I just wanted to put here some examples of the treatment Classic Negative does to colours, specially red. The photos below where taken with the excellent Superia 800 film recipe for X-trans that uses Classic Negative film simulation and that I’m experimenting a lot with lately. What do you think ?
This is an approach attempt to a colour style inspired from some of the iconic images from the works of Saul Leiter and Ernst Haas. If you don’t know them, check them out it’s well worth it. The idea is to achieve a “painterly” look. I’ve deliberately chosen to go for a warm cast which I think works best for the final effect. Because of this, the recipe could have many subtle colour variations that might suit better the available light conditions and subject. Feel free to experiment and share the results here in the comments.
As I previously mentioned, one of the reasons I grew fond of the Fuji system is their colour science and the flexibility it gives you to shoot directly in camera with the style and mood that you choose with little or no need to edit your images afterwards. In this article I will only explain a few basics about the film simulations and recipes that derive from them. If you want to have a deeper understanding of it and play yourself with the concept, I recommend you visit the “bible” of film simulations recipes which is the outstanding website Fuji X Weekly maintained by Ritchie Roesch, a true goldmine on its own on this subject.
For me it was a bit of coincidence when I first took the turn towards the Fuji system. As I already mentioned earlier I am a very latecomer to the Fuji cameras.
If you don’t feel like reading the following post, the short answer is totally !
Looking for a lighter setup
As many of you probably, I finally took the step to switch to a mirrorless system some time ago. Quite late as a matter of fact. It was back in 2019. I had been a Nikon user for quite some years, mainly mid entry level cameras like de 5100 series for those who are familiar. In the last years after saving enough money I finally bought a D750 (a full frame camera for those who don’t know) which I got to love very much and made perfectly beautiful photographs with, some of them I still very much love to the present day. In a sense I still consider that the flexibility of the files in terms of dynamic range and the cleanliness of the files, specially the colours at high isos, is beautiful. As many of you, no doubt, I got tired to lug around the amount of weight that a camera and a couple of good primes lenses represent (in particular during travel times and hiking).
I get sometimes the impression than in today’s internet photography world, specially the YouTube photography world, the reality gets a sort of time space distortion. Let me explain myself.