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Fuji X Weekly: Top 21 Articles of 2021

Posted on December 30, 2021 by Ritchie Roesch

It’s been a wild year—at least for me, and I imagine for many of you, too. As 2021 winds down and 2022 quickly approaches, I thought it would be fun to look back at the most-viewed articles of the year. Since it’s 2021, I decided to share the Top 21 articles. Below that, just for fun, you’ll find the most overlook (least viewed) articles of 2021.

Top 21 Articles of 2021

You might notice that all but one of these Top 21 articles are Film Simulation Recipes, which is not a surprise to me. These recipes are why most people come to Fuji X Weekly, and what I’m best known for. You might also notice that recipes modeled after Kodak film stocks tend to be the most popular, which shouldn’t surprise anyone since Kodak was the top-dog in the film world for a century or so.

Top 21 Most Overlooked Articles of 2021:

21. How To Add “Light Leaks” To Your Photos Using Page Markers
20. Fuji X Weekly App: Filtering by Camera or Sensor?
19. The Journey Is The Destination, Part 2: Time to Eat
18. FXW App: Filter by White Balance — How To Use This New Feature
17. Fujifilm X100F Face-Eye Detection
16. Capturing Family Photos – Being Both Behind & In Front of The Camera
15. Defending Tatsuo Suzuki
14. Fujifilm X100F – Digital Teleconverter + High ISO
13. 200 Film Simulation Recipes on the FXW App!
12. Fujifilm X100F vs. Sigma DP2 Merrill
11. The Journey is the Destination, Part 3: Lodging Locations
10. Digital Is Disposable
9. Creative Uses of Multiple Exposure Photography
8. Fujifilm X-A3 & Soviet Lenses, Part 3: Industar 61
7. Fujifilm X100F & Bokeh
6. Comparing “Classic Negative” and “Color Negative” Film Simulation Recipes
5. Fujifilm X-A3 & Soviet Lenses, Part 2: Jupiter 21M
4. Camera Basics: Shutter Speed
3. How To Use The Fuji X Weekly App (Videos)
2. Fujifilm X RAW Studio
1. The Artist Photographer

Many of these are old articles from several years ago, and a few are from this year. If you don’t recognize a title, consider clicking the link to perhaps see something you missed.

I want to take a quick moment in closing to thank everyone who has visited this website, shared articles, commented, downloaded the A pp, watched SOOC, and were otherwise a part of the Fuji X Weekly community in some way or another. You all are who make this whole project great! I truly hope you had a wonderful Christmas, and that 2022 will be a great year for you!

Pal2Tech Film Simulation High-ISO Video

Posted on December 3, 2021 by Ritchie Roesch

Pal2Tech posted a video today discussing the noise performance of various film simulations when using high-ISO photography on Fujifilm cameras. I like the videos from this channel, as they’re always entertaining and educational. I’ve learned several things myself, so I definitely recommend following him if you don’t already.

I wanted to mention this particular video (which you’ll find above) specifically because I think it misses the point on high-ISO photography. Or several points, really. I do still recommend watching it—I found it interesting, personally—and I appreciate the effort put into it. But I want to add my own commentary, so here we go!

The first point that’s missed is that Fujifilm’s digital noise doesn’t look like typical noise from digital cameras. Fujifilm’s programming makes it appear more organic, a little more film-grain-like, and much less hideous than that from other brands. So having some noise in an image isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Digital noise can actually be more than just “not bad” but can actually be a positive thing, and you might be missing out by avoiding it.

Which brings me to point two: in the digital age we’re too often striving for “perfect” images with its squeaky-clean aesthetics. In my article No Edit Photography: 7 Tips To Get The Film Look From Your Digital Photos, I stated, “Perfect pictures can be perfectly boring.” And, “Creativity is rarely born out of perfectionism.” Avoiding digital noise is ok, I suppose, but never at the expense of things that are more important.

Point number three (for those keeping track) is that digital noise (from Fujifilm cameras) can actually make your digital pictures appear less digital and more film-like (that’s tip six in that article I linked to in the last paragraph). In fact, my Ilford HP5 Plus Push Process film simulation recipe purposefully uses a minimum ISO of 25600, and it looks shockingly good when printed! If you’re striving for “perfection” and you are pixel-peeping at 300% magnification, noise might bother you a little. Otherwise, the “imperfection” of it can be incorporated beautifully into your art.

The simple takeaway is this: don’t be afraid to get a little noisy. Don’t worry so much about squeaky-clean pictures, but embrace the messiness of photography, and worry about the things that actually matter (like storytelling). Don’t be afraid to shoot at high-ISOs. Certainly if you are limiting yourself to below ISO 3200 for Acros, Classic Negative, and Eterna Bleach Bypass, you are missing out on some lovely pictures (you’ll find an example of each below). It’s ok to pixel-peep, but just know that nobody outside of some photographers care what an image looks like when inspected so closely, and most people who view your pictures won’t be impressed or unimpressed by how an image looks at that magnification, because they only care if the picture as a whole speaks to them in some way.

Fujifilm X-E4 – Eterna Bleach Bypass – ISO 5000

Fujifilm X-E4 – Classic Negative – ISO 5000

Poll: Which Fujifilm Camera Sensor Do You have?

Posted on December 3, 2021 by Ritchie Roesch

I need your help!

I want to know what camera sensor generation is inside your Fujifilm camera. Why? Because I want to be more helpful to you, the Fuji X Weekly audience, when creating new film simulation recipes. I don’t currently have every sensor generation—right now, it’s GFX and Bayer that I don’t own (you never know when that changes), but, since I was gifted an X-H1, I now have every X-Trans option at my disposal. In the coming year I want to focus more on what is beneficial to you, and in order to do so I need to know what you own.

If you have a spare moment right now, help me out by taking the short survey below:

Thank you!

Let me know in the comments what your favorite Fujifilm model is that you own, and what Fujifilm model is the one you’d love to own someday but currently don’t. For me, the favorite model that I own is the X100V, and the one I’d love to own someday is the X-Pro3.

How To Navigate Fuji X Weekly

Posted on November 28, 2021 by Ritchie Roesch

When I created the Fuji X Weekly website, I wanted it to be clean and simple. I took a minimalistic approach to its design. For awhile it was clean and simple, but as the website grew and things evolved over time, it became less and less so.

The Blog used to be the Homepage, but now they’re separate—while the Blog is still pretty minimalistic, the Homepage is fairly busy. The two screenshots below show the cluttered Homepage compared to the clean Blog. The original design philosophy still serves a purpose, but in many ways Fuji X Weekly has outgrown it. I will likely at some point revamp the design, which would be a lot of work, but for now it remains as it gets the job done.

Because the Homepage is so busy, it’s easy to overlook things on there. For example, you might have missed that the 10 most recent blog posts can be accessed from it. Or that if you keep scrolling down, there’s an option to “Follow by Email” or even search the website. Because the Blog is so clean, it’s easy to miss much of the available material. The point of this article is to shed some light on how to navigate this website so that you don’t miss anything. There’s much more content than many might realize.

Specifically, I want to talk about the Menus that some people might not even know exist. Before going into that, though, I want to mention that clicking on “Fuji X Weekly” over the camera (see the top picture in this article) will take you to the Homepage. No matter where you are, it’s easy to get back home. To the left and right of “Fuji X Weekly” at the top are what’s called Hamburger Menus. The top-left Hamburger Menu has three horizontal lines, and the top-right Hamburger Menu has four horizontal lines. The left menu will bring up a list of pages. The Homepage and the Blog are just two of 17 standalone pages on Fuji X Weekly. At the bottom is a search bar, which is helpful if you are searching for something specific. The right menu will bring up a list of recent blog posts, an archive of blog posts (you can browse through specific months, going all the way back to the beginning), and a search bar is on top. This is the easiest place to find specific articles, either by searching or browsing. The best way to think about it is: Pages are accessed via the left menu, Posts are accessed through the right menu.

Let’s talk briefly about those 17 standalone pages, accessed through the top-left menu.

The Homepage you already know. Next is About—there’s a short biography (and a link to an article that dives a little deeper into it), but most importantly there’s a “Contact Me” form, if you want to shoot me a message. Then there is the Blog, which, again, you already know. After that is the Creative Collective Corner, which is where you’ll find bonus articles for Creative Collective subscribers. Next is Development, which is simply a list of How-To and Photographic Advice type articles that I’ve published. The Film Simulation Recipes page is next. This is actually a redundant page that originally served a very different purpose. You see, for awhile all of the film simulation recipes were listed there, but then, as I made more-and-more, it just made more sense to separate them into different groups, and not all on one page. I didn’t want to delete the page because there were so many links to it. Now it serves as a launching platform (identical to what’s on the Homepage) to the different recipe groups. If you are not sure which sensor generation your camera has, there’s a list at the bottom of the page. After that is Film Simulation Reviews, which is a list of articles that demonstrate various recipes in different situations. Then there’s the Fuji X Weekly App page, which is everything you need to know about the App. The next six pages are where you’ll find all of the recipes: Bayer, GFX, X-Trans I, X-Trans II, X-Trans III, and X-Trans IV. After that is the Gear page, which is where you’ll find my camera and lens reviews. Next is SOOC Live, which is where you’ll find all of the SOOC episodes. Last but not least is the Video page, which is where you’ll find my YouTube videos.

All of that is accessed through that top-left menu!

The content in the top-right menu is more dynamic, and is always evolving as more articles are published. I want to mention one more time the search bar, which is such a great way to find things—especially if you are unsure where exactly it is located. If you can remember what the article was titled or about, the search feature can help you quickly find it.

Fuji X Weekly has been around for over four years, and I’ve published a lot of articles during that time. Most people come for the film simulation recipes, yet there’s lots of other great stuff to explore; however, it’s not always obvious what there is and where exactly it’s at on the website. The intention of this post is to help you find it. The top-left menu will take you to the various pages, the top-right menu will take you to various posts, and the “Fuji X Weekly” in-between will take you home.