This isn’t a new Film Simulation Recipe; it’s simply a slight modification of my Kodachrome 64 recipe for X-Trans IV cameras to make it compatible with X-Trans V models. The adjustments are pretty simple: set Color Chrome FX Blue to Off and Shadow to +0.5. Why the Color Chrome FX Blue adjustment? I discovered that with Classic Chrome (and some other film simulations), X-Trans V cameras render blue deeper. Why the change to Shadow? I stated in the X-Trans IV version, “I would set Shadow to +0.5 if I were using these settings on [a] camera [with that option].” With those two modifications, the Kodachrome 64 recipe is ready for your Fujifilm X-Trans V camera!
Kodachrome was a brand-name of color reversal film made by Kodak between 1935 and 2009. There were three eras of Kodachrome: 1935-1960, 1961-1973, and 1974-2009. Each era produced a slightly different look, and the third era is the one you’re probably most familiar with. This recipe is intended to mimic the aesthetic of the third era of Kodachrome, specifically the ISO 64 emulsion.
This Kodachrome 64 Film Simulation Recipe is intended for Fujifilm X-Trans V models, which (as of this writing) include the X-H2, X-H2S, and X-T5 cameras. It’s compatible with newer GFX models too, but will likely render slightly different on those cameras. Those with an X-Pro3, X100V, X-T4, X-S10, X-E4, or X-T30 II, try the Kodachrome 64 recipe for those models (click here). Those with an X-T3 or X-T30, try the Kodachrome 64 recipe for those cameras (click here). For those with an X-Trans II model, there’s a Kodachrome 64 recipe for you, too (click here).
Film Simulation: Classic Chrome
Grain Effect: Weak, Small
Color Chrome Effect: Strong
Color Chrome FX Blue: Off
White Balance: Daylight, +2 Red & -5 Blue
Dynamic Range: DR200
Highlight: 0
Shadow: +0.5
Color: +2
Sharpness: +1
High ISO NR: -4
Clarity: +3
ISO: Auto, up to ISO 6400
Exposure Compensation: 0 to +2/3 (typically)
Example photographs, all camera-made JPEGs using this “Kodachrome 64” Film Simulation Recipe on my Fujifilm X-T5:
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Just a shout-out and thanks for getting these out so quick for the X-T5 (and X-H2) users…was going to ask if you had plans to update the app with these…and that’s because I always have the app on my phone and part of my process is to think about what recipe to use – exactly the same way I would think about which film to load. and Voila…look the app is already updated with a bunch of recipes already. Thanks !
You are very welcome! I’m going through all the X-Trans IV recipes, trying to make sure that they still looks “right” on X-Trans V… the ones that do will be added to the app (might take me several days or longer to get them all), and the ones that don’t will have to be adjusted, if possible (might take me a few months to get through all of them, though). It’ll get done eventually… 😀
Hi, greeting from China, sorry for my poor English. Your website is really famous in China ! Thanks for sharing such great work with us ! I always check your website once a week, to see if any recipe updated (related to X-H2). Again, thank you so much for sharing this with us, 谢谢
You are very welcome! I’m really honored. More recipes for your X-H2 will be coming soon!
I just purchased the XT-5 and I’m very happy to see that Kodachrome64 is available!! 🙂 Thanks Ritchie! If I may request a recipe…SantaColor for the XT5 would be amazing!!!! Thanks for all your amazing work 🙂
I appreciate your kindness! I’ll definitely look at SantaColor to see what adjustments might be necessary. 😀
Hi. First, thanks for this wonderful site and all of your recipes. It really enhances the experience of shooting with a Fuji camera. I did have a question: went ahead and created the recipe for Kodachrome 64 on my X-T5 but noticed there’s a Tone Curve option in my menu that isn’t listed in the recipe. I presume I just leave it as is?
Tone Curve is where you’ll find Highlight and Shadow. I appreciate your kindness!
Hi, thanks for all your work on these recipes. I just got my XT5 and was putting in the kodachrome64 but the clarity option is greyed out for me not sure why… any suggestions?
I have three guesses:
1) you are in a continuous shooting mode, either CL or CH, and not S. Continuous shooting modes disable Clarity.
2) you are in HDR and not S. I have accidentally bumped mine from S to HDR a couple of times when adjusting the ISO. HDR disables Clarity.
3) you are saving in HEIF and not JPEG. HEIF disables Clarity.
I hope this helps!
Ah, yes. Had bumped the switch to HDR. Thanks!
Thank you for these recipes. I will add them know the XT-1 and see how they look. I still have Kodachrome 25 and 64. Am pretty sure I will not be able to get a somewhat good comparison as for the age of the film. BUT, I will see how other recipes compare to other films which are new. I am applying recipes to the Nikon D600 and maybe other digital cameras and will also look at comparisons, if you feel it might be similar? Thank you again.
I have some recipes for Nikon Z. The color science, approach, and output is significantly different between Fujifilm and Nikon.
Hi! Is there any substitute for clarity? Really hate the “storring” part 🙂
For a minus Clarity, a diffusion filter is a good alternative, but for plus Clarity, I don’t think there is. Perhaps a lens with high micro-contrast (maybe Zeiss?)?
The Storing pause is a little annoying, but I try to use it as a pause for myself, to slow me down (it’s about the same amount of time as advancing to the next frame on a film camera). I think it can be beneficial, but I definitely understand that it isn’t always practical, especially for certain genres of photography. Fujifilm’s solution is to set Clarity to 0, and add it later by reprocessing in-camera or with X RAW Studio afterwards. I don’t think this is a great solution, either, but it is another option.
Just a quick note, Ritchie, to express my thanks. This is a superb update to an already great recipe. And, YES, it seriously and subtly improves how this recipe renders images on my X-T5.
Awesome! So glad to hear it! I appreciate your kindness. 😀
Ritchie, how do I adjust the following?
Clarity: +3
ISO: Auto, up to ISO 6400
Exposure Compensation: 0 to +2/3 (typically)
Clarity is found within the IQ Menu subset. If your camera doesn’t have Clarity, you should look for the appropriate Recipes for your camera model. For Example, if you have an X-T3, look about 2/3 the way down this page: https://fujixweekly.com/fujifilm-x-trans-iv-recipes/
Auto ISO is found within the Shooting menu subset. You can set the ISO manually if you prefer not to use Auto.
Exposure compensation is on a dial on the top of the camera. A word on “typical exposure compensation”: it’s not a rule, but simply meant as a suggested starting point. Each picture should be judged individually, because each lighting scenario will be unique.
These pages in the Owner’s Manual should help:
https://fujifilm-dsc.com/en/manual/x-t5/menu_shooting/image_quality_setting/#clarity
https://fujifilm-dsc.com/en/manual/x-t5/taking_photo/iso/index.html#auto_sensitivity
https://fujifilm-dsc.com/en/manual/x-t5/taking_photo/exposure/
Hi Ritchie!
This it’s a “generic” question and it’s suits to many posts. I’ve been using DR400 on so many pictures, but I’ve recently do a little test. I’ve tested DR100 vs DR400 and the difference it’s amazing, with DR100 the images are a lot more punchy, and with DR400 a lot of details, especially clouds, are flat. I’ve been on Fuji ecosystem for 3 years and on my mind this was a very nice trick recommended for a lot of Fuji youtubers.
On the other hand, many many recipes uses DR200 and DR400, and I want to ask you about this, why it’s that? It’s only preventive to avoid highlights overexpose on newcomers, or it’s really a needed setting for the recipes?
Thanks a lot!
DR400 prevents clipped highlights—that is the primary function of it—but the side-effect is a flatter curve. The DR settings, along with Highlight and Shadow (and, to a much lesser extent, the Color Chrome Effects and Clarity), are what set the luminosity curve. It’s all of them working together. So you could use DR100 and set Highlight to -2 and Shadow to -1, and perhaps that might have a somewhat similar (but definitely slightly different) outcome as using DR400 and Highlight set to +1 and Shadow set to 0; despite the somewhat similar outcome, you will be much more prone to clipped highlights with the DR100 settings above vs the DR400. All of this is film sim dependent, too, as Eterna is much less prone to clipping Highlights than, say, Classic Chrome. Each film sim has its own curve. So DR100 might work well more often for Eterna, where with Classic Chrome, Classic Negative, Eterna Bleach Bypass, etc., it would be better to use at least DR200 in situations with bright highlights.
Oh, I see, I understand it now perfectly, has total sense. Thanks a lot!
New X-T5 owner here. I’m curious why your recipe uses a fixed Daylight WB instead of Auto WB. If shot in daylight with auto WB, you should get daylight (roughly) WB — but auto would make this more flexible indoors or in other circumstances? Or not?
With film, with a few rare exceptions, they are either Daylight or Tungsten balanced. Since the Recipes are often based on real emulsions, many have this same limitation.
You might find this article helpful:
https://fujixweekly.com/2022/01/19/film-simulation-recipes-why-pictures-are-too-yellow-how-to-fix-it/
I love love love Kodachrome 64. However, daylight white balance is not versatile enough. I use these values mixed with Auto WB R 1 B -3 as my do it in all situations daily driver recipe now. It’s perfection indoor and out.
It’s definitely ok to “season to taste” any Recipe to get it to work better for you. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Richie, this may be an issue with my X-T5, but any idea why in manual mode I’m finding it impossible to retain changes to my 3 auto ISO settings when the camera is on a custom setting such as your wonderful Kodachrome 64 or similar simulations ?
I’ve been round and round multiple times and can’t find a fix.
Any thoughts hugely apreciated as this is n annoying bug.
All the best,
James
If you are in manual mode, you should not be using Auto-ISO. I mean, it’s possible: you set the Shutter and Aperture, and the camera selects the ISO, but that is an unusual setup, and also whatever Shutter Speed you select will override the min shutter speed set in Auto-ISO. I would recommend not using Auto-ISO in Manual Mode… especially since your X-T5 has an ISO knob on the top.
Maybe I’m not understanding the issue. Perhaps explain it again to me so that I can better understand what is going on?
Hello Ritchie! Thanks for this recipe and I have some questions, not exactly about this recipe but more about Kodachrome itself. I have no experience with film stocks and I don’t know where else to ask:
This recipe has a cyan-blue color which many consider to be a distinct charateristic of Kodachrome. Also, while the recipe has high contrast and warm tone, I personally wouldn’t call it “vibrant”.
However, when I see older photos taken with Kodachrome, especially those taken in 70s or earlier, some of them do not have this “cyan blue sky” character. And some of them have much higher color vibrance. Some of them also have a much colder tone. Also many people on various forums says Kodachrome was known for vibrant color etc, which very different from my experience shooting with this recipe.
This confused the heck out of me. Is this because of there are certain knowledge about film photography, editing, and processing I don’t know? Or Kodachrome itself has changed over tis long distance so different people have different memory of it?
Again thanks for all the amazing recipes !
Those are very good questions, and an entire book could be written about this topic.
I guess first it should be understood that Kodachrome was vibrant for its time. The film—which actually had three distinct eras, each with its own aesthetic—was the first “accurate” color emulsion. It was popular because of its reputation, it had the best archival characteristics (Ektachrome was sometimes referred to as Fade-a-chrome), it was true-to-life, and it was the sharpest and finest grained color film for much of its run. Yellows and especially reds were vibrant, but greens and blues were a bit muted. Only subtly on both accounts. Kodachrome couldn’t make a bland scene look bold, but it could make a colorful scene look colorful, if that makes any sense. Kodachrome wasn’t Ektachrome E100VS, Velvia 50, or Fortia 50, which were the most vibrant emulsions. Compared to modern digital photography, most would not consider Kodachrome to be vibrant… I think it is more a “memory color” (as Fujifilm likes to put it) thing that causes people to state that Kodachrome was an especially colorful emulsion. Kodachrome 25 was less contrasty and vibrant than Kodachrome 64.
With all that said (and second), a lot depends on how the film was viewed. Kodachrome was meant to be projected via a slide projector. That’s where it really shines (pun intended). Back in the 1970’s, the reproduction process was much different than in the (say) 2000’s or especially today. For example, the dye-transfer process (invented by Eggleston and Kodak) was popular among New American Color photographers, and allowed the prints to be more vibrantly colorful than the film was. Nowadays, we scan the slides, but—due to its unique process—Kodachrome is considered the most difficult color film to scan accurately. So a lot of Kodachrome scans don’t fully faithfully reflect the film (and being too cold is a common trait of this).
I hope all of that makes sense, and answers your questions.
I cannot thank you enough for this detailed amazing reply! The more I read into this topic the more it fascinates me. I’ll definitely try to learn more about film photography history and I’m sure this will be an inspiring journy.
There are a lot of fascinating stories that you’ll discover along the way. 😀