Neutral One
Quiet colour, open range.
Colour
- White BalanceAuto, +4 Red, −4 Blue
- Color+4
- Color Chrome EffectOff
- Color Chrome FX BlueOff
Tone
- Dynamic RangeDR100
- Highlight0
- Shadow+2
Texture
- Grain EffectStrong, Small
- Clarity−4
- Sharpness−2
- High ISO NR0
Exposure
- ISOAuto
- Exposure Comp.0 to +2/3
Why this recipe
Eterna comes from Fuji's cinema stock. Low contrast, the lowest saturation in the menu and the widest tonal range.
It takes in a great deal and decides almost nothing. Perfect when you grade later, and the reason it looks pale straight out of camera.
Neutral One puts back the minimum. A little saturation, a dark end for the shadows, a mild warm shift. No colour gets pushed.
In one line: a usable flat file rather than a look.
It's the recipe for mixed light: interiors, a warm lamp against a window, a wide range from bright to dark. And for anything you might want to edit later.
Every photo here is a JPEG straight out of my Fujifilm X-H2S. No editing, no Lightroom, no cropping. Shot in Lofoten, mainland Norway and Scotland.
Save it to one of the custom slots (C1 to C7). It takes about a minute to type in, and from then on the camera hands you a finished JPEG.
Shoot it in
Mixed light, interiors and scenes with a wide range from bright to dark. Anything you may want to edit later.
Skip it in
Flat overcast. A flat simulation on flat light has nothing to work with, so on grey days pick a recipe with more contrast.
Straight out of camera
No edits. Just the JPEG.
What each setting does
Built from the bottom up.
A recipe is easier to trust when you know why every value is there.
Film Simulation
Eterna comes from Fuji's cinema stock: low contrast, the lowest saturation in the menu and the widest tonal range.
It takes in a great deal and decides almost nothing. That's exactly right when the grading happens later, and it's why Eterna looks pale straight out of camera. This recipe puts back the minimum it holds back.
White Balance shift
Auto, +4 Red, −4 Blue.
Deliberately mild. Enough to take the chill off Eterna, not enough to push mixed light in any direction.
Dynamic Range, Highlight, Shadow
DR100 and Highlight 0 leave the bright end exactly as Eterna renders it, and Eterna already holds a lot up there.
Shadow +2 gives the frame a dark end, so it stops looking washed out. DR100 works from base ISO, which is ISO 160 on the X-H2S.
Color
Color +4 gives back the saturation Eterna withholds.
The result isn't loud. It just looks like the scene instead of a flat log file.
Color Chrome Effect, Color Chrome FX Blue
Both Off. No colour gets pushed, no blue gets deepened.
That keeps the file neutral, which is the whole idea: a baseline you can shoot in almost any light and still edit later.
Clarity, Sharpness, Grain, Noise
Clarity −4 and Sharpness −2 keep the file clean without making it crisp, and fine grain gives it a little surface. High ISO NR stays at 0.
The trade off: with Clarity on, the camera takes a moment longer to save each shot.
Quick start
- Put it on a custom slot (C1 to C7) and leave ISO on Auto. DR100 works from base ISO.
- Start at 0 exposure comp, go up to +2/3 in dark interiors.
- Use it when the light is mixed or you plan to edit. Switch to a stronger look on flat grey days.
Works on
- All X-Trans V bodies
- X-Pro3
- X-T4
- X100V
- X-S10
- X-E4
- X-T30 II
X-T3 and X-T30 miss Clarity and grain size, so treat it as a direction there.
Neutral One
Thanks for reading.
@danieljschwarzSave it · Tag me · Share it with a Fuji friend
If you try Neutral One, I'd love to see what it does with your mixed light. Tag me on Instagram at @danieljschwarz, that's also where I post new recipes first.
Neutral One is recipe 04 in My Fuji Cookbook. The full book with twelve recipes is in my shop.
More recipes
