15 Frames: Fujifilm X100V + Fujichrome Sensia 100 — A Train Ride Through the Desert

Cat Engine – Glendale, AZ – Fujifilm X100V – “Fujichrome Sensia 100”

Every Sunday from October through April, the Maricopa Live Steamers model railroad club offers free 7 1/2″ gauge train rides through the desert in north Glendale, Arizona. My kids love trains (what kids don’t?), and so my wife and I took them out on an excursion. The club has an extensive setup in the desert—over 18 miles of track—and members from across several states come to operate their scale equipment there. One day each week, except during the heat of summer, the club is open to the public, giving free train rides to anyone who wishes to traverse through the creosote and sand.

I brought along my Fujifilm X100V to capture the experience, with the Fujichrome Sensia 100 Film Simulation Recipe programmed into the camera. To make this recipe compatible with the X100V, I set Grain size to Small, Color Chrome FX Blue to Off, and Clarity to 0. The X100V is such a great camera for adventures like this, being compact and quiet, yet completely capable of fantastic image quality. My Fujifilm X70 would have worked just as well, but one advantage of the X100V is the viewfinder, which came in handy in the harsh midday light.

Fujichrome Sensia 100 was an inexpensive general-purpose daylight-balanced slide film made by Fujifilm from 1994 through 2011. There were three different iterations of the emulsion during that time. It was a popular film for cross-processing (developing in C41 chemistry); otherwise, it was primarily used for documenting family vacations, and was marketed to amateurs and hobbyists. My Film Simulation Recipe mimics the film only as a happy accident, as I wasn’t trying to create a facsimile of Sensia, but it is surprisingly similar nonetheless.

Below are camera-made JPEGs captured with the Fujichrome Sensia 100 Film Simulation Recipe on my Fujifilm X100V while at the Maricopa Live Steamers model railroad club:

RR Crossing – Glendale, AZ – Fujifilm X100V
54 – Glendale, AZ – Fujifilm X100V
Old Switch Stand – Glendale, AZ – Fujifilm X100V
Signal Tower – Glendale, AZ – Fujifilm X100V
View Through Signal Stand – Glendale, AZ – Fujifilm X100V
Outdoor Television – Glendale, AZ – Fujifilm X100V
Junk on the Platform – Glendale, AZ – Fujifilm X100V
Train Bridge – Glendale, AZ – Fujifilm X100V
Tiny Town on the Prairie – Glendale, AZ – Fujifilm X100V
Rails Through the Desert – Glendale, AZ – Fujifilm X100V
Rusty Train Wheel & Signal – Glendale, AZ – Fujifilm X100V
Southern Pacific 8183 – Glendale, AZ – Fujifilm X100V
Ghost Train – Glendale, AZ – Fujifilm X100V
Yellow Water Tower – Glendale, AZ – Fujifilm X100V

This post contains affiliate links, and if you make a purchase using my links I’ll be compensated a small amount for it.

Fujifilm X100V Black    Amazon   B&H
Fujifilm X100V Silver   Amazon   B&H

On October 20, Nathalie and I will be introducing the Fujichrome Sensia 100 Film Simulation Recipe on SOOC as the next recipe-of-the-month. Mark your calendars now, and I hope to see you then!

Find this Film Simulation Recipe and 250 more on the Fuji X Weekly — Film Recipes App!

2 comments

  1. carolies541 · October 4

    Thank you so much for this site, it has been really useful for fuji beginners like me. Really appreciate it, keep up the good work! One thing I would like to suggest is including more indoor sample images for the recipes so users like me can choose better.

    As I realized that most of the recipes look great outdoor but might not look as good indoors, especially if its under fluorescent light that’s mundane/not that well-lit, like my room, lols or restaurants which we would have company gathering. I tend to use no filter for these types and try to adjust on lightroom after. But it does seem that there’s not enough recipes catering for these kinds of setting, in general across recipe sites I see. I do hope you can find time to do a round-up about recipes for mundane-lighting indoors ;)

    • Ritchie Roesch · October 4

      I appreciate the feedback! Thanks so much, I’ll definitely put some consideration into this. 😀

Leave a Reply