Fujifilm has 20 Film Simulations on their latest cameras, and one of my favorites is Nostalgic Negative (also called Nostalgic Neg.). I thought it would be worthwhile to discuss this Film Simulation and compare a few different Recipes. Let’s jump right into this.
Nostalgic Negative is one of Fujifilm’s most recent Film Sims, first appearing in 2021 on the GFX100S, and now found on all of the fifth-generation X-series cameras. Inspired by American New Color photographs of the 1970’s from William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, and Joel Sternfeld (among others), it aims to replicate the look of prints from that era. The result is an aesthetic that feels like a warm memory pulled from your grandparent’s photo album or a shoebox full of old pictures.
Rainbow over Jersey – Jersey City, NJ – Fujifilm X-T50 – 1976 Kodak Recipe
In practice, Nostalgic Neg. sits somewhere between Classic Chrome and Eterna. It carries some of the subtle tonal gentleness of Eterna while achieving a Kodak-esque palette kind of similar to Classic Chrome, but with a unique shadow rendering and warmth. This Film Simulation doesn’t aim for true-to-life results; it’s more like a memory, giving your photos an instant sense of history and emotion.
So far, I’ve published 22 Film Simulation Recipes that use Nostalgic Negative as the base. You can achieve various looks with this Film Sim., and you may not know which one is right for you. I thought it would be a good idea to compare a handful of them directly, which might help you to decide which one(s) to program into your Fujifilm camera. The images below are all camera-made JPEGs from my Fujifilm GFX100S II, reprocessed in-camera using various Recipes, plus one with factory-default settings (no Recipe). I’m considering publishing a whole bunch of similar articles, so let me know if you appreciate this type of comparison.
This last Saturday I taught a class at Nuzira called Fujifilm’s Film Simulations & Fuji X Weekly Recipes — Film-like Photos Without Editing. Overall the class went well; however, for those who couldn’t attend in-person, the first 30 minutes of it did not livestream. I’m not sure what went wrong. But, if you want to catch the last hour, it’s on Nuzira’s YouTube channel. My apologies for the technical trouble.
A request that I had from someone in the class was to share the image that’s at the top of this article, which directly compares Fujifilm’s 20 Film Simulations. The other IQ settings in those photos are factory default (without Recipes). It’s a good way to see how the various Film Sims render the scene differently. If you are not sure what the different Film Simulations do and which ones you might like best, you can probably get a good idea by studying that image.
I don’t have a comparison of Film Simulations with and without Recipes, other than a quick side-by-side from a couple of years ago. It might be worthwhile to do something like that again, but perhaps more robust. With over 400 Recipes, it would be impractical to do all of them, or even most. Still, it might be beneficial to tackle such a project, so that’s something I’ll try to work on. I’m sure it will need to take place over a whole series of articles.
Fujifilm X-E5 & 23mm f/2.8 – Captured with a GFX100S II & 80mm f/1.7 – Reala Ace Recipe
While I was at Nuzira, I picked up a Fujifilm X-E5 with the 23mm f/2.8 that I had preordered. I didn’t get my name on the list quick enough to be in the first batch, but (thankfully) the second batch wasn’t far behind. I haven’t set up the camera yet, but I’m hoping I can get to that today. Not unrelated to the previous paragraphs, I plan to write some articles about the X-E5. After all, this is Fujifilm’s very first Recipe camera.
If you are in the Los Angeles area this coming weekend, please join me on a Fujifilm X half photowalk with Samy’s Camera, as part of their 49th Anniversary three-day event. Spaces are limited and won’t likely last long, so be sure to register today! It’s $25 per-person ($27.13 after taxes), but each participant will receive a $25 Samy’s gift card, essentially making it free. Please bring an SD Card so you can take your photos home.
I’ll also be in Minneapolis on September 28th. Details to come, but it’s a don’t-miss kind of event, so if you live in the area, be sure to mark your calendars.
Fujifilm X-T5 + Kodak Portra 800 v3 Film Simulation Recipe
This morning I headed out with my Fujifilm X-T5 to capture some images, so that I could do a side-by-side comparison of the new Kodak Portra 800 v3 Film Simulation Recipes with the other two Portra 800 options, plus Kodak Portra 400 v2. As I explained in the article for the new Recipe, Peter McKinnon’s Portra 800 photographs were the inspiration for it, and it is also reminiscent of some of Kyle McDougall’s An American Mile Portra 400 pictures. With all of these Recipe options, perhaps you are unsure which one you should use. Just because I published a new version, doesn’t mean that it is inherently the best one or the right one for you; it’s simply an alternative that you may or may not like. Hopefully, this article will help you with your decision. I do believe that many of you will appreciate the new Kodak Portra 800 v3 Recipe.
It’s important to understand that one film can produce many different looks based on a whole host of factors: how shot (film format, lens, exposure, filters, light, etc.), how developed (push/pull, brand of chemicals, freshness of chemicals, timing, temperature and pH of the water, etc.), how printed (paper, chemicals, timing, filters, etc.) and/or how scanned (brand of scanner, correction profiles, post-editing, etc.). Even within one photographer’s collection of one specific emulsion, there can be some noticeable variances. In the case of Peter McKinnon and his Kodak Portra 800, there is indeed significant divergences in the exact look of different pictures. My Kodak Portra 800 v3 Recipe does not accurately mimic all of his pictures captured with the film, but it is pretty close to some of them.
These three Kodak Portra 800 Recipes can all resemble the film; however, they’re much different from each other. Since one emulsion can produce divergent results, you can achieve various looks by choosing different Film Simulation Recipes. My original Kodak Portra 800 Film Simulation Recipe was a joint venture between myself and Thomas Schwab based on “memory color” (as Fujifilm likes to put it) of the film. The next version, Kodak Portra 800 v2, was created entirely by Thomas Schwab after he shot a roll of the film and his Fujifilm X-Pro3 camera side-by-side. The third version was created by me after carefully examining Peter McKinnon’s pictures of Kodak Portra 800 film. I included my Kodak Portra 400 v2 Recipe in this comparison because it is fairly similar to the Kodak Portra 800 v3 Recipe, and because there is an obvious resemblance with the new Recipe to some Portra 400 film photographs.
With all of that said, let’s jump right into the comparison! Because X-Trans V renders blue more deeply on some film sims, I adjusted Color Chrome FX Blue down one notch on Kodak Portra 800 and Kodak Portra 800 v2 to make them compatible with my X-T5.
For me, personally, it’s really hard to beat Kodak Portra 400 v2. It’s one of my all-time personal favorite Film Simulation Recipes, and it’s also one of the most popular. In each of these five sets, it’s the Recipe that I’m most drawn to. Kodak Portra 800 v3 is the most warm of these four options; a comparison of warmer Recipes—1970’s Summer, 1971 Kodak, Vibrant Arizona, Kodak Vericolor Warm, Kodak Portra 400 Warm, Bright Summer, Bright Kodak, and the new Kodak Portra 800 v3—would be interesting. The original Kodak Portra 800 Recipe is the punchiest, Kodak Portra 800 v2 is the softest, and v3 is the warmest. Ignoring the Kodak Portra 400 v2 pictures, I like Kodak Portra 800 v3 the best in the first set (with the truck), the third set (broken window, wide), and the fourth set (gas station); I like the original Kodak Portra 800 Recipe the best in the second set (broken window, tall) and the last set (Motor Hotel); while I do like Kodak Portra 800 v2 in each set, it wasn’t my top choice in any.
Now it’s your turn! From this test, which of these four Film Simulation Recipes did you like best? Which was your favorite for each set? Let me know in the comments!
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Classic Negative is one of my favorite film simulations, if not my favorite. There’s something special and unique about it that separates it from the other film simulations. It produces a very Superia film-like look, but can be made to have all sorts of different aesthetics. I thought it would be fun to compare the different film simulation recipes that use Classic Negative. I did this experiment a couple of months ago (I meant to post it back then), so some of the most recent Classic Negative recipes didn’t make this list, including Fujicolor C200, Fujicolor Pro 400H, Fujicolor NPS 160 Pulled, and Positive Film. And more Classic Negative recipes are in the works right now!
My hope is that one of the pictures below will inspire you to try a recipe that you haven’t yet tried. Maybe one of them stands out to you as more interesting than the rest. If so, let me know! Also, be sure to let me know in the comments which Classic Negative recipe is your favorite!
Here’s a unique idea that was suggested to me: apply different film simulations to different recipes, just to see what you get. Actually, that’s how My Ektachrome 100SW recipe came to be: a Fuji X Weekly reader took my Kodachrome II recipe and replaced Classic Chrome with Velvia. I’m going to make a series out of this, which I’m calling With Other Film Simulations, and maybe something interesting will come out of it.
I’ll start with the Fujifilm X100VKodachrome 64 film simulation recipe. The original picture (at the top of this post), which you might recognize from my Rover Mini YouTube video, was made using Classic Chrome, the film simulation that the Kodachrome 64 recipe requires. The idea here is to keep every setting the same except for the film simulation. In case you don’t remember, the settings are:
Dynamic Range: DR200 Highlight: 0 Shadow: 0 Color: +2 Noise Reduction: -4 Sharpening: +1 Clarity: +3 Grain Effect: Weak, Small Color Chrome Effect: Strong Color Chrome Effect Blue: Weak White Balance: Daylight, +2 Red & -5 Blue
Let’s look at the pictures:
Provia
Velvia
Astia
PRO Neg. Hi
PRO Neg. Std
Classic Negative
Acros
Monochrome
Sepia
The color images are surprisingly similar. Velvia stands out for being the most vibrant. PRO Neg. Std stands out for having the lowest contrast. Classic Negative stands out for its color shift. The original version, which uses Classic Chrome, is still my favorite, but it is interesting to see how the other film simulations affect the picture. The Monochrome film simulation with these settings might prove to be a good low-contrast black-and-white recipe, something I’ll have to take a closer look at.
I hope that you enjoyed this quick article! We’ll do some more of these in the coming weeks and months. Which film simulation did you find most interesting with the Kodachrome 64 settings? Let me know in the comments!
Someone asked me what the differences are between my “Classic Negative” film simulation recipe and my “Color Negative” film simulation recipe. They’re pretty similar, but they’re not exactly identical. I thought it would be helpful to see them side-by-side, so I applied my “Color Negative” recipe using the in-camera RAW converter on my Fujifilm X-T30 to a few recent exposures that I had captured using my “Classic Negative” recipe. Check them out:
“Classic Negative”
“Color Negative”
“Classic Negative”
“Color Negative”
“Classic Negative”
“Color Negative”
“Classic Negative”
“Color Negative”
As you can see, while they’re quite similar, the “Color Negative” recipe is more saturated, has a tad more contrast, and is a little warmer with a bit more red. The “Classic Negative” recipe is slightly more bland, but with a nice vintage negative-film aesthetic. So which film simulation recipe do you like better, “Classic Negative” or “Color Negative”? Let me know in the comments!
I shoot JPEGs, but it’s not uncommon for me to shoot RAW+JPEG, since it gives me the opportunity to reprocess the picture in-camera, which is helpful when developing different film simulation recipes. Because of this, I was able to process a single picture I captured recently on my Fujifilm X-T30 using many of my different recipes to compare the differences. I thought that this might be helpful to some of you. Perhaps there’s one recipe that stands out to you in the pictures below that you’ve never used. Obviously different settings look better in different situations, and in this article there’s just one picture to compare, so even though you might not like how one recipe looks in this article doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t like it with different subject and in a different light. The scope of this article is quite limited, but I hope that seeing the various film simulation recipes applied to a single exposure is helpful to someone.
Not every recipe was used for this post. Some of them require a specific parameter that was not available. For example, the picture at the top was made using my HP5 Plus Push-Process recipe, which requires an ultra-high ISO, so it wasn’t possible to apply it to the exposure below. Other recipes, such as my faded color and faded monochrome, require double exposures. There are other film simulation recipes that you could try not represented below, and I invite you to investigate the different options to see if there’s one or more that work well for your photography. Let me know in the comments which film simulation recipe is your favorite and which in your opinion fits the exposure below best.
