I get asked fairly regularly which Film Simulation Recipes are the most popular. For me, this is a fascinating topic, but it’s definitely hard to know definitively. While I get a glimpse on social media, my best gauge is the Fuji X Weekly website statistics; specifically, which Recipe articles are viewed the most. I don’t collect any data on the Fuji X Weekly App, so that’s no help—although, if I did, it would likely offer the most accurate picture; however, it would still be impossible to know which Recipes people programmed into their Fujifilm cameras, or how often they used each. Perhaps a survey would be particularly useful, yet even it has its limitations. While certainly a flawed method, page-view website statics offer the best glimpse at which Film Simulation Recipes are the most popular, so that’s what I’m using for this article. These are simply the Top 10 most-viewed B&W Recipes on the Fuji X Weekly website so far in 2024.
It’s close enough to the end of the year that there is unlikely to be much movement, if any, between now and January 1st, so I thought it would be a good time to begin looking at year-end statistics. When I share the Top 25 most popular Recipes of any given month, the results are pretty predictable: color Recipes dominate, especially those that mimic Kodak film stocks and use Classic Chrome. On the suggestion of a Fuji X Weekly reader, I’m going to share some Top 10 articles for Recipe categories where few are likely to crack the Top 25 overall. I’m starting with black-and-white, and we’ll see where this all goes from here.
I knew that Kodak Tri-X 400 would be Number One. It’s far-and-away the most popular black-and-white Film Simulation Recipe for Fujifilm cameras, and is in the Top 15 overall. Second place is a distant second, and not close to cracking the Top 25. I really didn’t know how the others would rank, and I was quite surprised by some of them. Four of these use the Acros film simulation (I thought more would), and six use the Monochrome film simulation.
Without any further delay, below are the most popular B&W Recipes of 2024!
Top 10 Most Popular B&W Film Simulation Recipes of 2024
#1:
This is the long-time most popular B&W Recipe on Fuji X Weekly. It’s based on the Acros film simulation, and has compatibility with X-Trans III, X-Trans IV, and X-Trans V models.
#2:
Another Acros-based Recipe, this one is compatible with X-Trans IV (except the X-T3/X-T30) and X-Trans V cameras.
#3:
This is the highest ranked Recipe that uses the Monochrome film simulation. It is compatible with X-Trans IV (except the X-T3/X-T30) and X-Trans V cameras.
#4:
Another Monochrome-based Recipe, this one is compatible with X-Trans IV (except the X-T3, X-T30, X-Pro3 & X100V) and X-Trans V models.
#5:
This is an older Recipe, published back in 2018. It uses the Acros film sim and is compatible with X-Trans III cameras, plus the X-T3 and X-T30.
#6:
Based on Acros, this was one of the very first Film Simulation Recipes published on Fuji X Weekly. It is compatible with X-Trans III cameras, plus the X-T3 and X-T30.
#7:
This Recipe is for X-Trans II cameras, and uses the Monochrome film simulation.
#8:
This is an X-Trans I Recipe that uses the Monochrome film simulation.
#9:
Another Monochrome-based Recipe, this one is compatible with the X-T3 and X-T30; for use on X-Trans III, simply ignore the settings that your camera doesn’t have.
#10:
Last but certainly not least is Kodak T-Max 400, which also uses the Monochrome film simulation. It has compatibility with X-Trans III, X-Trans IV, and X-Trans V models.
See also:
Top 25 Most Popular Film Simulation Recipes in November 2024
How To Add Film Simulation Recipes To Your Fujifilm Camera
The Essential 7 Film Simulation Recipes to Program Into Your Fujifilm Camera First
Which Film Simulation Recipe, When?
Find these Film Simulation Recipes and many more on the Fuji X Weekly App!
Tri-X and TMax-400 hard are the two that I’ve been bouncing between. Depends on light of course. Sometimes Tri-X comes off milky and the solution is Tmax400 hard.
I bet the two new T-Max Recipes by Dan would have made the list had they been around longer. I wondered if one might crack the Top 10, but they’re just too new, I think.
Very good article and great to see simulations of the great classics being so popular. I was surprised that Reggie Ballesteros’s HP5 didn’t make it but anyway it’s good to see the Ilford films up there close behind Tri-X. Thank you for all your info, articles, and of course simulations and pictures (together with your family) over the years. Merry Christmas, Ritchie!
The only Recipes by Reggie B’s that I have published are Reggie’s Portra, and Reggie’s Color Negative on Ricoh Recipes. I did discuss with him possibly including his HP5 Recipe at one point.
I’ve been fascinated lately D-Range Priority, in part from watching some videos on Frontier Scanners and Hypertone.
To that end, are there any B&W recipes which use DR-P? If not, it might be an interesting place to explore.
D-Range Priority and Hypertone are interesting, for sure. Here are a couple articles:
https://fujixweekly.com/2021/09/12/fujifilm-frontier-scanners-dynamic-range-priority/
https://fujixweekly.com/2023/11/13/d-range-priority-what-it-is-how-when-why-to-use-it/
The problem with using D-Range Priority with B&W is that it will be really flat. It would require a very high-contrast scene to work well. Could still be interesting to explore, I think in the “right” situations it could be good.
This feels exactly why the film sim dial is useful. Have a D-Range Priority recipe, click the wheel over to a black and white sim for a while, then click it back to Eterna or Classic Chrome or whatever it normally was.
D-Range Priority tends to work better with the higher-contrast film sims. It would take a pretty extreme case for Eterna (for example) to look good with it, in my opinion. Classic Chrome, Classic Negative, and Eterna Bleach Bypass are probably the best. Maybe it could work well for film simulation bracket.
In your opinion, what is the B&W recipe that comes closest to the Leica B&W tones?
I get asked this, but I’m never really sure what it means. Straight-out-of-camera Leica B&W tones are pretty similar to the factory-default Monochrome film simulation and aren’t necessarily anything special; however, since most Leica photographers are RAW photographers and their pictures are edited, I’m certain that is not what is meant. So I think the Leica look is just as much (if not more) a Lightroom look than purely Leica. I think what separates the “Leica look” from a “Canon look” or “Sony look” (or any other “look”) are largely the lenses used and probably some Lightroom presets/plugins that the Leica community gravitates towards—I’m not in that community, so I have no idea what those might be, or how exactly they affect the photographs. I’m sorry that I’m not more helpful.
Thank you for your kind reply. I asked this because I recently attended a street photography workshop organized by Leica Italy and they gave me one of their Q3 cameras to use. We all shot in JPEG and RAW, in black and white, and the photos were not edited in any way. I must say that I, used to Fuji, was amazed by the tone and quality of that black and white. At the moment I have not managed to get anything similar with my Fuji X-T5.
The only Leica I have ever used is the Q2, and only briefly. I did talk about their JPEGs in this article:
https://fujixweekly.com/2024/07/04/leica-q2-from-the-perspective-of-a-fujifilm-photographer/
The Q3 does have some new B&W profiles that the Q2 does not, but I don’t have any experience with those.