The Film Recipes App

The Film Recipes phone app for X-Trans IV and V film recipes on Apple and Android devices

For several months, I have been working behind the scenes on an app that will bring the recipes from this site onto your phone for easy access on the go. This was a new project for me, having never made anything like it before. I have learned a lot about things I didn’t know existed, and made many mistakes. But now, after much refinement and the awesome help of a group of volunteer beta testers, the app is ready …

It costs quite a bit of money for the various licenses and hosting to do this, so the app is available for a modest fee of £12 or approx. local equivalent. As a bonus for the payment, the Film Recipes app contains a lot of exclusive content with over 500 film recipes that aren’t available anywhere else, an app users exclusive Facebook group, and regular challenges that can see your own photos included in the app.

Features in the Film Recipes app

As well as a HUGE library of film recipes styles (over 800), the app includes some useful and fun ways to discover recipes to try. This helps you get great value from the app as it suggests new styles to you that you can go out and use.

Featured Film Recipes

A curated list of 25 film recipes is regularly updated to show a variety of film recipes that are trending, new or appropriate to the season.

In this list, there are always a broad selection that includes most of the film simulations and mono film recipes. The film recipes getting the most recent attention in the app are included too.

This list also forms the set of recipes that are used in the Film Recipes Challenge. These run every 2 to 4 weeks and all app owners are invited to join in. At the end of the challenge, a gallery of photos is added to the app, and a pick of these community images also appear alongside the recipes in the app.

Get Inspired with the Daily Shuffle

There’s a saying, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’. I think we can all find ourselves doing that, even if we don’t mean to. This is part of why the most popular film recipes on social media are ones named Kodak Portra 400 or Ilford Delta. These recipes are in no way official, and often not very accurate either, but nonetheless their name carries weight.

The Daily Shuffle is a great way to see beyond the name and find new recipes from the photos they produce. This gallery gets regularly refreshed throughout the day with samples from across the entire collection of 600+ recipes. The names are hidden so that you treat each one equally. Feedback from app users is that this is a fun way to find recipes they would never have looked at otherwise.

Silmilar Film Recipes

With over 600 film simulation recipes in the app, finding the right one for your project can be hit and miss. That’s why I have added all of the different ways to discover recipes when using the app.

You might find a recipe that is almost right, and that’s where the similar recipes feature is most useful. Three visually similar recipes are presented on the recipe card and these link to those similar recipes so you can refine your choices.

This is also a fun way to browse through the collection, and you can discover all sorts of different interpretations of a style in this way. It’s my personal favourite way to navigate, reminding me of recipes to try when I am looking for something just a bit different to a recipe I know well.

Your Personal Film Recipe Favourites

Although I use the app every day, the app is for you and I wanted to make sure it had the option to save your own favourite recipes for quick reference on the go.

Every recipe card has a heart icon which you can use to set or unset as a personal favourite. This gets saved anonymously in the cloud in a few seconds and then is available in the Favourites tab on the bottom navigation.

Some app users install the app on more than one device, or want to share it with their family. In this case, you can also share your favourites list as well. If perhaps you like to add a favourite on your tablet before going out to take photos, it will then also show on your phone when you are out and about.

Newest Film Recipes

The process of creating new film recipes is ongoing, and I never quite know where I will get inspiration and ideas from next. Sometimes it is the weather and the season, and sometimes people ask for help in recreating a style they’ve seen somewhere online.

Whatever the inspiration, the new recipes get added to the app as soon as I can, and to help you find what’s new, there’s a section that includes the most recent additions.

If you like to be part of the trend and try the very newest recipes as soon as they are released, then the app and the newest recipe section is the place for you.

Filters to Find Film Recipes by Style Tag

If you are due to travel to a certain location, or you know a bit about the light and weather you will be photographing in, then you will want to see some film recipes that might match the situation.

This is where the search filters come into their own. There are around 30 style categories that the recipes are tagged with, so if you want to shoot in the Golden Hour, or maybe find a Cinematic look, then you can quickly do this with the Style Tags.

You can also filter by Film Simulation, search the recipe names and descriptions, see just the recipes exclusive to the app, and more.

Be part of the Community. Get featured in the App.

As well as a film recipes reference with over 600 recipes (500+ for X Trans IV), the app is also here to help you get inspired and enjoy taking more photos.

All app users are invited to join in the regular film recipe challenges, which run every 2 to 4 weeks. These are open to you, wherever you live and we enjoy seeing photos from all parts of the world.

Pictures are shared in our ‘app only’ Facebook group, or sent in via email form. At the end of each challenge, a gallery of photos is gathered together and added to the app. A selection of these images also feature on the film recipe cards too. So you get featured in the app for everyone to see, and your photos can help people see new ways to use the recipes.

Which cameras do these recipes work with?

Just a reminder that these recipes are fully compatible with all new Fujifilm X series cameras. These X-Trans V cameras, like the X100VI, X-T50, X-S20, X-M5, X-E5 or X-T5 will all work just fine. If you have an X-Trans IV camera, such as X-T4, X-S10, X-T30 II and X-E4, you’ll find that the majority will work, if you have the film simulation in your camera. Many recipes are also compatible with X-Pro3 and X100V too (the recipes that don’t use Eterna Bleach Bypass, Nostalgic Negative or Reala Ace). For an older camera, you should be aware that you will need to adapt recipes to your camera, and many will not work because of the settings and simulations used.

App Exclusive Recipes – A

Here’s the list of recipes that are presently exclusive to app users, providing additional looks for their X-Trans V and IV cameras. Some may appear as full recipe pages on the site in the coming weeks, but new recipes will also be added, such that around the below number will remain app exclusives for app subscribers.

Analog A

App Exclusive Recipes – B

App Exclusive Recipes – C

App Exclusive Recipes – D

App Exclusive Recipes – E

App Exclusive Recipes – F

App Only Recipes – G

App Exclusive Recipes – H

App Exclusive Recipes – I

App Exclusive Recipes – J

App Exclusive Recipes – K

App Exclusive Recipes – L

App Exclusive Recipes – M

App Exclusive Recipes – N

App Exclusive Recipes – O

App Exclusive Recipes – P

App Exclusive Recipes – R

App Exclusive Recipes – S

App Exclusive Recipes – T

App Exclusive Recipes – U

App Exclusive Recipes – V

App Exclusive Recipes – W

App Exclusive Recipes – Y

App Exclusive Recipes – Z

App Exclusive Recipes – 0-9

Thanks for scrolling to the bottom of the list. I hope you’ll agree that this is a good amount of additional content that you can access as an app owner.

More will be added to this list over time, and some will be moved over to the site as well, but app owners will always have a good selection of exclusive recipes not available on the website.