Tweaking Film Simulations

Today we talk Velvia, one of the most used and appreciated film simulations out there.

But keep in mind: the Velvia we have today, is not the Velvia we had when Fujifilm started its X series journey.

Especially the red tones did tend to get super-saturated, which why when I originally used Velvia on the first generation Fujifilm X series cameras, whenever I had red colors in the frame, I actually decreased the color saturation in-camera.

But that one got fixed with the arrival of the Fujifilm X-Pro2.

Fujifilm did try to get Velvia to work also on X-Pro1 and X-T1, but the processor could not handle the too complex algorithm.

If you want to read the full “Velvia-development” story, check out this article here.

And not only Velvia: pretty much all film simulations get tweaked overtime, when the new processors allow for even more sophisticated color tuning.

The Power of Velvia

And now let’s look at the awesome results one can achieve with Velvia, but not only for landscape photography.

And we’ll do that by sharing the latest video Fuji Guy Francis did, where he brings you into the wonderful Canadian countryside and uses Velvia only to take his images, and also, we will share a stunning series of images that fellow Fujifilm X Simulation group member Antonio has shared at our massive (78,000 members) group here.

1) Fuji Guy Francis

Fuji Guy Francis dedicated this months Film Simulation to Velvia, and it’s a very nice one as he will bring you out in the stunning Canadian countryside to capture its beauty in Velvia.

And I think he is making the best use of Velvia: when a grey day is robbing nature of its wonderful colors and Velvia restores some of that beauty.

2) Antonio

Once a year, the Mexican town of Tultepec becomes the hell on earth and home to the lords of fire and pyrotechnics.

Antonio was present with his Fujifilm X-T3 and XF18-55mm and captured the event.

Here on FujiRumors I will only share three images, but you can check out the full set of images at this film simulation Facebook post and also read an article about it at magazine.exposuresop here.

3) Bonus

You might remember the “World of Film Simulation” series of articles that Fujifilm made back in 2015.

We will share the full Velvia episode again down below. Check it out if you are interested in the Velvia development story.

The World of Film Simulation – Velvia

The 4th, 5th and 6th episode of Fuji’s film simulation is now online at Fujifilm X World.

In Episode 4 they talk about the PRONEG Film Simualtion.

“PRO Neg. The tonality is very soft, and the skin tone appears very soft. The rich tonality reflects the lighting setting perfectly. If you just press the shutter button without thinking of the final output, then it will just produce a boring flat image. The film simulation is most effective when you have clear vision of the final output. The film simulation is great for studio portraiture where you have time to think about composition, lighting, pose, and expression. […] “PRO Neg. Hi” has a harder tonality when compared with “PRO Neg STD”,”

Epsiode 5 is all about ASTIA:

“ASTIA is designed to be used under little or no lighting and subject in action. The film simulation is carefully designed to express the soft skin tones and not to wash out at the high end while making the shadow end a little hard. Tonality is designed so that it is sharp enough even without the use of lighting.”

In Episode 6 they cover the film simulation PROVIA:

“No matter what the subject, lighting, or the shooting environment may be, you will find the photos non-collapsed when it is taken in PROVIA. You will also probably find yourself not needing to change the settings when you shoot in PROVIA.”

We talked about Classic Chrome here and Velvia here.

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Episode 2 of “The World of Film Simulation” has been published at FujifilmXworld. An excerpt:

“The saturation is the lowest among all film simulations. The saturation has been minimized to the limit. Photography is often called “Art of omission“. CLASSIC CHROME omits the element of color in order to stand for the story you want to tell to stand out. […] Minimized saturation and one of a kind tonality that make the subject stand out, this is all to tell the story as clear as possible. We would like the photographers that advocate for contents, to also use this film simulation.”

FujifilmXworld just launched the first episode about the popular Fujfilm’s Film Simulations. It’s just an introduction and shows the graph you can see above. They say that “starting with the next episode, we will explain each “world” in depth.”

“It is our belief that “the photos should never look unnatural even though one can easily see that they are composed with the color of Velvia or ASTIA.

FUJIFILM’s color reproduction designers prioritize the live action. They take photos of scenery that should not be taken in Velvia. They take photos upon customizing the setting that one would never think of. They would print these out and evaluate. People who evaluate are not the people who took the photos. In order for a fair evaluation, they would need the neutral eye for the job and they do that for every test.

This is the process of creating the world of color that are unique, but yet never fail.”

Of course, the film simulation are also part of Rico’s X-T1 book… he goes through each of them and also gives you some useful information and tips. So if you don’t want to wait for each episode, get all you have to know about the film simulations right now from Rico’s X-T1 book here (use discount code “FUJI40“).

Fujifilm’s film simulations (and overall the JPEG’s) can sometimes deliver such pleasing results, that they are not always easy to match in post processing…  not for nothing Fuji’s film simulation/JPEG’s are highly appreciated amongst photographers.

Rico also recommends to shoot RAW+JPEG and you can read why in his latest book