Film Friday(?): Film Simulations

I want to thank J. Paul Thomas for opening a little window for me that I was unaware of (and I'm not unaware of much in the photosphere, even though I choose not to follow a fair amount of it). He wrote:

The first 50 years or so of my life were the film years. My retirement on a limited income coincided with the advent of digital, which was a Godsend for me as it is much more economical than film. After some trials I settled on Fujifilm cameras. I totally agree with the concept that film imposes a limit on flexibility and perfection; and, consequently, is somehow more satisfying. Now I have found my solution. Fujifilm offers beautiful film simulations built into their cameras, and Richie Roesh, on his blog Fuji X Weekly, offers wonderful fine-tuning of these simulations. Now I shoot in JPEG only, accept the results and avoid hours processing raw files. For me this is an economical alternative to film which I find most satisfying.

Cool. Isn't it great when you arrive at a working method that satisfies?

I spent some time looking at Richie Roesh's Fuji X blog, and it really is a journey through the past. I knew a lot of the visual signatures of those old films pretty well, and a lot of the simulations really do come close, or close enough, at least, to provide a sort of intermittent view of the originals...some shots better than others; but, even in the not-quite-so-close cases, it's a bit like Dr. Johnson's walking dog: "It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

But mainly with the color emulsions. I don't think quite so much with the B&W. Some of the B&W "film" looks seem made to look like scanned film, a common mistake. Scanned B&W negative film doesn't look like the film looked or was meant to look, because the response curve of the film was meant to be added to, and counteracted by, the response curve of a paper—negatives had to be printed, remember. The real look of a B&W film was of that film printed on photo paper. In trying to emulate the look of a B&W film, one should only look at prints on paper as the visual reference.

(I'm not saying scanned film can't be made to look good, but the craftsperson must know how to manipulate or modify the file. ...As I hasten to add, lest I insult anyone inadvertently. In any case, when you look for examples of a given film online, you often don't know what you're looking at: a scan of a print, a scan of a negative, a scan of a negative manipulated to look like it would have if it had been printed, or a scan of a negative manipulated to simply make it look better in the eyes of whomever modified it. Not very satisfying for informational purposes.)

Of course I have no problem with anyone who wants to pursue the path of making digital look like film, so by all means, if that's your bag, carry on.

It's a big but and I cannot lie
But, here comes my take on it. (My personal take...I'm not pronouncing from on high.)

First, I can imagine why people might want to make digital look like a film visually. The No. 1 reason might be be because they have a large archive of work on an old film and they want their new work to match the look of their old work so it can all look appropriate when shown together. That's a great reason.

That continuity can be very important, if you conceive of your lifelong output as one large body of work, like Elliott Erwitt's as limned in the great tour-de-force book Snaps. As another aside, this is a subject I don't think I've ever talked about, but the advent of digital significantly interrupted my life's work as a photographer, precisely because it interrupted the continuity between older work and newer work. If I could have skipped from film to digital as it exists today (or as it's been over the last five to eight years maybe), I would have been fine, but of course I had to journey through the entire painful birth and growth of digital technology. And-or, if I had simply continued working with film through thick and thin, that would have been another way to achieve continuity—many photographers did it that way. Eugene Atget used the same camera and materials from when they were current to when they were virtually obsolete. But of course in my case, my work as a photographer wasn't my main work. My main work was teaching and writing about it. So I wasn't a gold miner, metaphorically speaking, I was the entrepreneur back in town who sold equipment and supplies to the gold miners. So I couldn't just go my own way and continue shooting 35mm Tri-X through all those years like the grizzled old prospector wandering through the hills with his burro. I had to know what was happening in digital. And to do that you need to get your hands dirty in it.

To get back on track: other reasons why you might want to make your digital shooting mimic the visual signature of a film: a pleasant feeling of nostalgia (Richie Roesch's blog is subtitled "Nostalgic Negative film simulation," so there's his reason, stated clearly); contrarianism; or perhaps you just like the look better. All valid reasons. There could be more.

Liberator
All valid reasons, but...

...But it wouldn't be for me. I conceive of digital as an advancement of color photography. It's not "just as good" as film—it's better. And not just better in terms of convenience, that great driver of most of the history of photo-tech. Although it certainly is better in that way. No, better as in better. I see it as a liberation of color photography. A liberation from the strictures, constraints, inconveniences and limitations that color photography suffered throughout the history of color in all those years "B.D.," before digital.

Yes, various film-era color processes had their charms and were treasurable—I loved dye transfer prints, and I loved Kodachrome as we discussed a while ago when we visited Nathan Benn—but both of those media, just as "fer instances," came with significant drawbacks. Dye transfer was so difficult to master that most of the world's master dye transfer printers not only could fit into a large living room, at one point they did fit into one large living room—Ctein let us know about the gathering and we published a picture of it long ago, a group portrait (I can't find it now; it was probably on the old blog that Amazon Canada made me take down. I'll ask him if he has a link). And of course Kodachrome in its native state was best viewed in a darkened room projected on a screen, and anyone who lived through the era of home "slide shows" will a.) have nostalgic feelings about it, b.) claim that it was inimitably brilliant when it was at its very best, although it only rarely was; and c.) realize full well that it was hardly the most convenient way to view photographs. Indeed more like the Rube-Goldbergian opposite. (Does anyone still know who Rube Goldberg was? He was a cartoonist, before my time by the way, who pictured many unnecessarily complicated machines to do everyday tasks. Some of the Wallace & Gromit claymation cartoons were similar. That was more my son's generation.)

Personalize it
But here are the good observations that J. Paul Thomas's Fujifilm film simulations and Richie Roesh's Fuji X blog lead me to. First, that we've gotten to the point that shooting JPEG-only with Fujifilm's built-in simulations in the X cameras is indeed a viable way to go. I've been experimenting with it myself, or trying to, in between horrid, wet, drab, clammy-cold gray days. And, it demonstrates that, if you wanted to, you could devise a personal-signature recipe that makes color look like you personally want it to look, and you could bake it into your always-on camera settings, and blissfully ride off toward the sunset with it like the cowboy at the end of the movie. That is, don't make it look like a specific film; go one step further, and make it match your taste. And don't do it picture-by-picture—just set up your camera with your personal recipe and leave it that way.

That's valid too. Well, everything is valid, as long as you're not hurting anybody.

Personally, I'm liking the "PRO Neg. Hi" and the "MONOCHROME+Ye FILTER" simulations in my new-to-me Fujifilm X-T4. Both would still need a little tweaking frame-by-frame, but that's me. When and if  I get a good shot with either ("if" because I've been shooting raw since Bruce Fraser was alive, and old habits are hard to shake), I'll post 'em and we can discuss this whole JPEG-only shooting option further.

Is this post really a "film Friday"? Maybe not, kinda; but sorta. It's all good.  :-)

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Tim Walters (partial comment): "Re 'you could devise a personal-signature recipe that makes color look like you personally want it to look.' FWIW, that's exactly what I do, but with a Lightroom preset. I've never been able to understand why the in-camera JPEG approach is supposed to be an improvement over this."

JTK: "Re ' Scanned B&W negative film doesn't look like the film looked or was meant to look, because the response curve of the film was meant to be added to, and counteracted by, the response curve of a paper....' Which is why I scan the old family prints, rather than negs. They tend to look much better. Sometimes I tweak them a little, dust spot them etc., but the family love looking at them."

John: "In the past it was suggested there were two versions of art history—Ektachrome or Kodachrome."

Mike replies: I love that. Too funny. I took a few art history courses looking at slides in a darkened room.

John Krumm: "I've made at least two dives into the Fuji-verse and film simulations via Richie's (and others') recipes. Always seems fun at first, then kind of tiresome once I realize I only like the recipes in some cases. I usually end up going back to a very slightly modified version of a basic Fuji profile (like your PRO Neg Hi). In the end, it's almost a relief to shoot Nikon now and not worry about the profile!

"Film is totally different. I'm shooting a roll now (I think a British B&W film called Kent 400) on a new-to-me Nikon F100. It's a lot of fun because the camera is a lot of fun, but I'm taking lots of stupid shots I shouldn't waste film on. The F100 makes me think I should just buy something like a D810, which are going for pretty cheap these days. Viewfinder fun, and digital convenience. Turns out we had it really good just a few years ago."

Mani Sitaraman: "To me (as my kids are wont to say when proffering an opinion) B&W photography was, and remains, the process of creating physical objects known as prints. Images? In this digital age, it's hard to remember that there is a difference between a mere image and a picture, a photograph, or painting. I have—on my desk as I type—a superb warmtone print of my parents greeting some public official. It was printed in Germany in the mid 1950s, likely taken on sheet film or perhaps on 120 film, and is a thing of beauty in itself. Aaah...Portriga!"

Sroyon: "Perhaps also of interest to you and TOP readers: Dave Etchells wrote a very in-depth guide to Fuji simulations, including how they tried to replicate the tonal rendition and grain structure of different films. I should say, I'm not so sure about 'In trying to emulate the look of a B&W film, one should only look at prints on paper as the visual reference.' Here's a counter-point: the majority of film photos that we see online, at least from the last 15 years, are, I suspect, scans of negative (or positive) film and not of prints. For example, I've seen way more scanned Acros than printed Acros. Now Acros may have been originally designed with a silver-gelatin print as the final goal, but for people like me who came of age in the digital era and later gravitated towards film, film scans (and the "scanned look") feel no less authentic than prints (and the 'print look'). And I'm someone who makes darkroom prints at home!"

Richard Tugwell (partial comment): "I import my Fuji raw files into Lightroom and I can see the Fuji film presets fine in the Develop module."

John Camp: "I have a small collection of well-known black-and-white photographs. Some are sharp by any standards; others are not, although they retain their impact and charm. One of my all-time favorite photos is 'Running White Deer' by Paul Caponigro. It's a gorgeous print showing a speed-blurred herd of running white deer against a forest background—the camera was held still, allowing the deer to blur. But the forest isn't really sharp, either, by digital standards. I don't know if it was the lens or the focus, but it just isn't quite sharp. Which is fine by me, but you might hear some critical comments from the digital folks, used to modern lenses and digital sharpness. (Or maybe the photo is just so good that we wouldn't hear any criticism at all.) I also have 'Satiric Dancer' and 'Chez Mondrian' by Andre Kertesz, both of which are very soft, and both are really excellent photos, well-printed.

"And maybe that's one of the differences between digital B&W that even film simulations can't get to—the simulations, in our modern cameras, don't look like famous B&W's because they're too perfect. Maybe we don't need film simulations, but Ansel Adams, Andre Kertesz, Paul Caponigro, Berenice Abbott, Robert Capa, David Burnett and James Nachtwey simulations. (The Nachtwey simulation software would be very expensive because it would come with a helmet and body armor.) I've been working some with Lightroom and B&W, and you just can't make it look the same as the guys we grew up with. It remains stubbornly digital."

Joe in L.A.: "One more thing to add to the conversation of shooting Fujifilm cameras straight to JPEG. My X100V allows me to bracket three film simulations. That is, I can take one shot, and it will provide me with all three simultaneously. I often do this, with Provia/Standard, Classic Chrome, and Acros. I usually choose between the two color simulations depending on how vivid I want my greens (largely in nature images), but I always have a monochrome option as well. The downside is if I have a large shooting day, say during a vacation, I can be overwhelmed with three times the images on my computer."

Comments

[Henry]

"Black and white ... creates a nostalgia for the present."
     —'American Masters' Woody Allen: A Documentary (2011)

[Eric]

It dawned on me recently, after 50 years, why the world looks like Kodachrome (K64 in particular); those bright colors and greens of summer as Paul Simon says.

Why? For me, and likely millions of others, it’s due to wearing Ray-Ban G-15 tinted sunglasses. I hadn’t ever noticed that direct relation until I purchased a new pair with Blue-15 lenses … and it turns out with those the world looks more like a standard Fuji emulsion … cooler with a hint of magenta. The world looks wrong somehow.

Try it! Make a standard photo with your phone then another with the G-15 sunglass lens covering the phone camera. Bingo, instant K-64 and the world looks normal again.

[Eric Rose]

I use in camera LUTs to create the colour palette I want. There are 5 I have loaded in the camera that can be chosen as needed. For B&W digital images, I used the higher contrast settings for some years, but now prefer to shoot fairly low contrast and apply a LUT in PS to create the tonality I want in the final B&W image.

I tried going down the in camera path of Tri-X simulations etc. but in the end found that to be to limiting. I no longer try and make my B&W printed or screen images look like any specific type of film developed in a specific chemistry.

My negative scanning is fairly simple, Panasonic FF camera, macro lens and balanced light source. Negatives are flipped in PS to positive and a curve is applied to taste.

Eric

[JOHN B GILLOOLY]

Digital technology is better because it produces a massive file with incredible dynamic range at low to high iso's? But for most people, that is the starting point.

If you are shooting RAW, you will need to pick a "look" upon import to whatever software - camera portrait, camera vivid, Fuji Velvia simulation or something. If you are shooting jpg in camera, you will bake a look in by choosing it in the menu system.

But for some reason, a great number of people have decided that the "standard" file produced by the digital technology, with all of its dynamic range, sharpness, grainless, digital color, is just sort of generic. And generic is lacking in character and life and uniqueness? The above is all a matter of taste and opinion and as I said in a recent comment, mine seem to be shifting month to month.

But one thing that I don't see being mentioned as much is the negative side of dynamic range. We can now make photographs that look much more like we see the world as humans. We can capture highlights and shadows in the same frame, which is nice. But one of the great things about photography and photographs is that the camera doesn't see like humans. A photographer would look at a scene and recognize when the shadows were going to be lost. A photographer knew the visual language of the camera, how it differed from human sight, and how to create art with that difference. A lot of great street photography exposes for highlights on sunny days, creating these great scenes of contrast that capture a moment as only a photograph could. It didn't look like that to a passerby; only to the photographer who knew how the camera was going to render that lighting scenario. There is something lost in those types of images when the camera sees like us.

The beauty of digital is that the photographer that knows what he/she wants can still get that look. But it takes time. And work. And most of us are not looking to spend more time at the computer.

[Andrew D]

If you fancy some further experimentation (and if weather allows for it!) your X-T4 and Mac should both be compatible with FUJIFILM X RAW STUDIO. It's like in-camera raw processing but without the tiny screen or fiddly joystick, and with 16 bit TIFFs instead of JPEGs.
https://fujifilm-x.com/en-gb/products/software/x-raw-studio/

[Jez Cunningham]

Rube Goldberg? Brits of my generation would probably reference Heath Robinson before Wallace and Gromit…

[Matthew]

I recently spent almost a year using a true film simulation: I would wait at least a week, sometimes longer, before looking at any photos I had recorded.

It actually helped. One of the things that I like about using film is returning home from a productive shoot, and then… doing nothing. I could just sit. Have a meal. Relax. No need to download anything, no time pressure to edit and post.

But gradually, without the impertinent excitement of immediate feedback, I would show fewer photos. And with less worth showing, I would go longer and longer without creating anything new. Photography became a rare event, not a part of life: alas, also a true film simulation.

[Mike Ferron]

As one who still shoots B&W film for reasons I cannot fully explain I agree that in the end digital is better. Sometimes the stars will align and I'll ace a shot or two with film but I do my own developing, sometimes experimental and there are often too many disappointments.Also let us not ignore the cost of film in 2024.

I recently moved back to M43 and purchased a used Panasonic G9 and G85. I copied a profile I saw online for B&W using Panasonic cameras and have to say my results look better than near anything I produce with film. (or other digital cameras) Maybe it's time to stop wasting time?

[Albert Smith]

Put me down as another data point in favor of Fujifilm JPEGS as my capture format. I shot slide film for decades with no hope of post shooting "fixes", so I learned how to compose and expose before hitting the shutter release. My job was done when I dropped the roll of Kodachrome or Fujichrome off at the lab. Fujifilm cameras have a high amount of tweaking potential for each simulation, sharpness, highlight, shadow saturation, etc and even after you load them into the camera, you can still make adjustments in the field (in seconds via the Q button) if needed, and thanks to the mirrorless finder, you can see the results before you take the shot.

People say you're not a real photographer unless you shoot raw and fix your errors later. What were all those guys that shot slide film for those famous magazines then? I'm doing what they and I did all those years ago and don't spend hours at my computer. I call it photography.

[Richard G]

A wonderful reflection. I’ve shot jpeg in my Fuji X100 since day 1. I’d say the M9 Leica black and white jpegs are very good and better than the Fuji’s. I’ve tried emulating them when I’ve shot both jpeg and RAW in the M9 and in Lightroom l have been defeated mostly. The Monochrom Leica paradoxically never tempted me to emulate film. It was a mature offering from the outset. Some files hardly need editing. Some are a bit flat, but allowing a lot of elbow room for increasing highlights and raising shadow detail or deepening the blacks nicely. Can’t quite tear myself away from film. But can mange very well without it.

[Mike Potter]

Good post, Mike. Enjoyed it.

Shooting JPEG-only with a film camera and living with the results seems similar to me to shooting on a smart phone (which is most of my photography any more, with only very minor edits (mainly cropping)).

I want to get back to using my actual cameras again, but depression/lack of motivation has made it challenging.

Enjoy your time-off for the holidays!

[Richard Tugwell]

I import my Fuji RAW files into lightroom and I can see the Fuji film presets fine in the Develop module. Howver i did skim the post so may have missed something

[Carl Weese]

"("if" because I've been shooting raw since Bruce Fraser was alive, and old habits are hard to shake)"

You could set the camera to shoot raw + JPEG. Ignore the raw files while you experiment with shooting the JPEGs, knowing the raw files are there in case you get a potentially great shot that the JPEG doesn't get quite right.

[Kodachromeguy]

I totally agree with John Camp's comment,"you just can't make it look the same as the guys we grew up with. It remains stubbornly digital." So true.

[Jeff]

@John Camp… I hope you’re comparing your own inkjet prints against your silver print collection, and not via a monitor. I, too, have a nice vintage silver print collection, and have continued to make my own prints since the 80’s, now digital only. With today’s terrific paper options, coupled with wonderful camera gear, printers, inks and software (I love ImagePrint), one can still make superb prints that are neither too sharp, nor too perfect. I hang vintage and modern prints together, and enjoy both. As always, it’s more about user decisions and choices than the gear.

As an aside, I really liked the Running White Deer image when I first saw the print decades ago. But, sadly, its ubiquitous appearance in posters and elsewhere has since ruined it for me. A dealer I worked with years ago felt the same, and steered folks to lesser known, but still wonderful, Caponigro work. R.I.P.

[David Comdico]

Fujifilm has made nice digital cameras but I’ll never forgive them for killing Instax 4x5. A crime against humanity.

The best film simulation is Dehancer co-developed by Pavel Kosenko whose book Lifelike is worth a read.

[Rick Popham]

I shot a lot of Kodachrome and sat through many family slide shows. My father loved to shoot slides but never edited them, so we were treated to every exposure and focus disaster. As a kid, though, it was fun to gather in a dark room and watch the pictures appear on the screen.

I tried to do better when the camera came my way.

The best slide show EVER was the production of “Where’s Boston?”, which I saw in the ‘70s while attending BU.

[Moose]

I guess I'm the odd man out, a familiar position. \;~)>

I never liked film, because it never matched my memory, sometimes even the subject itself. I didn't know of any alternative, but imagined there should be one.

Kodachrome too red, Ektachrome too blue, Velvia too something, purple? . . . and so on.

I so clearly remember showing my own slides, thinking "This isn't what it looked like." Looking at the first color enlargement I could afford, "Pretty, but not what I photographed."

I've always agreed with Russell Miller (even before he wrote what I thought):

"Why would anyone want to photograph an indisputably colourful world in monochrome? If colour film had been invented first, would anybody even contemplate photographing in black and white? "
- "Magnum - Fifty years at the front line of history" (1999) at p.4"

I would say the same thing of color film:
"Why would anyone want to photograph a colorful world in inaccurate color? If digital photography had been invented first, would anybody even contemplate photographing in unnatural color?"

Both questions have an answer — ART, done it myself, but that would be a tiny fraction of photographs.

My screen background at the moment is a beautiful, grabs my eyeballs and holds them in thrall, C-U from yesterday of two blooms on a Christmas Cactus. I can hold up the subject next to the screen, and the screen is pretty darn close.

The unusual yellow one is already fading, but the image lives on, a glorious reminder.

Moose, neutral gray card carrying photographer. };~)>

[Terry Letton]

I’ve never used a Fuji camera, but until I switched over to digital I shot a lot of their film. Trying to make digital look like film always struck me as a fool’s errand. They are two different things and I think you should do your best to use the qualities of each to make an image that comes as close as possible to satisfying you. Admittedly a frustrating task with color film as you have indicated.