I normally know quite quickly whether a Fujifilm recipe suits a trip. Crete made that decision even easier.
The island is full of the colours this recipe likes: warm stone, red-painted details, turquoise water, faded walls and bright flowers. Instead of changing simulations every day, I kept Solis loaded for the entire holiday and treated it like choosing one film stock.
Every photograph in this article is a JPEG made with the same recipe on my Fujifilm X-H2S.
The Solis recipe settings
- Film Simulation: Classic Chrome
- Dynamic Range: DR400%
- Grain Effect: Off
- Color Chrome Effect: Strong
- Color Chrome FX Blue: Strong
- Smooth Skin Effect: Off
- Highlight Tone: -2
- Shadow Tone: -1
- Color: +4
- Sharpness: 0
- Clarity: 0
- High ISO Noise Reduction: -4
- White Balance: Auto
- White Balance Shift: Red +5, Blue -6
The screenshots do not show an Auto ISO range or a standard exposure-compensation value, so I would not publish either as part of the recipe without checking the saved camera preset.
On the X-H2S, DR400 requires ISO 640 or above. That explains why many of the bright daylight files sit at ISO 640. Fujifilm describes DR400 as a way to reduce lost highlight detail in high-contrast scenes, although higher dynamic-range values can introduce mottling in some situations. (Fujifilm X-H2S image-quality guide)
What the recipe is doing
Classic Chrome begins with relatively restrained colour, but Solis pulls it in a much warmer and richer direction.
The combination of Color +4 and the Red +5 / Blue -6 white-balance shift gives the files their sun-baked look. Strong Color Chrome adds density to already saturated colours, while Strong Color Chrome FX Blue keeps the sea and sky from becoming pale even under very hard light.
Highlight -2, Shadow -1 and DR400 soften the contrast. That matters in Crete, where the difference between a white wall in direct sun and a doorway in shade can be enormous.
The result is not neutral. It is closer to a memory of a warm holiday than a literal record of the scene.
Where Solis worked best
Sunlit stone and
Fujifilm Recipes
Holiday Radeon
