Mar 5, 20234 min read

Freshly Baked Series | Kodak Tri-X 400 Sony Film Simulation Recipe

Kodak Tri-X 400 Sony Film Simulation Picture Profile Settings

This one is truly special.

The Kodak Tri-X Sony Film Simulation will take you back in the old days of shooting film.

Grittiness and Punchy faded contrast, it's all you need.

If I would have to choose only one Black & White Film Simulation Recipe, it would definitely be the Kodak Tri-X Film. No Black n White Film Simulation can compete with this recipe.

With crushed and faded shadows, and with smooth Highlight Roll-off but with a refined gritty look, you can't really tell if it's shot on digital or film.

Kodak Tri-X 400 Sony Film Simulation Picture Profile Settings

So one of my readers Daniel Fascia, check his shots @danfascia, asked if I had any plans in replicating the Kodak Tri-X Film Stock, so after checking the looks of it, I said yeah why not, it looks really great.

Daniel has quite some experience shooting the real Kodak Tri-X and he was kind enough to send me some sample images from his archive for reference and also offered to test the Film Profile once it's done, and he was very impressed by the end results.

Before getting into the results I want to pass on his notes.

After testing the first version of the Kodak Tri-X 400 he offered some valuable information regarding how this film is usually processed, and what he said is the following:

''Tri-X is actually an incredibly low contrast muddy film... most people rate TriX pushed, to make it go contrasty and grainy. I think it would be worth making 2 x Tri-X variants - standard which is best for lo-fi portraits etc and then a pushed kodak tri-X which is the one people love for street.''

Random Flowers - Kodak Tri-X 400 Sony Film Simulation Settings

Basically with Black n White film, by changing the processing method you can actually change the whole appearance of the image.

His feedback was very valuable.

I agreed it would be best to have 2 versions of the same Film, especially because I love punchy looking films, but also wanted to offer the soft muddy option for the old school shooters.

Literally anything you shoot looks great with this Sony Film Simulation Recipe.

So the first version of the Kodak Tri-X that you'll find on the website, will be the 1600 one, the more crunchy gritty look, perfect for street, or to add a dramatique effect to your shots, and the second on is rated at 400 ISO with a soft and rather flat or muddy appearance, great for dreamy portraits, or casual events.

Check the differences between both.

After testing them, Daniel was extremely impressed of how close this Sony Film Simulation is to the real Kodak Tri-X 400 Film Roll.

For me, the Kodak Tri-X 1600 version has become my number one choice for Black n White.

I love color, hence the reason why I started this project and am so passionate about Sony Film Simulation Recipes and I prefer Color Recipes to B&W ones, but this Black & White Film Recipe is just something else.

For the past week I've put aside every other recipe, and been using only this Black & White Film Simulation recipe for pretty much everything, because no matter how boring a scene was, the Kodak Tri-X 400 would make it look amazing.

Kodak Tri-X 400 Sony Film Simulation Picture Profile Settings

Kodak Tri-X 400 Sony Film Simulation Picture Profile Settings

You can clearly see the grittiness coming out on the RX100 VI, I personally love the texture.

If you want something subtle, you can easily control that by lowering the ISO. Take a shot and zoom in the image to check the level of grain you have. Then Lower or Increase the ISO to your personal liking. Don't forget to Turn Off the Noise Reduction in the Photo Menu.

This was shot on the RX100 VI at ISO 1600, 1/6500 SS, f3.5.

The camera has a 1inch sensor, to get the same Grain on an APS-C sensor this would be equivalent to maybe 3200-6400 ISO, and on a fullframe sensor it would be between 64000-25600. Aperture also matter, so if you shoot Wide open at f1.8 you might need to increase the ISO even more.

The RX100 is super noisy, even daytime at ISO 600-800 is has some slight grain to it.

In this article I will mostly feature the Tri-X 1600 in combination with the RX100 VI which has a minuscule 1-inch sensor and a pretty dark f2.8-4.5 lens. Some images will be noisy, very noisy.

It's about to get gritty.

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