Fujifilm X-S20 Film Simulation Recipe Kodak Portra 400 Sample Pictures – Delhi Street Photography

Fans of Kodak Professional Portra 400 Film are trying to replicate the warm and grainy look captured by a film. The Delhi streets offer an opportunity at capturing yellow hues.

What is Kodak Portra 400?

Released in 1998, Kodak Portra was a professional grade film meant specially for wedding, fashion and portrait photography. Soon photographers realised that it gave stunning results for street photography with the grainy look. At ISO 400 this film was designed to give the perfect colour saturation over skin tones. It was advertised as the ultimate in fashion photography where action is fast and sufficient light may not be available. Kodak Portra 400 ruled the 35 mm film scene for the next 15 years with Kodak releasing different versions of the same till mobile photography and DSLRs almost edged the film cameras out of business.

Why Fujifilm Mirrorless Cameras?

Fujifilm is the king of colour science. With Film Simulation introduced in 2011, Fujifilm went all out to invest in research of colours. Today that effort is paid off in a big way, with Fujifilm Mirrorless cameras faithfully reproducing the best colors.

Film Simulation is a complex sensor level manipulation of colours to give us the erstwhile look of films based on their composition.

What is the difference between a Film Simulation and Filter?

Fujifilm X-S20 has separate modes for film simulation and filter. Why should I use a film simulation in the first place. Why can’t I replicate the effects in Lightroom.

Film simulation goes back to the days when light interacted with the grains on film which itself was multi layered for each of the primary colour. Then comes the colour dyes in which the film is processed. All this gave a rather complex colour curve with multiple layers in depth rather than the simple one which we see in Lightroom today. Each film was designed with a specific purpose. Velvia 100 for example with saturated colours became ideal for landscape and green foliage since it highlighted green. To achieve that the three primary colours were exposed at various layers.

All this data on colour science which Fujifilm had accumulated over the past decades was converted into a useful technology called Film Simulation.

Film Simulation by Fujifilm

Fujifilm’s foray into digital photography began as early as 1998 with the release of FinePix MX 700. In 2004, Fujifilm released the DSLR S3 Pro which introduced the concept of Film Simulation for the first time followed by the S7 Pro released in 2007. With release of each successive model of their mirrorless range, Fujifilm kept adding a new film simulation. This goes to show how complicated is the science of colours.

Back to Kodak Protra 400 on Fujifilm X-S20

With some help from Fujifilm Recipes, this is a slight modification for X S20 in the sequence of what will appear on the menu followed by sample images of Delhi Street Scenes.

X-S20 has just four custom mode slots. You can set aside any one of this setting.

Image Size can be set as per choice.
Image Quality also as per choice. If you are shooting RAW do consider to use the Fujifilm RAW converter to get near faithful reproductions.

Film Simulation – Classic Chrome
Grain Effect – Roughness – Strong, Size – Small
Color Chrome Effect – Strong
Color Chrome FX Blue – Weak
White Balance – Daylight R: +3 B: -5
Dynamic Range – Auto

Tone Curve Highlights : -1 Shadows : -2
Color : +2
Sharpness: -2
Clarity: +2

All the above settings can be found in IQ. Rest settings as per choice.

Now for the photo gallery.

Limitations of Kodak Portra 400 Film Simulation Recipe

There are two possible limitations to this settings. They will never give good images indoor and artificial lighting. Some viewers may not like the 1960s magazine picture like images, especially those who are addicted to the over saturated images on the mobile screens.