t matter that the camera isn’t actually monochrome-only. I can simply pretend, and be happy with that.

The seven black-and-white recipes that I decided to program into the camera (in order of C1-C7) are Moody Monochrome, Kodak Tri-X 400, Ilford HP5 Plus 400, Monochrome Negative, B&W Superia, Noir, and B&W Infrared. I haven’t decided yet if these are the seven that I’ll stick with, or if I’ll change a few of them out, but I do know for certain that Tri-X 400 stays. Another note is that I have a 5% CineBloom filter attached to the camera. I’m growing quite fond of the subtle effect of this diffusion filter (tip three of seven for getting a “film look”, btw).

Yesterday I took my Fujifilm X100V Acros Edition out for the first time. I went to Antelope Island State Park, and also stopped at a local park along the way. The purpose of this outing was to try out all seven of these recipes. Below are the pictures!

I love black-and-white photography, probably because I first learned photography on black-and-white film. If you love it, too, I invite you to try using only black-and-white recipes on your Fujifilm camera—make your own “Acros Edition” of whatever camera you have. I like the idea of a Fujifilm monochrome camera, so I think it was inevitable that I decided to do this—I now wonder why it took so long. Once I have my seven recipes nailed down, the next project will be to capture 24 or 36 exposures with each before changing recipes, kind of mimicking that limitation of film.