Pastel Vibes Film Recipe, by Willow Rotter

X100v Classic Negative film recipe for beautiful blues and whites

The beautiful Greek island of Santorini is a photography paradise, with its characteristic white and blue buildings and far reaching ocean views. This colour palette has been masterfully captured by Willow Rotter on his X100V using his film recipe, Pastel Vibes.

Willow’s photographic style is towards ‘high key’ with images typically over exposed by +1. In this recipe, a -2 setting for highlights helps to preserve detail and give a wonderfully bright and airy image. He also says, that if you want the highlights to be a little red use R: 0, rather than R: -1. Some of the photos was R: 0 & some are R: -1.

Photo credits: Willow Rotter

Santorini blue and white, with the Pastel Vibes film recipe

Pastel Vibes Film Recipe

  • Simulation: Classic Negative
  • Grain Effect: Off
  • Colour Chrome Effect: Weak
  • Colour Chrome Blue: Off (Weak or High as needed for blue skies)
  • White Balance: Auto
  • WB Shift: -1 Red, 0 Blue
  • Dynamic Range: DR400
  • Highlights: -2
  • Shadows: -1
  • Colour: +3
  • Sharpness: +1
  • ISO Noise Reduction: -4
  • Clarity: +2
  • EV compensation: +1 for a high key style

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Santorini views, with Pastel Vibes film recipe

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6 responses to “Pastel Vibes Film Recipe, by Willow Rotter”

  1. Tell him/her climbing and standing on roofs for pretentious photo shoots are one of the reasons Santorinians hate tourists! It’s disrespectful and irksome. Signs everywhere demanding not to climb on roofs and respect for locals.

    I was there last year. Beauty at every turn, but this beauty is now ruined by tourists. It’s so insanely crowded there until late October. The photos only show you the nice parts, of course. https://i.imgur.com/S9sOxZi.jpg , https://i.imgur.com/omik108.jpg , https://i.imgur.com/Mflzudc.jpg , https://i.imgur.com/vNIpuhG.jpg , https://i.imgur.com/ygzyqbw.jpg , https://i.imgur.com/GLUAlkC.jpg , https://i.imgur.com/qoLy8cq.jpg , https://i.imgur.com/vQ8PKWM.jpg . Photos taken with a very old X30 and XF16mm/f1.4

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    • Thanks for sharing those images. It seems such a photogenic place, I can certainly imagine that it’s overwhelmed by tourists most of the year and the locals might rather it wasn’t. I lived in a tourist hotspot once, and in the summer, it was just easier not to go into town.
      As for the climbing, I’m not aware of the circumstances, but I have edited the post so those images aren’t used so as not to encourage others.

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  2. You must have been asked this before, but ….. Is there a way to adapt this beautiful recipe for X Trans III? Thanks!

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    • Hi Tony. The issue with adapting recipes comes in two parts, do you have the simulation, and do you have the adjusted setting options. The issue with this one, is that it uses Classic Negative as the simulation, which you’d have to swap for another giving a different look. You could try using Pro Neg Hi, Astia, or even Provia. For other settings, the concerning ones are Color Chrome Blue and Clarity. This recipe only uses Clarity, which you will have to skip, or estimate by increasing the Sharpness from 1 to 2. Don’t lose hope though, because this recipe is also strongly defined by the overexposure, so if you adapt the recipe as mentioned and overexpose, you’ll get a similar feel, even if it does look different when viewed side by side.

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  3. Hi,

    Thank you for the recipes!

    Just one thing bother me: when you set « clarity: +2 »

    the camera (x100vi) takes a lot of time to process each picture.

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    • That’s right. Our cameras do a lot of work when using Clarity, but it is of course optional, and you can adjust the recipe as you prefer.

      Personally, I love the Clarity effect and have got used to it now so I don’t notice the processing pause so much

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