If you love travelling and use Fujifilm cameras to shoot travel photos, then you have come to the right blog for the best Fujifilm simulation recipes for travel use. Whenever I’m travelling I love to use film recipes to give my travel photos a more vintage film look and ready to share them on social media without any editing need. If you are curious about the perfect travel film recipes you can use, this post might give you some ideas on how to get started.
That’s right, you need to make a travel plan and get yourself before you go on vacation, at the meantime have these custom film recipes stored in your Fujifilm X-Trans IV / X-Trans V camera. Keeping it short and straightforward, I don’t want to make this a long post so I’ll compile some of the best travel recipes that you can choose from.
Types of Travel Photography
While travelling can seem like a great excuse to take pictures of your new surroundings, there are many different types of travel photography and each of them requires a specific set of skills and knowledge.
You must know what kind of photography you’re interested in before you start. While most travel photographers won’t restrict themselves to one type, understanding the different types will help you get the right gear and find the best places to shoot.
Destination Photography (places)
This form of travel photography focuses on showing off landscapes or cityscapes and their unique beauty. To achieve this, destination photographers generally prioritize natural lighting and points of view. These photographers usually focus on grand scenes rather than details or portraits. They often find creative ways to show off buildings or natural wonders to highlight their appeal. These kinds of shots will make for great postcards and posters but they also work well for business marketing campaigns.
Street Photography
This section will help you think like a professional photographer. Learning and applying the rules of composition is one of the best ways to improve your photography skills and ensure you’re capturing stunning shots. Once you master these tips and techniques, you’ll be able to combine them in creative and beautiful ways so that every photo you take has an original, artistic flair. If you want to learn more about the basics of composition to use, check out these basic photography techniques that you can use.
Best Travel Film Recipes
Here I will compile 7 film recipes for travel that you can store all at once in your Fuji X camera. Don’t worry for Fuji shooters that are still using older X-Trans IV cameras, you can still use some of the recipes created on Classic Chrome. For Classic Negative lovers, I have some of the best recipes for you here to choose from, so get your camera ready.
As you know there are many types of travel photography, including landscapes, travel portraits, and street photography. The most popular ones are street photography and landscape. Before you get started, you can check out the most suitable film simulation recipes for these types of photography. If you love shooting scenery, check out the best film simulation for landscape or film recipes for the street if you like shooting daily life on the road instead.
Now let’s focus on the best film simulation recipes for travel use, no matter what you are shooting, you will get great results out of these film recipes.
Kodak Portra 400
Fujifilm users can rejoice as you don’t have to fork out money to buy film stock if you’re shooting with a Fujifilm X Series camera. You will burn your wallet if you’re a film photographer as you know the actual Kodak Portra 400 35mm film is way too expensive to use for travel. Once again the Kodak Portra 400 film recipe for Fujifilm cameras is one of the most popular travel tools. With the same custom settings you can find here, you can also use them for portraits. There are many variants of Kodak Portra 400 film recipes that you can find online, on Youtube or websites.
Nomadic Mood
Once again, the Nomadic Mood is one of the best Fujifilm recipes for travel that are versatile for shooting all types of scenes. You can check out some of my travel photos shot with this recipe. I had it stored in my Fuji camera all the time and quickly accessed it with the Q button. This is one of the ultimate travel film recipes that must be stored in your camera whenever you go. The Nomadic Mood recipe is also featured in the latest list of best film recipes 2023 saved in my Fujifilm camera.
Yakisugi
- Classic Chrome
- Dynamic Range: DR200
- Highlight: 0
- Shadow: +2
- Colour: -3
- Noise Reduction: -4
- Sharpening: -1
- Grain Effect: Strong, Large
- Color Chrome Effect: Off
- Color Chrome Blue: Off
- White Balance: 7500K, 0 Red & 0 Blue
- ISO: Auto, up to ISO 6400
- Clarity: 0
- Exposure Compensation: 0
This is a film recipe created by Mehdi Berrada using Classic Chrome as based film simulation. It simulates a deep tone in the shadow combined with warm white balance settings. This recipe is best used in daylight when there’s bright sunlight.
Fujicolor Superia X-Tra 400
There is a saying – green is good for the eyes. If you love greenery, then the Fujifilm Fujicolor Superia X-Tra 400 is your best recipe. Known as one of the best Japanese film-look recipes, the Superia X-Tra 400 is the ultimate solution for shooting landscapes and portraits under certain lighting conditions. Check out the settings for Superia X-Tra 400 and samples you’ll be surprised how good it is. This is one of the travel film recipes you must have in your Fuji camera.
One for the Road (B&W)
This is one of my recommendations for travel use. If you like B&W for travel shoots, then the One for the Road film recipe is the one to go for. This recipe features a high-contrast black & white tone, mimics the high-contrast B&W on Ricoh GR cameras and is inspired by Japanese street photographer, Daido Moriyama. Find out the custom settings of One for the Road for all Fujifilm X-Trans IV and also compatible with the X-Trans V cameras.
Nordic Bliss
Consisting of two versions, the muted and warm tone, Nordic Bliss is one of the film simulation recipes that are great for shooting on gloomy days to bring out the mood. With its simple way of shooting without overexposing extra stops. The Nordic Bliss is great for muted landscapes and portraits while the warm version is excellent for vacation, chilling in the cafes or somewhere with less busy backgrounds. Keep in mind if you are using this recipe, you need to use it in certain scenes to look great. It’s a particular type of film recipe. Bear with it.
Cine Obscura (For Night Only)
This is one of the latest film recipes for night photography and is inspired by the tungsten-balanced motion picture film. It is excellent for shooting under tungsten lighting conditions at night. I’m sure when you are on vacation or traveling overseas, you will go out for a night shoot, then this Cine Obscura will make your night feel alive! LOL. Nevertheless, this recipe is one of the bespoke Obscura recipes with its unique characteristics and movie-like film tone.
What Are Your Favorite Film Simulation Recipes for Travel?
For those who love travelling and photography, combining the two is the perfect way to capture unforgettable moments and create lasting memories. With the right equipment and knowledge, you can take stunning photos that will make your friends and family jealous. Discover how to unlock the secrets of travel photography, find the best locations, use the right gear, and make sure your photos look as beautiful as the scenes you’re capturing.
These are compiled based on my research online to find what are the best recipes to use when travelling. What are your favourite travel film recipes? Have you tried most of the custom settings above? Well, there are hundreds of film simulation recipes that you can find out there but I like to keep them in one list. Hope you enjoy this list and can use it for your next travel!
Stay calm, stay safe and be happy shooting!
