Many Fujifilm photographers use Film Simulation Recipes, which are JPEG camera settings that produce a specific look (often based on classic film stocks) straight-out-of-camera, no editing required. I have published over 250 Film Simulation Recipes on this website, which can also be found on the Fuji X Weekly App for easy access on the go. Using recipes on Fujifilm cameras is a great way to streamline your workflow while still getting great results that appear as though you post-processed or perhaps even shot with film.
Some advantages of using recipes on Fujifilm cameras are simplicity (quickly and easily achieve a desired aesthetic with little or no editing), authenticity (film-like quality that doesn’t appear heavily manipulated), consistency (a single recipe over a series of pictures produces a cohesive visual style), and productivity (not editing pictures saves a lot of time). Because there are so many recipes to choose from, it can be difficult to know which recipe to use when; perhaps none of them are precisely what you are looking for, or you are just feeling adventurous, so you want try your hand at crafting your very own Film Simulation Recipe.
A lot of people don’t have an interest in creating recipes; instead, they want one that’s already been perfected and matches their style. For most people, a Film Simulation Recipe currently exists that works well for them, it’s just a matter of figuring out which one (or ones, as it could be several, situationally dependent). Or maybe you enjoy trying them all! There’s no singular approach to using recipes with your Fujifilm camera.
Those who do want to try to make their very own recipe—because they haven’t found “the one” yet, or because they want a look that’s unique to them, or because they’re feeling creative and adventurous—might not know how to do it or even where to start. This article is intended to help with that. I will walk you through the process of crafting a Film Simulation Recipe, so that you know how to make your own.
Each Film Simulation Recipe has its own origin story. Very rarely did two come about the exact same way. Most, however, begin with an aesthetic idea—what look do I want the recipe to resemble? A lot of times it’s a specific film stock, usually specific images from a certain film. One film can usually produce many different looks depending on a whole host of factors, including (but not limited to) how it was shot, developed and scanned. I study pictures to get a good sense of what the aesthetic is, so that I can recreate it as closely as possible on my Fujifilm camera. It’s never a perfect facsimile because the tools on the camera are limited, film and digital behave divergently, and one film can produce many looks; however, I surprise myself sometimes just how close one recipe can come to the aesthetic I was trying to mimic. There’s a lot of trial-and-error involved. A lot of testing. But the beginning is almost always an idea or inspiration. For the Film Simulation Recipe example in this article—Emulsion ’86—the origin was the pilot episode of Little House on the Prairie. I was really attracted to the cinematography, and wanted to recreate the look.
Once you know the aesthetic that you want to achieve, the next step is figuring out a base starting point—the Film Simulation. I decided the film simulation that most closely matched the cinematography was Nostalgic Neg., which is only found on the newest cameras, including the Fujifilm X-T5. Eterna is similar, too, but I felt not vibrant enough or warm enough in the shadows—it could also be a good starting point, and I considered using it, but opted for Nostalgic Neg. instead. Each film simulation produces a different look, so you want to find the best base film simulation for your recipe. If you want to learn more about the various film simulations, there is a video by Vistek that’s definitely worth watching (click here).
Once you have the base figured out, it’s time to fine-tune it to achieve your desired look. There are a lot of different settings, some of which are only available on the newer models. We’ll only briefly discuss each, because I don’t want to get bogged down in the details. I’ll link to an article or video for the settings, in case you need further explanations. You can find these settings in the IQ Menu subset and in Edit/Save Custom Settings. If you are unsure of how to program a Film Simulation Recipe into your Fujifilm camera, click here and here.
– Dynamic Range. Choose either DR-Auto (the camera will choose either DR100 or DR200), DR100, DR200, or DR400 (note: D-Range Priority or HDR can be used in lieu of a DR setting, and can also be considered). The Dynamic Range settings are primarily for protecting highlights, but affect the luminosity curve. DR100 protects highlights from clipping the least, while DR400 protects the highlights from clipping the most; however, DR400 requires a higher ISO and produces a lower-contrast image. Click here, here, here, here, and here to learn more. For my recipe, I wanted to protect highlights the most because I planned to expose the image more, so I chose DR400.
– Grain. Only X-Trans III and newer cameras have a faux Grain option (Off, Weak, or Strong), and only the X-Pro3 and newer have the option for Grain Size (Small or Large). The Acros film simulation is the only one with built-in grain (the faux Grain options can be used in addition to the built-in Acros grain). High-ISO digital noise on Fujifilm cameras can produce a film-grain-like effect, too, and is something else to be considered. Click here, here, here, and here to learn more. For this recipe, I decided I like Grain set to Strong/Small after testing a couple options.
– Color Chrome Effect and Color Chrome FX Blue. These settings deepen the tonality of certain colors (renders them darker) so that they retain more details when they are especially vibrant. For each, the options are Off, Weak, or Strong. For more information, click here, here, and here. I chose Color Chrome Effect set to Strong (for darker reds) and Color Chrome FX Blue set to Off (for lighter blues).
– White Balance and Shift. This is an important tool for altering the aesthetic of the base film simulation. First, it’s important to understand that most color films were either Daylight balanced (around 5500K) or Tungsten balanced (around 3200K), so if you want to mimic film, choosing a similar white balance is a good option. You can significantly manipulate the cast using white balance and shift together. Unfortunately, cameras older than the X-Pro3 cannot save a WB Shift within C1-C7 Custom Settings Presets. Click here, here, and here to learn more. After much experimenting, I landed on Daylight White Balance with a Shift of +2 Red & -1 Blue.
– Highlight and Shadow. This is found within Tone Curve on newer cameras. Highlight and Shadow is what adjusts the luminosity curve. -2 is the least (least highlight, least shadows), and +4 (or +2 on older models) is the most (strongest highlights, deepest shadows). This also highly affects contrast. To learn more, click here and here. I set Highlight to -2 to soften them and protect them from clipping, and I set Shadow to +2 to deepen shadows and increase contrast.
– Color. This sets the vibrancy, from -4 (least vibrant) to +4 (most vibrant). For more information, click here. I wanted more highly saturated colors, so I went with +4.
– Sharpness and Noise Reduction. Choose between -4 and +4 (-2 and +2 on older models). On newer cameras, Noise Reduction is renamed High ISO NR, but it’s the same thing. I typically (but not always) stay within -2 and +2 Sharpness (-1 and +1 on older models). I feel that Fujifilm’s Noise Reduction is too strong, so I like to use a minus setting. Click here, here, and here to learn more. I set Sharpness to -2 and Noise Reduction to -4 for this new recipe.
– Clarity. This is a micro-contrast adjustment, either more (+1 to +5) or less (-1 to -5), with 0 being Off. Using a minus Clarity setting is similar to using a diffusion filter. Clarity does slow down the camera, as there is a “Storing” pause after each exposure, and continuous shooting modes (CL and CH) disable this setting. Only the X-Pro3 and newer models have Clarity. Click here and here for more information. I wanted a softer look, so I set Clarity to -3.
There are two other important parts of a recipe. First, you have to decide the maximum (and maybe minimum) ISO. I like to use Auto-ISO the majority of the time. For color photography, I feel most Fujifilm cameras do well up to ISO 6400, but that’s just my personal tolerance. You might want to top it out at ISO 3200 or ISO 12800, or whatever you prefer. To learn more, click here, here, and here. For this recipe I set Auto-ISO to be up to ISO 6400. Finally, you have to decide how much Exposure Compensation you typically want. Do you want brighter or darker results? This works hand-in-hand with the luminosity curve you’ve created with DR, Highlight, and Shadow. A word of caution is that each exposure should be judged individually, and typical exposure compensation is merely a starting point, and not a rule. Click here and here to learn more. For my recipe, I wanted a brighter picture, so I usually increase the exposure over what the meter says, typically by +2/3 to +1-1/3 stop.
The very last step is to give your new Film Simulation Recipe a name. Even though the pilot episode of Little House on the Prairie was the initial inspiration for my recipe, after visiting Balboa Park in San Diego, I had a change of perspective. You see, Balboa Park has hosted two different World Expositions (in 1915 and 1935)—remnants of which are still prominent to this day—which reminded me of my own World’s Fair experience: when I was six years old, my family and I went to Expo ’86 in Vancouver, Canada. I found many old pictures of that event—personal, in books, and online—and this recipe was highly reminiscent of some of those photographs. This Film Simulation Recipe produces a nostalgic analog aesthetic that is similar to some pictures from the mid-1980’s (presumably primarily Kodak emulsions, but I’m not certain), so I named it Emulsion ’86.
If you like your recipe creation, consider sharing it with the Fujifilm community so that others can use it, too. If you don’t have a place to share it, the Fuji X Weekly Community Recipes page is for you!
This Emulsion ’86 Film Simulation Recipe is only compatible with (as of this writing) the Fujifilm X-T5, X-H2, and X-H2S. I assume that the GFX100S and GFX50S II can also use this recipe, but that it will render slightly different—I don’t have either of those cameras to test it to know for certain. This recipe does well for both sunny daylight and rainy overcast photography.
Film Simulation: Nostalgic Neg.
Grain Effect: Strong, Small
Color Chrome Effect: Strong
Color Chrome FX Blue: Off
White Balance: Daylight, +2 Red & -1 Blue
Dynamic Range: DR400
Highlight: -2
Shadow: +2
Color: +4
Sharpness: -2
High ISO NR: -4
Clarity: -3
ISO: Auto, up to ISO 6400
Exposure Compensation: +2/3 to +1-1/3 (typically)
Example photographs, all camera-made JPEGs using this “Emulsion ’86” Film Simulation Recipe on my Fujifilm X-T5:
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Fujifilm X-T5 in black: Amazon B&H
Fujifilm X-T5 in silver: Amazon B&H
Find this Film Simulation Recipe and over 250 more on the Fuji X Weekly — Film Recipes App!
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Beautiful recipe and lovely pictures. Thanks for this very usefull post.
I appreciate your kindness! 😀
Wow. Great insight. I just moved to Boston and would love to experiment with this while I’m in a new city. Thank you
I appreciate your kindness! 😀
Could you maybe add a pingback to the older articles on sensible naming convention of presets in-camera, and acronyms to use in there? I used to come across these when I didn’t own this modern-day gear allowing to do that. And may have lost the bookmarks, if I ever stored those. Thanks in advance…
https://fujixweekly.com/2020/11/08/recipe-custom-name-format/
Hi Ritchie,
This is so great, thanks for all the time you have put into curating your site and the recipes here. (And your images are beautiful, kinda making me want to move to the US 🙂
I’ve made a PayPal contribution just here and will go ahead and purchase the full version of your app too.
I love my Fujifilm gear as it reminds me of the 70s/80s film SLRs that I grew up on, and while I have been shooting RAW+JPEG since day one with the Fujis it’s primarily the JPEGs that I use, unless big curve moves are necessary in post. However, I’m late to your party, and am now deep in the rabbit hole (two days and counting!) of setting up my X-T5 and T50 bodies with some of your recipes. This is 100% going to change my way of shooting for sure and I’m really excited by the possibilities.
I’m an engineer in my day job and spent a lot of time exploring the details of Fuji’s sensor and image processing chain when I first began using the cameras. The DR modes in particular took a lot of comprehending and I notice in a few of your recipes you specify DR200 rather than DR400. Also, up above on this page you mention that DR400 produces lower-contrast images. While that’s true in the sense that it preserves highlight headroom that’s about clipping and it doesn’t affect the tone curve, unlike D-Range Priority which does (very heavily if set to STRONG). Regular DR mode on the other hand just swaps analogue gain for digital, meaning the pixel values are lower by one or two stops in the raw capture with brightening being applied either by the camera’s JPEG engine or in Lightroom/C1 etc if you use that kind of workflow. The cameras are almost completely ISO invariant, meaning the impact on shadow noise is barely anything, and therefore there’s really no downside to permanently setting DR400.
If ISO is set to less than 2x base then the camera will automatically revert to DR100, if it’s less than 4x base it still use DR200 then at 4x base or above it will give the full two stops of extra headroom with DR400. You always get better noise performance by using the lowest ISO possible, within the creative constraints of shutter speed and aperture choices, and there’s no getting around that. But if you *do* need to shoot at a high ISO then it’s almost* always better to use DR mode and have the gain applied digitally rather than in the sensor’s analogue stage before the A-to-D converter when you risk clipping the highlights.
* The exception to this comes about because of Fuji uses dual-gain analogue circuitry, but this is some seriously nerdy business to get into so I’ll say that the difference is small and leave it there!
So I’d suggest using DR400 across the board in your recipes, if the ISO is low the camera will adjust it downwards as needed and if the ISO is high the highlights will be protected without much or any shadow noise penalty.
Warm regards,
Mike
Cambridge, UK
Hi! I appreciate all of your kindness and support!
DR400 mostly affects the highlights (prevents clipping) but it does affect the overall contrast, including shadows (although it mostly affects the highlights). Also, since it moves the right side of the histogram down, it might mean (situationally dependent) that you will need to increase the exposure by 1/3 stop, which will affect all of the tones. Using DR400 for everything can be a good strategy for maximizing dynamic range, but it can also make the pictures seem more “flat”, which if you want a more punchy look, might not be the best option. Also, it depends on the film simulation itself; for example, Eterna is already quite flat, and sometimes DR100 or DR200 can produce better results than DR400. So it really just depends on what you want and the light situations. Definitely nothing wrong with using DR400 for all the Recipes if that works well for you.
Thanks for the input!
Hi Ritchie,
I’ve been thinking about all this since reading your reply last week, and the first thing I realised is DR200/400 absolutely must reduce contrast to represent values in the extra stop or two of range that’s available in raw images these modes. At least, that must be true when the raw image uses the extra range, perhaps not when the scene is low in contrast.
I decided to do some testing and find out for sure. I’m glad I did, as the results weren’t what I expected. I’ll share them here in the hope that you and members of the community here find them useful too.
I used three base test shots, all taken with my X-T50 set to ISO 500, which is the lowest setting that allows DR400. Currently Easy Reala Ace is my default recipe for everyday shooting so everything else was set according to that. Exposure and focus set manually. (And the camera was tripod-mounted with IS Mode set to Off, not that that should affect things.)
My first two test shots are of the same high contrast scene, the view out of my front door on a sunny day but with the sun out of frame, and with items in the hallway in shadow.
Scene01 – high contrast scene exposed to avoid highlight clipping (f/8 and 1/1250th sec)
Scene02 – high contrast scene exposed for the shadows with highlights deliberately clipped heavily (f/2.8 and 1/60th sec)
Scene03 – a very low contrast close-up shot of pale blue linen shirt fabric taken indoors by diffuse window light (f/4 and 1/30th sec)
For each scene I generated three JPEGs:
• DR400 – a physical exposure at this setting
• DR100-conv – produced using the in-camera raw converter from the DR400 frame but with the DR setting changed to DR100
• DR100 – a second physical shot with the camera set directly to DR100 using the same aperture
and shutter speed as for the DR400 shot
The first new thing I learned is that the camera won’t allow an increase in DR when you re-convert the raw, you can only leave it the same or decrease it. Guess this makes sense as the setting changes the whole scaling of the values in the raw image, reducing every pixel by one or two stops (by reducing analogue gain in the sensor), and hence gives better highlight headroom. If that’s not been done at capture time then those highlights can’t be rescued, they’ve been clipped right out.
The second thing I learned is that DR and DR-Priority are not interchangeable. This is more surprising since DR-P does the exact same thing with the sensor but then makes much bigger tone curve moves in the JPEG conversion. But whatever, that’s what Fuji decided, if you’ve shot with DR-P Strong then you can re-convert to Weak or Off if you like, but the ordinary DR options are greyed out. (And likewise, if you’ve shot in DR mode you can’t convert to DR-P.)
Ok, so what about the image comparisons?
For Scene01 the two DR100 images are visually identical as far as I can tell, backed up by near-zero differences in the histograms in Lightroom Classic’s Develop module. The histograms also confirm no highlight clipping in any of the shots. The DR400 shot does look significantly different though, with tones in the sky brought down from values around 95% in the blue channel to ~90%. This makes the few scattered clouds stand out, adding a bit of punch, although the histogram is clearly packed a bit tighter so in technical terms this means lower contrast. But for sure you’re correct Ritchie, there *is* a difference in contrast, and this is happening even when there was no highlight clipping in the raw capture even down at DR100.
Using Lightroom’s tool to Show Shadow Clipping reveals some differences between the three files, with DR100 having the most, followed by DR400 then DR100-conv. However, these areas are so black as there is no perceptible difference to me in the actual image.
Moving to Scene02, we have a more reasonable use case for DR400 as the highlights are dramatically blown in all three cases and there is no shadow clipping at all. The two DR100 files remain very similar but there is a tiny shift to the right in DR100-conv, obvious on the histogram and visible in the image too, particularly in the mid-tones. It’s subtle and I’m not sure it would be possible to spot it without doing a direct A-B comparison.
The Scene02 DR400 shot has far more surviving detail in the outdoor area and the same drop in highlight values of about 5% that I saw in Scene01. Shadows and midtones appear unaffected, so it looks like the curve manipulation is being done at the top to cram a wider range of highlight values into the JPEG, exactly as we’d expect.
Finally, Scene03 is the weirdest one. This is a very low-contrast image and at DR100 there are no pixel values below 35% or above 85%. The DR100-conv image is lighter, with the histogram shifted a little to the right, visually the effect is looks about the same as what you get by upping Exposure by +0.15 in Lightroom. While this might not sound like much it’s impossible to miss on screen. DR400 trims 5% or so from the top as it did before, but with the same increase at the bottom as for DR100-conv. All told, these three files look significantly different.
It does seem I need to reconsider my approach to “set and forget” DR400, and my previous suggestion to follow that method in all your recipes is best ignored! It would have been nice if Fuji had implemented things so that tone curve and contrast changes were only applied when needed to fit a raw capture’s wide highlight value range into the JPEG. There is no technical reason why the JPEGs for my Scene01 and Scene03 examples should be any different between DR100 and DR400. As it is, there will be tonal alterations even when the scene contrast is relatively low, and in fact the most visible changes seem to be happening in the lowest-contrast scenarios, which is a shame.
But I have one more question for you Ritchie, re recipes like Easy Reala Ace that call for DR400. That recipe also specifies “ISO: Auto, up to ISO 6400”, and six of the seven other recipes that I’ve selected for my custom slots specify DR200/400 with auto ISO. Is your intention then to avoid manual ISO below the point where DR will be automatically disabled? Or are you more flexible than that in your own shooting and with the samples you’ve put up on the site here?
Best regards,
Mike
Hi, Mike! Sorry for the late response.
I use Auto-ISO because I’m lazy, and the camera does real well with it. Perhaps 5% of the time I shoot full-manual, and set the ISO myself. But most of the time I let the camera choose the ISO for me. That’s just what works for me.
One other thing: if you do shoot DR-P, if you reprocess the file and set it to Off, the DR options are no longer greyed out, and you can choose any of them if you used DR-P Strong, or DR100 or DR200 if you used DR-P Weak.
Hiya Ritchie,
Np, only just spotted your reply but thanks for getting back 🙂
I also use Auto-ISO a lot, most any time I’m indoors, but in full daylight usually I set ISO to base and exposure mode to A. The camera uses an acceptable shutter speed for any aperture, especially now both my bodies have IBIS. If I was shooting a lot of sports or action it might be different, but that’s not my thing.
So to refine my question, do you feel your recipes still give the look you are after at lower ISOs, with less/zero contrast reduction from DR mode and less visible grain (Acros is particularly affected but the others are too, to some extent), or would you keep a higher ISO deliberately for a more film-like rendering, even when there’s enough light to shoot at base?
I realise as photographers we can all make our own choices, and I’ve been pretty happy with the results at base ISO, with a cleaner look than at two stops faster, but I’m interested in what your intent was and how you use the recipes yourself.
Best regards,
Mike
I rarely use base-ISO myself, personally. Sometimes I do, though. If a Recipe, something like McCurry Kodachrome, calls for DR100, my auto-ISO will select the base-ISO. For that Recipe base-ISO makes a lot of sense. But I think the higher ISOs do look good on Fujifilm cameras, especially for a more analog-like-look.
Also I see what you mean about reprocessing a DR-P Strong shot with DR200 or 400, wonder why they didn’t allow the same in reverse, so you could apply DR-P to a DR shot by setting it back to DR100. It’s a bit odd, the raw exposure will be exactly the same in both cases.
I have no idea why they programmed it that way. It does seem strange. But maybe there is some reason that would make sense if it was explained.
Ok interesting, so the choice not to shoot at base really *is* a creative one, to get the look you want from those recipes. I do see what you mean, and like the look that comes from using them that way too, even if I find myself twitching a bit when I see the camera choosing ISO 500 in bright daylight (it goes against the grain, as it were 😉
The higher ISO forced by DR400 is actually reducing the dynamic range by nearly two stops relative to base, dropping from somewhere over ten stops to about eight-and-a-half. Even though it protects the highlights, the shadow noise will have lifted up and the overall range is less. This is still more than chrome film but a lot less than the latitude of C41 print films, so the sensor characteristics mean it’s never going to be possible to exactly mimic the look of those low-contrast colour neg films. I’m not sure exact replication is the goal here anyway though.
You mention McCurry Kodachrome, I’ve been tinkering with a blended recipe based on that and your K25 one, but had kept the DR400 from the latter. I will change that out and see how it goes, it does make sense to use base ISO when trying to mirror the sharpest and lowest-grain colour film in history. I used to shoot a lot of K25 back in the day, always found it a much more interesting stock than Velvia which could just come out garish a lot of the time.
I don’t even think twice about ISO 500 anymore (and not for a long time). I had a Pentax DSLR about 15 years ago, and I remember accidentally shooting at ISO 1600 in daylight, and the photos were essentially ruined. Nowadays, ISO 1600 on Fujifilm cameras don’t bother me in the slightest, and sometimes I will even use that high or higher (sometimes much higher) for the aesthetic of it. Here’s a crazy example of that:
https://fujixweekly.com/2024/07/31/iso-51200-why-or-is-it-actually-useful/
Velvia 50 either worked and looked amazing in its boldness, or it didn’t and was just hideous. Wasn’t much of an in-between. Kodachrome 25 had a much more subtle beauty, with its fine details and lovely gradations… much more poetic… but it needed strong colors and the right light to make a bold image… was more about the subtleties than the boldness, I think.
Thanks for the comment!