Black & White Photography with Fujifilm

Black and white photography strips an image to its fundamentals: light, shadow, form, and texture. When you remove colour, you remove the most obvious source of visual information, and the viewer's attention shifts to the underlying structure of the image: the direction of light, the shape of shadows, the texture of surfaces, the geometry of the composition. This is why monochrome images often feel more "serious" or emotionally direct than their colour equivalents: they bypass the decorative layer and present the bones of the scene.

There is also a practical reason why black and white remains relevant in the digital age: it solves colour problems. A scene with mixed lighting, distracting colour casts, or clashing colours that fight each other in colour becomes unified and coherent in monochrome. A portrait subject wearing a garish shirt that dominates the colour version becomes a study in light and expression when converted to black and white. Monochrome is not a retreat from colour. It is a different way of seeing that is sometimes more effective.

Fujifilm has a deep heritage in black and white film. Neopan 100 ACROS was one of the finest grain, highest acutance black and white films ever produced, praised for its extraordinary tonality and smooth grain structure. When Fujifilm created their digital Acros simulation, they drew on this expertise, and the result is widely regarded as the best in-camera monochrome rendering available from any manufacturer.

Acros

Acros is the star. It renders with fine grain character, beautiful highlight roll-off, and rich tonal gradation from deep blacks through a long, smooth midtone range to clean whites. Skin looks luminous. Textures (stone, wood, fabric) have a tactile quality that the standard Monochrome simulation does not match. Acros handles both high-contrast and low-contrast scenes gracefully, maintaining detail in shadows without crushing them and preserving highlights without bleaching them.

If you shoot any black and white on Fujifilm, Acros should be your starting point. It is not subtle in its superiority. The difference between Acros and the standard Monochrome mode is visible in every image.

Monochrome

The standard Monochrome simulation is flatter and more neutral than Acros. It has less character: the tonal curve is more linear, the grain less defined, and the overall rendering more clinical. Some photographers prefer it as a starting point precisely because it is less opinionated, giving them more room to shape the look with highlight/shadow tone adjustments. But most users find that Acros simply produces more compelling images out of the box.

Colour Filters: Ye, R, and G

Both Acros and Monochrome offer colour filter options that affect how colours are translated into grey tones. These replicate the effect of placing a physical coloured filter on the lens when shooting black and white film, a technique that has been fundamental to B&W photography for over a century.

Yellow filter (Ye): Slightly darkens blue skies, adding gentle contrast between sky and clouds. Skin tones are rendered slightly lighter and smoother. This is the most subtle filter and a good default for general use. It adds just enough contrast to prevent flat-looking skies without being dramatic.

Red filter (R): Dramatically darkens blue skies, turning them nearly black against bright white clouds. Foliage darkens. Skin tones lighten significantly, smoothing blemishes and creating a luminous quality. This is the most dramatic filter and produces the classic high-contrast black and white look associated with landscape and architectural photography. Use it when you want maximum sky drama and bold contrast.

Green filter (G): Renders foliage lighter, separating different shades of green that would otherwise merge into similar grey tones. Skin tones are rendered more naturally, neither lightened nor darkened significantly. This is the specialist filter for nature and portrait work where foliage is present and you want to maintain tonal separation in green areas.

Grain Effect

Grain is almost essential for black and white photography. Digital monochrome without grain looks unnervingly smooth. It lacks the tactile quality that makes film-based B&W images feel physical. The choice of grain settings depends on the look you are after.

Weak, Small replicates the fine grain of slow film stocks like Acros 100 or Ilford Delta 100. The grain is barely visible at normal viewing sizes but adds just enough texture to break up digital smoothness. This is the most versatile setting.

Strong, Large replicates the coarse grain of pushed fast film like Tri-X at ISO 1600, HP5 pushed to 3200. The grain is a visible, deliberate part of the image. This works well for gritty street photography, low-light documentary work, and any image where you want a raw, high-energy quality.

Weak, Large is a middle ground that many recipe creators favour: visible grain character without it overwhelming fine detail. It has a pleasing organic quality that suggests medium-speed film like Tri-X at box speed.

Highlight and Shadow Tone

These settings control the contrast character of your B&W images more dramatically than in colour, because without colour to provide visual interest, tonal contrast carries the entire image. Positive highlight tone (+1 to +2) brightens highlights towards pure white, creating a higher-contrast, more graphic look. Positive shadow tone (+1 to +2) deepens shadows towards pure black. Together, they produce the punchy, high-contrast B&W that works for street and architectural photography.

For a softer, more nuanced look (portraits, misty landscapes, quiet scenes), pull both towards negative values (-0.5 to -1). This opens up the tonal range, revealing more detail in highlights and shadows at the expense of punch. The image feels gentler and more contemplative.

Dynamic Range

DR200 is valuable for B&W photography because it preserves highlight detail that adds luminosity and graduation to bright areas. Without it, highlights in high-contrast B&W can clip abruptly, losing the beautiful roll-off that makes Acros special. DR200 gives you the highlight recovery that lets Acros render its signature smooth transition from midtones to whites.

Sharpness

Neutral (0) to slightly positive (+1) sharpness works well for most B&W subjects. Unlike colour portraits where lower sharpness smooths skin, B&W portraits often benefit from normal sharpness because texture and detail contribute to the character of the image. The grain effect adds its own softening texture, so you do not need to reduce sharpness to compensate for digital harshness.

The hardest part of black and white photography is not the camera settings. It is learning to see in monochrome. Your eyes see colour, and your brain interprets the world through colour contrasts. Training yourself to evaluate scenes based on tonal contrast instead of colour contrast requires deliberate practice.

Look for Tonal Contrast

In colour photography, a red door against a green wall is visually striking because of the colour contrast. In black and white, both might render as similar mid-grey tones, and the contrast disappears entirely. Conversely, a light wall with a dark shadow across it, unremarkable in colour, becomes dramatic in monochrome. Train yourself to look for differences in brightness rather than differences in hue.

Use the EVF

Fujifilm's electronic viewfinder is your most powerful B&W training tool. Set the camera to Acros and the EVF shows you the scene in black and white in real time. You see immediately whether a scene has the tonal contrast to work as a monochrome image. You see how shadows fall, how textures read, and how the composition holds up without colour to carry it. Shoot with the EVF in monochrome for a week and your ability to pre-visualise B&W images will improve dramatically.

Strong Directional Light

Black and white photography thrives on directional light that creates bold shadows and clear tonal separation. Early morning and late afternoon sidelight sculpts texture in stone, brick, skin, and fabric. Overhead midday light that is unflattering for colour portraits creates dramatic shadows under architectural overhangs and in narrow streets. Hard light that you might avoid in colour becomes an asset in monochrome.

Texture and Pattern

Without colour, texture becomes a primary visual element. Weathered wood, rusted metal, cracked paint, woven fabric, wet pavement. These surfaces come alive in black and white because the viewer's attention goes to the surface detail rather than the colour. When you are looking for B&W subjects, look for interesting surfaces and textures that would be overlooked in a colour image.

Not every scene benefits from black and white. Monochrome excels in some situations and falls flat in others. Learning when to switch to B&W is as important as knowing how to shoot it.

Street Photography

The genre most associated with black and white, and for good reason. Street photography is about gesture, moment, and the play of light in urban environments. Removing colour strips away the visual noise of advertisements, clothing brands, and colour clutter, leaving the human element and the geometry of the street. Acros with a red filter and Strong grain is the classic street combination.

Architecture

Buildings are fundamentally about form, line, and the interplay of light and shadow, all of which are emphasised in monochrome. Modern architecture with clean geometric lines becomes graphically striking in B&W. Old buildings with weathered textures gain tactile presence. The red filter is particularly effective for architecture, darkening blue skies to create dramatic backdrops for buildings.

Dramatic Portraits

Monochrome portraits emphasise expression, character, and the play of light on skin. Every wrinkle, freckle, and expression line becomes part of the story rather than a blemish to correct. This is the opposite of the smoothing, flattering approach of colour portrait recipes. B&W portraits celebrate imperfection and character. Window light or single-source light works particularly well, creating the shadows that give a monochrome portrait its depth.

Fog, Mist, and Rain

Atmospheric conditions that reduce colour saturation naturally are perfect for B&W. Fog compresses the tonal range and creates natural depth layers, with objects closer to the camera are darker, distant objects fade into white. This atmospheric perspective is beautiful in monochrome and can transform an ordinary landscape into something ethereal.

When to Keep Colour

If the colour is the subject (a vivid sunset, autumn foliage, a colourful market), removing it defeats the purpose. If two important elements in the scene are distinguished primarily by colour rather than tone (a red coat against green foliage), the image will lose its impact in monochrome. When you look at a scene and the first thing you notice is the colour, that is usually a signal to keep it in colour.

One of the strongest arguments for Fujifilm in black and white photography is that the straight-out-of-camera Acros JPEGs are genuinely excellent, competitive with careful RAW processing in dedicated software. This is not true of most camera brands, where the in-camera B&W conversion is a rough starting point that requires post-processing to look its best.

The RAW+JPEG Workflow

The most practical approach for B&W work is to shoot RAW+JPEG with the camera set to Acros. You get the finished B&W JPEG for immediate use and review, and the RAW file as a safety net. The RAW retains all the colour information, so if you later decide an image works better in colour, the data is there. You cannot go from a colour JPEG to a convincing B&W conversion (the tonal mapping is different), but you can always go from a RAW file to either colour or B&W.

In-Camera RAW Processing

Fujifilm's in-camera RAW processing and X RAW Studio let you reprocess RAW files through the camera's film simulation engine. This means you can shoot a scene with one recipe, review it later, and reprocess the RAW through Acros with different settings (different grain, different contrast, a different colour filter) without a computer. The results are identical to shooting with those settings originally because the same hardware processing engine is used.

Why Acros JPEGs Are Special

Third-party B&W conversions in Lightroom or Capture One work by mathematically converting colour values to luminance values. They can produce excellent results with careful channel mixing and curve adjustments. But Fujifilm's Acros simulation does something more nuanced: it applies a tonal curve, grain pattern, and highlight/shadow rendering that was developed through decades of film emulsion research. The "look" of Acros is not just a desaturation. It is a complete rendering philosophy that considers how grain interacts with tonality, how highlights roll off, and how the midtone curve produces a sense of depth. Replicating this precisely in Lightroom is possible but requires significant effort and expertise. The JPEG gives it to you for free.