Shooting Digital Film with the Fuji x100v
There are three ways to get that film look. You can shoot film (this is the best way). You can edit filmic in an app. Or if you happen to get a Fuji x100 series, you can shoot JPG with film emulation. I do all three, but I think I have the most fun shooting with my Fuji! I’d love to tell you how I go about it and share some of my favorite looks.
So let’s jump right in. The Fuji x100v is the latest version of the x100 series of point-and-shoot cameras that Fujifilm has released. It’s the next evolution of the x100f, x100t, x100s, and x100. It’s very hard to find due to the pandemic chip shortage. I happen to find one at San Jose Camera in the summer of 2021 on a whim. I couldn’t believe they had one… and they just had one. I grabbed it and threw some accessories on it, like the lens hood, thumb grip, and red shutter button. I tossed on some Peak Design strap clips and put my brand sticker on it (as I do all of my gear), and I was ready to go.
There are two camps regarding how to shoot with this camera. You can treat it as any other digital camera and shoot RAW, and edit however you want. The other camp is to shoot JPG and accept whatever you get. I bought this camera to shoot JPG, meaning that I accept whatever shot I get, however it comes out. I do not edit my x100 pictures. I use several film emulations (depending on how I’m feeling), and learned all about emulations from Fuji X Weekly. Ritchie is awesome, and I chatted him up quite a bit when I first got the camera.
Shooting with no intent to edit is a challenge and a major difference in how I approach my photography, compared to how I shoot with my Sony system. With Sony, I shoot with composition and exposure in the forefront of my mind, but knowing full well there will be color and contrast changes made in post, as well as adjustments across the entire RAW file. If you browse my travel page, this is my look. It’s filmic while being digital. It’s a look I’ve refined over the years, and constantly fine-tune even today. But with the Fuji, I’m fully anticipating that what I get is what I get. Therefore, I have spent a lot of time loading up film emulations, trying dozens to discover the ones that resonate with me, then making tweaks to the emulation to dial in more of my look.
One of my favorite things about the x100 is that this camera is low-profile. It’s unassuming. No one is intimidated by it. It’s easy to carry, and slips right into my fanny pack. Yes, I often wear a fanny pack when I’m out taking photos. Don’t judge. Since I mostly shoot in aperture priority, I can set-it-and-forget-it, and even hand it to friends to point and shoot when we’re out and about. Everyone who experiences this camera loves it.
The secret sauce to shooting filmic JPG is getting the grain dialed in. It’s more than the film recipe. It’s a combination of the grain setting in the camera + the ISO + the exposure compensation. These three things work together to add that film grain to your JPG. I typically shoot at 800 or 1600 ISO on every recipe, and over-expose by +1/3. This pushes the highlights and saves shadows, which is very filmic. The noise of the ISO + the grain setting really helps get a retro and convincing look.
Let’s talk about color. I don’t deal with green a ton when I shoot Sony. I often shift green towards yellow and desaturate it. Yet with the Fuji and the various film recipes, I love the way green renders. Color is a huge spectrum with this camera, and between the film recipes, white balance, and saturation settings you can really get amazing colors that are true to life, retro, filmic, or interesting.
As promised earlier, here are a few of my favorite film simulations. Everything in this gallery was shot on one of these emulations. Check them out to see more examples. If you have a Fujifilm X series camera, load one up and give it a try. Downloading the Fuji X Weekly app and subscribing is worth every penny, because Ritchie is doing awesome things to empower creatives who run and gun with the Fuji system.