Throughout the last years I mostly focused on analog film photography, because I simply love “the film look”. Nevertheless I am also a big Fuji digital camera fan, mostly because they somehow feel a little bit like analog cameras. This is especially true for my current favourite the Fuji X Pro 3. One of the features I like the most about Fuji cameras is that I can create custom film recipes to produce a specific look directly in the camera without having to take RAW photos and later apply the look I want in post. I hate post-procesing - for real. I want to take the photos as they are and therefor the camera has to do the job for me automatically and that is exactly what Fuji recipes are for.
warmth, a lot of shadow details, soft tones
What I like about film is the nostalgic, dreamy and soft look, warm colors and also a lot of shadow details. Of course that is not true for every film stock, but for the ones I like the most, namely Kodak Portra and Kodak Gold, or even Cinestill 400D and Kodak Vision 3, just to name a few. I should also mention that I usually shoot with +1/3 to +1 EV to get even more details in the shadow parts of my photos.
So this is what I wanted to recreate using a Fuji Film recipe, but without any artificial grain, because I think that I do not need to add that to a digital photo just to be authentic (what does that even mean?).
the recipe
So here it is, the full recipe as I configured it on my Fuji X Pro 3. If you use a different Fuji camera, I am sure that you can recreate this as well, but maybe you have to adjust a few things, if your settings look a little different.
- Film Simulation: Classic Chrome
- Grain Effect: Off
- Color Chrome Effect: Strong
- Color Chrome FX Blue: Strong
- Whitebalance: 6100K, R: 3, B: -3
- Dynamic Range: 400
- D Range Priority: Off
- Tone Curve: H: -1, S: -1
- Color: 0
- Sharpness: -2
- Noise Reduction: -4
- Clarity: -3
…and finally here are some sample shots, which I’ve taken using this recipe, so you know what to expect.