If you’re shooting with a Fujifilm camera and ignoring film simulations, you’re leaving the best part on the table. That’s not an exaggeration — film simulations are the reason I switched from Canon to Fujifilm two years ago. After months of walking through Halle (Saale) with the Fujifilm X-H2 and the X-E5, I can say this clearly: not every simulation works for every city. Halle has a specific visual identity — Gründerzeit facades, GDR-era panel buildings, the Saale river, the Peißnitz park — and the following six combinations capture that character better than anything I’ve ever cooked up in Lightroom.
Why Film Simulations Are So Powerful for Urban Photography
Most cameras produce a neutral RAW that you can push in any direction in post. Fujifilm takes a different approach: the JPEG engine is designed to recreate analogue film characters — with everything that implies: colour tones, contrast, grain, colour cast. The result is images that have a mood straight out of camera, something no generic camera profile slider can replicate.
I always shoot RAW+JPEG. I use the JPEGs for culling; if an image is worth working in Capture One, I develop the RAW — but often the JPEGs go directly into the archive or onto Instagram, because they already say what the image needs to say.
The 6 Film Simulations That Work in Halle
1. Classic Chrome — for Gründerzeit Architecture and Everyday Scenes
Classic Chrome is my most-used simulation in Halle. It desaturates selectively — skin tones stay warm, sky blues are pulled back, and the sandstone-yellow Gründerzeit facades take on an almost photographic vintage quality. At the Marktplatz, along Große Märkerstraße, or at the Stadtgottesacker cemetery: Classic Chrome turns historical buildings and the everyday life in front of them into atmospheric urban portraits.
My settings:
- Film Simulation: Classic Chrome
- Grain: Weak, Fine
- Color Chrome Effect: Strong
- Color Chrome Effect Blue: Weak
- Shadow Tone: −1
- Highlight Tone: 0
- Color: −1
- Sharpness: −1
- Noise Reduction: −4
- White Balance: Daylight, R −2 / B +3
The slight blue shift in the white balance gives outdoor shots on overcast days — unfortunately the default in Halle — a cooler feel that suits the simulation’s moody character.
2. Eterna Cinema — for the Saale Riverbank at Golden Hour
Eterna Cinema was originally developed for video and has a very flat contrast profile. For photography, that sounds unappealing — but in the right situation, it’s magic. At the Saale riverbank during golden hour, when the light sparkles on the water and the silhouettes of the Bürgergärten rise against a warm sky: Eterna turns harsh contrasts into soft, cinematic gradations.
My settings:
- Film Simulation: Eterna Cinema
- Grain: Off
- Color Chrome Effect: Weak
- Shadow Tone: +1
- Highlight Tone: 0
- Color: 0
- Sharpness: 0
- Noise Reduction: −4
- White Balance: Cloudy, R +2 / B −1
I push the white balance slightly towards warmth — Eterna otherwise tends to produce very cool shadows that look unnatural on green areas like the Peißnitz park.
3. Acros+R — for Street Photography Against the Light
Acros is Fuji’s dedicated black and white simulation — and it’s better than any digital B&W conversion I’ve encountered. The +R filter increases contrast in blue tones and dramatically darkens the sky. For street photography in Halle, where I often shoot backlit against the Marktkirche or along brick facades, Acros+R is unbeatable. Skin tones stay warm, backgrounds fall off, and the image gains a three-dimensionality that Classic Black and White can’t match.
My settings:
- Film Simulation: Acros+R
- Grain: Strong, Fine
- Shadow Tone: −2
- Highlight Tone: +1
- Sharpness: +1
- Noise Reduction: −4
- White Balance: Auto, R 0 / B 0
For street scenes I keep the grain strong and fine — it gives an analogue character without looking digitally noisy. With the X-H2 I use the electronic shutter here: silent, invisible, the decisive moment without distraction.
4. Velvia — for the Peißnitz Park in Autumn and Spring
Velvia is the most controversial simulation in the portfolio. It saturates aggressively — too much for people, too much for urban architecture, mostly too much for anything that already has colour. But: in the Peißnitz park at the beginning of autumn, when the trees shift between yellow, orange, and deep red, or in spring when the meadows along the Saale turn intensely green, Velvia delivers colours that look exactly how the mind remembers the moment — not how it was, but how it felt.
My settings:
- Film Simulation: Velvia
- Grain: Off
- Color Chrome Effect: Weak
- Color Chrome Effect Blue: Weak
- Shadow Tone: 0
- Highlight Tone: −1
- Color: −1 (Velvia oversaturates without correction)
- Sharpness: −1
- Noise Reduction: −4
- White Balance: Daylight, R 0 / B +1
I pull back the highlight tone slightly — otherwise highlights in orange autumn leaves blow out very quickly.
5. Classic Neg — for the University Quarter and Modern Everyday Scenes
Classic Neg is the newest of my favourite simulations and perhaps the most versatile. It draws on Fujifilm negative films from the 1980s: warmer shadows, cooler midtones, pulled-back contrast. For the university quarter around Universitätsplatz and Bernburger Straße — where modern cafés sit next to unsanctioned Gründerzeit buildings, students cycle past on cargo bikes, and street art is sprayed onto walls — Classic Neg gives scenes a timeless quality that feels neither dated nor clinical.
My settings:
- Film Simulation: Classic Neg
- Grain: Weak, Fine
- Color Chrome Effect: Weak
- Shadow Tone: +1
- Highlight Tone: 0
- Color: 0
- Sharpness: 0
- Noise Reduction: −4
- White Balance: Auto, R +2 / B 0
I add a slight red shift in the white balance to keep skin tones warmer in street portraits. Classic Neg tends towards slightly pale skin tones in cool daylight otherwise.
6. Nostalgic Neg — for GDR Architecture and Urban Decay
Nostalgic Neg is my discovery of the past year. This simulation is only available in newer Fujifilm bodies like the X-H2 and X-E5, and it recreates the character of American colour films from the 1970s: lifted highlights, soft shadows, slightly faded midtones. In Halle, I’ve found a specific niche for it: weathered panel buildings in Silberhöhe, decaying industrial structures along the railway, and the charmingly run-down corners of the city centre still waiting for renovation. Nostalgic Neg makes decay poetic.
My settings:
- Film Simulation: Nostalgic Neg
- Grain: Weak, Large
- Color Chrome Effect: Strong
- Color Chrome Effect Blue: Strong
- Shadow Tone: +2
- Highlight Tone: −1
- Color: −1
- Sharpness: −1
- Noise Reduction: −4
- White Balance: Daylight, R +3 / B −2
The coarse grain and strong Color Chrome Effect are intentional. They give large colour areas a slightly grainy, almost faded quality that suits old concrete or rusted railings.
RAW vs. JPEG: My Workflow
I always save both. The RAW is my insurance — if the exposure is off or I want a different mood later, I can work it in Capture One. But the proportion of images where I use the JPEG directly is around 80 percent. That’s the actual promise of Fujifilm: you think about the simulation before you press the shutter — not after.
This discipline has changed my photography. When you know the JPEG will come out in Classic Chrome, you think differently in the viewfinder — about light, about colour — than someone thinking in a flat grey RAW. That’s perhaps the underestimated advantage of the Fujifilm system: it forces creative thinking in the moment, not at the desk.
Conclusion
Halle (Saale) is not a postcard city. There are no spectacular mountains or picturesque coastlines. What Halle has is layers — architectural, historical, social. The film simulations that work here aren’t ones that make everything pretty. They’re ones that do the city justice: honest, sometimes rough, with character. Classic Chrome, Acros+R, and Nostalgic Neg do that best.
If you’re shooting Fujifilm in Halle yourself, write to me — I’m curious which simulations you find for this city.