The Bold One is Velvia | Colour Your Story Ep 02

Welcome back for Episode 02 of my “Colour Your Story” series. It’s great to have you here. Before I continue, just a quick check-in that you have read the previous articles in the series. If you haven’t yet, you can do so here: “Discover Fujifilm Film Simulations | Colour Your Story – Ep 00” here: “Start Your Journey with the All-Rounder, PROVIA” and here: “Let’s take PROVIA to Another Level” to catch up on what the series is all about, what it aims to achieve and what it will include.

Turn up the colour in your world

The Velvia film simulation was released at the same time as PROVIA back in 2008. It has been available in every camera model since then. The Velvia film simulation was created to emulate FUJICHROME Velvia, a very successful professional reversal analog film stock. It was known for its highly saturated colours and sharpness and was a favourite among landscape and nature photographers. The film stock has since been discontinued, but thanks to Fujifilm’s digital photography technology, we can create eye-catching images with vivid, punchy colours, as though they were shot on film.

Everything is “more” with the Velvia film simulation – more colour, more contrast, more detail and even more drama. Early versions of the Velvia film simulation struggled with capturing images with highly saturated subjects and scenes, but with each new generation of camera, this film simulation has improved significantly.

Velvia is all about more vibrance, so if you like lots of colour in your images and love deep-blue skies, this is the film simulation for you.

COLOR CHROME EFFECT was introduced with the launch of the X-T3 in 2018 and further improved the colours and tones of images shot in Velvia and other film simulations. If you wish for the look of your images to more resemble the original FUJICHROME Velvia film stock, it is recommended that you set COLOR CHROME EFFECT to WEAK. It tames the vibrance in the colours and produces a wider range of tones, ensuring that colours don’t become over-saturated and look more natural without compromising good contrast and impact. Move the slider left and right to compare the images below. You will see a very slight change in the vibrance of the yellow, blue and red colour in the bow of the boats.

What you can expect from jpegs shot in Velvia

VIBRANT COLOURS THAT POP
Velvia is known for its rich, punchy colours, especially in the reds, blues and greens. This makes it ideal for impactful images of colour-rich landscapes and nature.

STRONG CONTRAST ADDS DETAIL
Strong contrast helps to bring out the details and adds depth to images. This is particularly useful to give landscape photographs more of a three dimensional feel.

DEEP SHADOWS FOR DRAMA
Velvia emphasizes darker tones, which makes shadows more rich and gives images a more dramatic feel. It also helps to make the vibrant colours pop even more. While this is a quality that improves the look and feel of images shot in this film simulation, it is important to keep an eye on the blacks as they may become too dark and lose detail.

Choose Velvia when colour is key in these situations

LANDSCAPES AND NATURE
Velvia is ideal for landscapes due to its vibrant, saturated colours and strong contrast. It enhances nature scenes by making greens more vivid and blues in skies and water more bold.

The Jacarandas trees, which Johannesburg and Pretoria are so well known for, were in bloom as I was writing this article and are a perfect example of when Velvia is a great choice. It brings out the bold purble of these majestic trees and underlines their beautiful display of colour.

WILDLIFE
In general, when shooting wildlife, flowers or flora, Velvia’s intense colours result in rich images with lots of detail that makes subjects “pop”.

SUNRISE AND SUNSET
The enhanced saturation and contrast of Velvia make it perfect for capturing the very many hues of red, orange and pink that typically fill the sky at dusk and dawn. It is ideal for creating bold and saturated images. But watch out for overly saturated results.

SPRING AND AUTUMN COLOURS
Velvia is a great choice for capturing fresh and colourful flowers at spring time. It amplifies the warm reds, oranges and yellows of autumn leaves.

TRAVEL
When capturing interesting places and sights in foreign countries, in urban settings, or in nature, Velvia adds impact by making colours more pronounced. It is great for giving travel images an energetic, highly saturated look. Perfect for the times when you will be looking back on your travel memories.

URBAN NIGHTSCAPES
Thanks to its bold colours and dramatic contrast, Velvia makes for an excellent choice for capturing urban nightscapes.

SCENES WITH MUTED COLOURS
Whenever you get to a scene that feels like it is missing a bit of energy, think Velvia. It will turn your photographs of these “dull” scenes into more powerful images by adding a bit of a colour punch.

In Conclusion

I have lost count of how many times I have mentioned vivid and vibrant in this article. That’s what Velvia is all about. It will make your images look fabulous when used in the right situations, but beware of getting carried away. Overly-saturated images, especially in landscape photography, might end up looking unnatural and skin colours in portraits could be way off. For all other situations in which brilliant, bold colours are required, Velvia is your best friend.

Over To You

What are your thoughts? Have you given it a try? Why don’t you do that and see if you like it. And then, once you have done so, please share your favourite images on Instagram using #ColourYourStory and remember to tag me @nathalieboucry! I can’t wait to see what you create.

This article is the third in the “Colour Your Story” series. If you enjoyed it, don’t forget to subscribe to my blog so you don’t miss out on any new content!