Modern Documentary Fujifilm Recipe

Looking for a modern-looking, general purpose Fujifilm recipe that still packs some punch? Look no further!

Øyvind Nordhagen
5 min readJul 19, 2021

The keyword for this recipe has to be “versatility”. For the past 6 months I have been shooting street photography like a madman. In the process I have been testing just about every film sim under the sun, as well as the stock film simulations that come with my cameras unchanged. I wanted to find something that could be my go-to settings for street photography. For that I wanted something a bit contrasty and with punchy colors that would still control highlights and color gradients in a nice way.

Why not just Classic Chrome?

Yes, Classic Chrome is a fine film simulation. Even with all other settings at their defaults Classic Chrome is a very tempting option, but I have a couple of problems with it:

  1. It’s too desaturated for my taste.
  2. It has a tendency for clipping shadows.
  3. You get cyan blues whether you like it or not.
  4. Everyone else uses it.

That last point is getting more important for me by the day as Classic Chrome seems to be the darling of every Fujifilm shooter these days. I don’t necessarily want my style…

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Øyvind Nordhagen

Photographer based in Oslo. I write about photographic technique and editing.