This article looks at the Fujifilm Film Simulation Recipe: Classic Chrome-VP (Classic Chrome – Vintage Print, CC-VP). A vintage-style recipe intended to recreate a vintage style photographic print.
1. Reason For Creation
I have, for some time, been focusing on developing recipes that adhere to modern-day photographic standards. So for this recipe, I wanted to make something that fitted a more retro style of a photographic print.
2. Recipe Development
Classic chrome is a perfect recipe to mute the dynamic range and dull the colours enough to give a traditional film print.
Next was the most crucial setting, boosting the grain to strong and large, giving the images the noise visible in many old print images.
I felt that the colours were too dull with no setting, so I increased these slightly to give the images some life.
And perhaps it’s just personal preference, but I continued to increase the sharpness and clarity to crispen the images.
3. Positive Observations
The grain settings render an image very close to a traditional print. Although, despite the level of grain, the plane of focus inside the image is crisp and full of detail.
The images have an overbearing hint of green that creates a unique style suitable for some tastes. However, when photographing strong oranges in a composition, they create pleasant colour contrast in the images.
4. Negative Observations
The greens detected in these images are too heavy for my personal preferences.
The shadows are also too dark. If I were to edit these in post-production, I would bring them up. However, They do fit a traditional film style.
5. Where/How To Use
I recommend using this recipe anywhere you wish to recreate a classic film print style from your images.
The recipe responds best to well-lit subjects in strong daylight. I would recommend avoiding shooting any subject matter in shadow as the blacks seem to crush significantly.
It also performs well when photographing orange subject matter.
6. The Recipe
- Film Simulation: Classic Chrome
- Grain Effect: Strong / Large
- Colour Chrome Effect: Weak
- Colour Chrome FX Blue: Weak
- White Balance: Auto
- Dynamic Range: 100
- Tone Curve: H+1 S -0.5
- Colour: +2
- Sharpness: +2
- High ISO NR: -4
- Clarity: +2
If you don’t already own a Fujifilm camera and would like to achieve results like these straight from your camera I recommend you purchase the XT-4 with the 16-80mm (the same lens used for these photos). UK readers click here. US readers click here.
Another great resource for film recipes is Fuji X Weekly which you can visit by clicking here.
7. Conclusion
This Fujifilm Film Simulation Recipe: Classic Chrome-VP is great if you are after a more classic print style for your images. While there are some trade-offs to this style of reproduction, such as the crushing of shadows, the effect rendered will leave you with photographs that look like they have just returned from being processed.
If you enjoy the classic Kodachrome 64 style of images, I am certain you will appreciate this recipe.
