See the future of photography in fake black-and-white film

Last year I tried to counterbalance the lack of news at CP+ by shooting film to cover it. This year I had a little less time at Japan's biggest photo show, but I thought I'd try to do something different again.

I've been using Fujifilm's upcoming X-Pro2 camera in recent weeks — full review coming soon — and there's a new film simulation mode that aims to replicate the company's Acros black-and-white emulsion. It's a little more advanced than the film simulations that Fujifilm has included with its cameras for years; it's more of an algorithm than a simple tone curve. The biggest difference I've noticed so far is the addition of a grain effect at higher ISOs, and generally it gives pretty contrasty yet balanced results.

Since I don't get to shoot much black-and-white photography for The Verge, I thought this would be a good opportunity to try something new while testing the X-Pro2 out further. CP+ is a chaotic mess of a trade show, and it seemed even more packed than usual this year — not ideal conditions for monochrome, which tends to work best with simple compositions. Still, here's what I came up with.