I’ve been wanting to create a Kodak Portra 400 film simulation recipe for Fujifilm X-Trans II cameras for a long time now. I’ve had a Portra 160 recipe on this website for awhile, but I’ve never created a Portra 400 recipe for this sensor. I’ve actually created five different Portra 400 recipes for X-Trans III and IV cameras, but those don’t work on X-Trans II. I made a guess on my Fujifilm X-T1 on what might be a good Portra 400 recipe, handed the camera to my son, Jon, and let him capture some pictures with it. You might remember that Jon created his own Classic Chrome recipe; this time I made the recipe, but I let him capture the pictures.
You might be wondering why I didn’t call this recipe “Portra 400” but named it “Portra v2” instead. While I believe that this recipe is similar to Portra 400, I do plan to create a more accurate recipe. Actually, that was my intentions with these pictures: reprocess the RAW files in-camera to refine the Portra look; however, as I reviewed the pictures, I liked the aesthetic created by these settings, so I decided to keep this as its own recipe. I will still work on a different Portra 400 recipe for X-Trans II.
One film can have many different aesthetics, depending on how it’s shot, developed, scanned or printed, and this is especially true with Kodak Portra 400. Portra can have many different looks. This recipe does resemble one of those aesthetics, but it definitely doesn’t resemble all of the aesthetics, or even the most common. If you do like Portra, I’m confident that you’ll appreciate these settings, which is compatible with all X-Trans II cameras that have the Classic Chrome film simulation.
Classic Chrome
Dynamic Range: DR200
Highlight: -1 (Medium-Low)
Shadow: -1 (Medium-Low)
Color: +2 (High)
Sharpness: -1 (Medium-Low)
Noise Reduction: -2 (Low)
White Balance: Daylight/Fine, +4 Red & -4 Blue
ISO: Auto up to ISO 3200
Exposure Compensation: +2/3 to +1 (typically)
Example photographs, all camera-made JPEGs captured by Jon on my Fujifilm X-T1 using this Portra v2 film simulation recipe:
Find this film simulation recipe on the Fuji X Weekly app!
See also: Fujifilm X-Trans II Film Simulation Recipes
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An instant favorite on my XF10,well done and thank you.
Awesome! I’m so glad to hear it!
Thank you.👌
You are welcome!
Hi Ritchie. When I set iso to anything above 800, the shadow tone options below 0 are grayed out. Fyi.
That’s an odd phenomenon. I’ve never noticed it before, but I’ll definitely look into it. Sounds very strange. What camera do you use?
It’s an x30. I’m not sure if it’s an x30 thing, or an xtrans II thing. I googled it and seems others have the issue. Thanks!
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3772976
Maybe it’s an issue with the smaller sensor models? I’m not sure about that, just what comes to my mind as a possibility.
Can you update when you will release for Portra 400 for xtrans 2?
I appreciate the suggestion!
Just got an X-E2s and a few reviewers pointed in your direction so I’ve downloaded a few profiles – thank you so much, really great resource. Left you a coffee too. Best Jo
Thanks so much for the coffee! 😀 ☕️
Thanks for this. Really great. I have to figure out how to make this work under other lighting. I guess just do a custom temperature and add the blue and red shift?
This article might help:
https://fujixweekly.com/2022/01/19/film-simulation-recipes-why-pictures-are-too-yellow-how-to-fix-it/
Thanks, I knew that I needed to adjust, I was wondering if there were a more automatic way. I’ll play with it.