Film Recipes for Fujifilm Cameras

Nostalgic, soft tone and vintage film recipes using Fujifilm film simulations

Olympic Acros, Versatile Black & White

Fujifilm film simulation recipe for black and white photography in bright light

In my preparation of film recipes to try at the Paris Olympics, I explored a number of colour looks that were highly usable in bright light, mostly neutral in colour tone, but had a nod to the creamy tones of Parisien buildings and streets. My trip was to the tennis event, but I had hoped to maybe try some street photography in the neighbourhoods too. As it played out, the evenings saw torrential rain and thunderstorms, so I didn’t get to fully explore the looks I had prepared.

One other look that I had designed in advance, was a mono recipe based on the Acros film simulation. Here, the overriding thought was that the sunlight was going to be very strong, with images taken in the middle of the day rather than the softer light of late afternoon or golden hour.

My approach therefore was to look to preserve highlights with DR400, and then to force some deeper contrast into the scene with the maximum +4 for shadows. I toyed with a sharpened result, but in the end looked more to the hazy heat for inspiration and went for a -3 sharpening and -3 clarity to bring out a a little extra character. This was a little awkward when shooting action, as the delay when saving meant I couldn’t rapid fire, but with a bit of attention to my timing, I was happy enough to leave the clarity active.

Using it at the tennis event left me very happy with the result. I feel that the images produced have a lovely feel to them, with the additional shadow depth working well. I also found that, whilst scenes were often very busy, the subject really stood out and the images had a timeless quality.