📸 Fuji Recipe EP4: 2 days in Hue, Vietnam with Fujixweekly's Tri-x 400 recipe

Images in this post were taken with Fujixweekly’s Tri-X 400 recipe, using Acros+R mode

This image is available on my print shop here

I think I just got my best batch of images for the last few months on this recipe.

When it comes to the amount of noise, grain, and contrast in B&W photography, my philosophy can be summed up with one word: Yes.

So naturally, when it’s time for me to look for a B&W recipe, I try to find the one that has a lot of contrast as a start. And that landed me with this Tri-X 400 recipe from Fujixweekly, which the film stock it’s modeled after is known for its grainy looks.

I especially love the look of the film stock when it’s pushed a few stops, so on my shoot I often try to shoot it at a higher ISO.

This one is also available on the print shop

I shot with only the 15-45 “kit” lens on this trip, because I was going to be in some tight places, like a train. It’s a slower lens, but I regularly shoot at f5.6 or more anyways. I love the high ISOs on Fuji cameras anyways (I think I’ll have a separate post talking about this in the future!)

The lens is very seriously underrated btw. If anything, the 15mm wide end alone is good enough on its own, and the rest of the focal length is a bonus for me.

I had the 35mm f1.4 on my bag the whole time, but I don’t really like changing lenses in the middle of a day/shoot if I can help it. I find that being constrained by just one lens makes me a lot more creative!

I also shot this trip using Reggie’s Portra, my Moody Hanoi recipe, and a faux “Aerochrome” look using a lightroom preset. So subscribe to the newsletter if you want to be the first to see those!

Anyways, that’s enough off-topic ramblings. Back to the recipe.

To be honest, the difference between B&W recipes are a lot more subtle than color recipes. The decision points for me are pretty much just how contrasty and how grainy a recipe looks (usually a lot).

I think I got that influence from studying the work of Daido Moriyama, which black and white work usually features a lot of grain, noise, and crushed highlights and shadows. The images are very striking, which I love.

I also like the B&W work of Alan Schaller. Still quite contrasty and dramatic, but features little to no grain. Maybe that’s for a future recipe!

Shooting B&W is such a cheat code to make your photos look good though, so there’s a take away 😸

Boring color? Shoot B&W. Harsh midday sunlight? B&W got you covered. Cloudy overcast days? B&W to the rescue. Indoors with bad lighting? You already know it 😂.

I would shoot B&W a lot more if I didn’t love color so damn much. Still, some of my coolest shots ever were on B&W.

I also underexpose a lot with this recipe.

If you’ve been reading my stuff for a while, you might have noticed that I have a soft spot for a more low key look. Acros+R coupled with underexposing also brings out the darker sky look, which I think is very cool.

And that’s it. As always, subscribe to the newsletter to see more mediocre photos I took with different recipes. Next episode: TBD 😂.

I’m experimenting with “Redscale” recipes and Fujixweekly’s “Vibrant Arizona”, so that’s probably next. I’m also doing stuff with faux “Aerochrome”, using a lightroom preset (Love the look, but I can’t justify or even seem to get an infrared converted camera in my country, so this is a bit of a deviation from the typical SOOC recipes).

A few more Tri-X 400 shots below if you like to see more!

Funny story: As I’m finishing writing this post, I realized that I didn’t change the sharpness value for this recipe 😂. So all these images were on -4 sharpness, instead of +1, which is what the recipe suggests. Make that what you will 😂.