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A Look at FUJIFILM’s CLASSIC Neg. Film Simulation

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One year ago this week, I posted my first video tutorial here YouTube. It was a detailed explanation of the Fuji film simulations and how you can use them to maximize your own creativity with your Fuji camera. That video has become my most watched tutorial, so if you haven’t seen it, you can find it here at this link. 

A few months after I made that video, Fuji added another film sim to the mix called CLASSIC Neg. It was introduced with the release of the X-Pro 3, and it’s now found inside the X-T4 and X100V as well. 

CLASSIC Neg quickly became one of my favorite film sims, and I’ve used it extensively on a wide variety of subject matter during the course of this year, so in this post, I’m going to give you a close look at CLASSIC Neg. and show you what you can do with it. 

Like most of their other film sims, CLASSIC Neg. was directly patterned after one of Fuji’s legacy films.

Built to replicate the look of the FUJICOLOR SUPERIA color print film introduced in the late 1990s, it’s designed to give you the look of consumer color negative film that was so prevalent in the decades before digital photography took over. That said, you can actually still buy SUPERA print film.

In a sense, CLASSIC Neg. is designed to look like snapshots of old, you know, back when we shot print film and got our pictures back from the lab in that little envelope. Or, depending on your age, maybe you don’t know. For millions of amateur shooters, that’s what photography was all about through much of our lives.

 

With CLASSIC Neg., Fujifilm digs into its 85+ year history with film and color, and gives us a unique, but familiar look. This new film sim taps into our color memories with a bold and unique expression that plays nicely with the already rich set of color choices we have on the X Series.

The color palette of CLASSIC Neg is interesting. It has a similar, strong tonality to CLASSIC CHROME, but with slightly richer “Fuji-style” colors that you see in PROVIA the PRO Neg. film sims. It also has whiter whites than most of the other film sims, even Velvia. To my eyes, the best way to describe it would be Pro Neg Hi with brighter highlights, slightly darker shadows and a little bit less saturation.

The overall effect is a slightly muted, but high contrast profile that, again, is reminiscent of glossy lab prints that so many of us grew up on. 

It might not seem so great at first. After all, it’s not as vivid as velvia and it’s got got that high contrast without those bold colors, but this gives CLASSIC NEG it a very representational look, and if you’ve watched a few of my video lesson on YouTube, then you’ve probably heard me talk about the notion of how the ideas of representation and abbreviation play in photography. 

In my mind, making powerful images isn’t about perfectly reproducing your subjects, it’s about creating a visual representation of your scene and abbreviating the strongest visual elements and ideas present. Instead of spoon feeding everything to your viewers, you make them work for it and try to imagine what you didn’t show in your picture. It’s that whole less is more concept. 

I find CLASSIC NEG to be a highly versatile film sim. It seems to work with just about every kind of subject and it produces a very cool and timeless look that holds a great deal of style. It works well in the sunshine and unlike a film sim like Velvia, it actually works quite well in the shade and under white, overcast skies.

Its qualities are accented in a wonderful way when you add the COLOR CHROME FX Blue effect, especially when you have any kind of blue tones in your image, either blue sky or open shade. 

In addition, it’s very customizable. I love dialing the shadow detail up and down to play around with the contrast, and also boosting or cutting the COLOR control, in order to make it even more bold or subdued, depending on the look you’re going for. 

A few weeks ago, I was out photographing at the Knik Glacier, and I took out my X100 to grab a few shots. As soon as I looked through the viewfinder, I was blown away by what I saw. When I looked at the image, I noticed that the camera had been set to Classic Neg, with -2 HL, -2 and +4 color with CCFX Blue Strong and the Grain setting to WEAK.

CLASSIC Neg. -2 Highlights, -2 Shadows, +4 Color.

 

I don’t even remember what I had been shooting, I was probably just messing around with the controls, but that’t what is was on, and it looked amazing. That’s that representational look I was talking about. This color isn’t 100% accurate, that doesn’t really matter to our eyes. Our brain sees beyond that, and in our minds, it just looks really cool.

That’s how well these color sims have been engineered. They’ve been crafted with such careful precision. Not every color recipe looks great, and you can imagine that certain color combinations might look pretty bad. The Fuji colors play so nicely with our brains and with the notion of memorized color, which is a concept I talked about in my last video about using bold and subdued colors in your photography.

CLASSIC NEG also look awesome in combination with the new CLARITY setting you have inside the Q menu. You can crank the clarity up to add nice, bold definition and harder edges to the photo, or you can can it deal it back to soften things up and reduce the overall contrast. Since the CLARITY control goes form +5 to -5, this gives you a lot of leeway for making fine tune adjustments to your image and coming up with unique looks.

Classic Neg, -1 Shadow, +5 Clarity

 

In fact, I’d say that CLASSIC NEG is one of the reason I’ve used my X100V so much this year. As much as I love my X-T3, it doesn’t have CLASSIC NEG, at least not yet. I’ll often take both cameras with me and use them side by side, keeping my X100V set to CLASSIC NEG.

Given that the X100V, X-Pro 3 and X-T3 all have the same internal processor, though, I don’t see any reason why CLASSIC Neg can’t be added the X-T3 and X-T30 in with a future firmware update. I haven’t heard anything from Fuji on this, but I’m going to remain hopeful.

If you do have an older Fuji and are thinking about upgrading, this might be one of the strongest reasons to upgrade to one of the three new models.

As you can see, I really love this new sim, it has a wonderfully rich and characteristic look, and it’s yet one more tool that we have to evoke and inspire different moods with our imagery.

So much of Fujifilm’s legacy is wrapped around film and color, and the film simulations are the extension of that rich heritage in the digital world. I just think that the film simulations are the lifeblood of the X Series cameras, and they foster such a unique style of creativity. They allow you to quickly choose a look that matches your mood and your own creative ideas for the scene, and quickly create an image that matches your own ideas and feelings in the moment. 

So, if you have an X100V, X-Pro 3 or X-T4, I encourage you to give the new Classic Neg a try. I think that once you become familiar with it’s visual characteristics, you’ll find it to be a pretty useful color profile for creating image that have a familiar sense of drama.

You can watch my video tutorial about CLASSIC Neg. here.

Velvia

CLASSIC Neg.

CLASSIC Neg. -2 Shadow Tone, +4 Color

My Favorite Film Simulations on the Fujifilm X Series Cameras

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When designing the X Series, the Fujifilm engineers had the idea to incorporate the looks of some of their older films right into the cameras. This was a brilliant move; after all, with an 80+ year history surrounding film and color imaging, this played to their strengths.

Ask any photographer who has used actual Fuji Photo Film why they shot it, or ask an X Series shooter why they use Fuji, and their likely answer is because of the colors. In short, no one does color like Fuji, which I why I feel this is such an integral feature on the cameras.

I’d even go so far and say that the Fuji Film Simulations are the lifeblood of the X Series cameras. This wonderful collection of fifteen ultra-classic color and monochrome palettes give you some of the most iconic looks in the history of photography.

Developed over decades and culled to perfection for the X Series, these built-in color presets offer you a diverse and dynamic set of tones with which to craft your artistry.

(Click here to watch the video companion to this blog post.)

The idea is that as you gauge your scene, you make creativity decisions right there in the moment, based on how you want to show your subject, and then pick a film simulations that best matches those ideas.

For example, are you going fo bold and beautiful, subtle and subdued? Rich and powerful, careful and contemplative? Clean and crisp, garish and gritty? You’ve got it all right there at your fingertips, from the rich drama of VELVIA and the wonderful skin tones of ASTIA, to the soft, muted colors of ProNeg Low, and the classic journalistic tones of Classic Chrome, as well as a fantastic selection of black and whites modes!

Here’s a detailed rundown of my favorite film simulations on the X Series cameras, and what kinds of subjects I typically use them for. I strongly encourage you to play around with them. Get to know the film sims intimately. Commit them to memory and make them an integral part of your own shooting experience.

VELVIA

In 1991, Fuji Photo Film as they used to be called, unveiled an ISO 50 color reversal (slide) film that shook the world of photo imaging with its wonderfully rich color, highly saturated color palette and inky black shadows. Outdoor photographers loved it and seemingly overnight, VELVIA quickly became the favorite film of landscape, nature, travel and adventure shooters everywhere.

VELVIA has a very vivid look. It was my favorite slide film and it’s my favorite film simulation because it delivers colors that are larger than life. It’s not always accurate or nor is it always true to life, but for general outdoor photography, it delivers the intended emotion and confidence of your scenes with a bang.

In fact, when designing the original VELVIA color profile, the Fuji color engineers tweaked the color recipe in such a way that it makes images more “memorable”.

Funny thing about the human brain: We often remember things as being more “enhanced” than they really were in real life. That’s just how we work. In fact, if we were to look at a faithfully accurate photo of a memorable scene, we would think it’s “missing something.” VELVIA plays on this psychological aspect of human memory and helps us create imagery that has a strong impact in the memory of our viewers.

I LOVE VELVIA and I always have, even when I shot it back in my film days. Having bought my first roll of VELVIA back in 1993, I’ve been shooting those colors for half of my entire life. In that way, those VELVIA colors have been an integral part of my development as a photographer.

VELVIA works for just about anything on bright sunny days: Action, adventure, landscapes, travel, people… It’s not so great on cloudy days or for close portraits, especially with darker skin tones.

ASTIA

Based on Fuji’s professional ISO100 color reversal portrait and fashion film, ASTIA does great with skin tones and clothing, which makes it ideal for photographing people outside under natural light. That said, it looks great on any kind of subject, inside and out, because it has great color that doesn’t block up when the contrast of your scene increases.

For this reason, ASTIA is my preferred film sim on cloudy days when VELVIA is too contrasty. It’s one of my favorite film sims, and I find it incredibly useful for a variety of subject matter and lighting conditions.

CLASSIC CHROME

Although the Fuji people can’t officially call it as such, Classic Chrome was designed to emulate Kodachrome, the most classic of all film stocks. With the lowest saturation of any of the other film sims, Classic Chrome produces softer colors and gives a wonderful muted look to your images.

At first, Classic Chrome might seem a bit boring, especially when compared to VELVIA, but when you realize what it’s doing, you’ll find that it almost produces a very pleasing, almost monochromatic look, but in color.

The tonality of Classic Chrome is interesting, it’s relatively soft in the highlights and harder in the shadows. This makes it quite usable for shooting under overcast skies. Shadows become a bit more rich, but your brights don’t blow out so easily. You can use this to your advantage in a wide variety of situations.

When you want your story to be about the subject and not the colors, Classic Chrome is a great choice. Think photojournalism, environmental portraiture or street photography. It’s even great for certain landscapes, because when you take away bright color, you force your viewer to concentrate on shape and tone and imagine the colors that were present. In that sense, it’s like VELIVA in reverse.

PRO Neg. STD

The two PRO Neg sims are patterned after Fuji’s popular NS 160 print film, which was the go-to choice for wedding and portrait photographers

PRO Neg. HI has slightly more tonality than STD, which gives it a little more contrast. It’s ideal for outside portraits or street photography.

On the other hand, PRO Neg. STD has the lowest tonality of any of the film sims, and it produces images with minimal contrast and soft, muted colors, but with slightly enhanced skin tones. It’s designed to give the best results when photographing portraits inside under studio lighting and flash.

Where CLASSIC CHROME has muted colors, but retains hard tonality in the shadows, PRO Neg. STD pulls everything back evenly. You get those nice Fuji colors, but at a very low saturation level with much softer shadows.

I actually love shooting with this film sim and I use it quite often to give a much more lower contrast look to my imagery, especially when fighting shadows on bright days.

ACROS

ACROS is a black and white film simulation with an exceptional level of tonality and a very complex grain structure. It requires a higher degree of processing than regular Monochrome sims, so it’s only found on the newer X Series cameras (X-Pro2, X-T2/3, X-H1, X100F and X-T20/30.)

With a tonality curve that’s capable of holding detail in both bright whites and dark shadows, ACROS produces an exceptional level of depth and tonal gradation across the entire image.

It also produces a wonderful, characteristic level of grain that very closely mimics actual film grain. Just like you would see in a black and white print, ACROS has more grain in the darker areas and almost none in the highlights, and it increases in strength as you move up the ISO dial.

At ISO 3200, ACROS looks incredible, with superb tonality and gorgeous, film like grain. At ISO 12800, images still hold up with a surprising amount of detail, and the grain looks just like what you’d see on a print made from Kodak T-MAX 3200.

I absolutely love ACROS. You will too. If you have a newer Fuji, definitely shoot in ACROS mode and don’t be afraid to shoot it any ISO setting. I’ll often shoot ISO 3200 in broad daylight, just so I can get that awesome looking grain. Remember, photography is all about representation and a little bit, or a lot of grain never hurt anyone.

You Should Try Them All

Although these are my favorites, I use all of the film simulations in my photography, and you should too. Or at least experiment with them and see which ones you like. Each of them renders the colors and tones of your scene differently, and can impart a slightly (or drastically) different feel to you photographs.

Here’s a video companion to this lesson where I explain each of these film sims in a little more depth and show you a few more images examples. I cover all of the film sims in my bestselling Fuji eBook, X SERIES UNLIMITED.

To read about how to customize the film simulations for adding an even more stylized look in your photography, check out this post.