Any Fujifilm Recipe can be used for video, but there are some caveats. First, not all of the options that are available for still photography are available for video (and, to a much lesser degree, vice versa). Also, the various Film Simulations look very subtly divergent for video than stills, simply because the pipeline is different for color sampling, curves, sharpening, and noise reduction—the output is nearly the same, but there are some small inherent variations, with some Film Simulations affected more than others. All of this is to say that Recipes intended for still photography will work for cinematography if you ignore the settings that aren’t available in movie mode, but the outcome will not be exactly the same. Aside from that, what works well for still photography does not always work well for video (and vice versa)—that’s why film manufacturers have some emulsions specifically for photographs and some specifically for motion pictures. With that in mind, I decided to create Fujifilm Recipes that are specifically designed for cinematography.
The Retro Fujicolor Video Recipe is my personal favorite for videography. My wife, Amanda, used this Recipe for two Fuji X Weekly YouTube videos last year: Fujifilm X-E5 + 11 Recipes — Roadtrip to the Oldest Building in Arizona and California Coast in Infrared — Fujifilm X-T4 ES & Aerochrome v2 Recipe. It was inspired by old television shows and commercials filmed on Fujifilm’s AX, A, and F motion picture films in the ’80’s and ’90’s. It has a muted and contrasty vintage Fujicolor look. I especially love how greens and blues are rendered. The YouTube video that I’ve embedded below is a good sampling of what the Retro Fujicolor Recipe looks like.
Retro Fujicolor is a video Recipe, and is not intended for still photography; however, you can use it for stills by choosing a Grain size (either Off or Weak/Small), setting Color Chrome Effect and Color Chrome FX Blue to Off, and set Clarity to 0. I did not include a “typical exposure compensation” because you’ll want to carefully consider the exposure for each individual scene, and whether it should be brighter or darker will depend on the exact light situation and desired mood. This Retro Fujicolor Recipe is compatible with some fourth-generation Fujifilm cameras—X-T4, X-S10, X-E4, and X-T30 II, as well as all fifth-generation cameras, which (as of this writing) are the X-H2s, X-H2, X-T5, X-S20, X100VI, X-T50, X-M5, X-E5, and X-T30 III. You can also use this with newer GFX cameras, too.
Film Simulation: Classic Negative
White Balance: Auto White Priority, -1 Red & -3 Blue
Dynamic Range: DR400
Highlight: -1.5
Shadow: -1.5
Color: -1
Sharpness: -2
High ISO NR: -4
Interframe NR: Auto
ISO: up to ISO 6400
The stills below are from the video above. The video footage was captured using a Fujifilm X-H2s, X-S20, and GFX100 II. No color grading, just straight-out-of-camera clips. Footage by AV, Sahand Nayebaziz, and Jeffrey Sun.
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