My Easy Reala Ace Recipe on Fuji X Weekly

My Easy Reala Ace recipe is featured on the Fuji X Weekly App!

First of all, I am probably even more surprised than you that I actually made a recipe. It’s not really something I do. Secondly, I am shocked that it made it to the Fuji X Weekly App. 

It all happened in February, a few days before the launch of the now acclaimed X100VI. I was busy preparing for an outing with an X100VI test model and found myself in a pinch. I couldn’t wait to shoot with the new REALA ACE film simulation but since this was the first X-Series camera model to feature it, no-one had made a recipe with it yet. Most film simulations deliver great results as is, but I felt I wanted to test this new one a bit more. It was the hight of summer and I was prepared for a hot day with lots of blue skies, puffy white clouds and very bright sunlight from early on in the day. With that in mind, I adjusted the camera settings to my needs, chose REALA ACE and made some adjustments in the Custom Settings Menu.

When we headed out the next morning, the weather played along as expected. We had a full day ahead of us, and plans to take lots of photographs and videos so my attention was here, there and everywhere. The day went by, we did our thing and I was really excited to be using this not-yet-unveilled camera.

While I was busy taking pictures with the settings I had dialled into the camera the night before, I didn’t realise that I was only shooting jpegs. Although I had gone through the entire camera menu, and thought I had made all the necessary adjustments, I didn’t see that the image quality setting had been changed to FINE only. Oops.

I had to put my money where my mouth is and embrace my jpeg-only workflow (something that I whole-heartedly believe in but not usually practice when I test a new camera and film simulation). Luckily, my REALA ACE version was indeed a good choice and performed well. And so my Easy Reala Ace recipe was born!

The colours are pretty neutral and slightly desaturated, the images have nice contrast with slightly muted greens and blues that point a little towards cyan. It looks like this:

A few months later, Ritchie Roesch (aka Fuji X Weekly) reached out to me, asking what “Easy Reala Ace” was (I guess he had come across my X100VI article or images I had posted with my recipe). I gave him the backstory and the recipe settings. He asked if I minded if he added “GRAIN”. Knowing better than to question the master of Fujifilm Recipes, I happily agreed with his suggestion. When I didn’t hear more from him about this, I assumed that he had tried the recipe and decided it wasn’t interesting enough. Yet a few weeks later, I woke up to another message from Ritchie asking if I was ok with him sharing my “Easy Reala Ace” on Fuji X Weekly. Can ducks swim? Of course I was okay with it. What I didn’t realise at the time was, that this meant it would also get featured in the app! This I only found out much later. What an honour!

So here it is – Easy Reala Ace on Fuji X Weekly:
Film Simulation: Reala Ace
Dynamic Range: DR400
Grain Effect: Weak, Small
Color Chrome Effect: Strong
Color Chrome FX Blue: Weak
White Balance: Auto, 0 Red & 0 Blue
Highlight: -1
Shadow: 0
Color: 0
Sharpness: 0
High ISO NR: -4
Clarity: 0
ISO: Auto, up to ISO 6400
Exposure Compensation: +1/3 to +1 (typically)

(The color setting was a “mistake”. I had set it to “-1” because of the environment I was shooting in. I didn’t want my images to get too saturated by the bright African sun. It makes sense to keep it at “0” when shooting in more moderate conditions and I am very happy with Ritchie’s settings.)

Irrespective of which version you choose, it is a great, tuned up REALA ACE look. It proved itself for shooting nature in very bright, sunny daylight conditions, but is also suitable for many other scenes and genres. I would be grateful if you would give it a try, if you haven’t already and let me know what you think!!

Thanks again, Ritchie, for spotting my Easy Reala Ace Recipe, for checking it out, for tuning it up and for including it in the Fuji X Weekly App. I am honoured to be part of it!

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