Landscape Photography With The Fuji X100T

When you think of a landscape photography camera I bet the first thing that comes to your head is a Nikon D800 – or the Sony A7r. Am I right? I bet you never think of Fujifilm.

Well, a lot has changed over the years, and now our small little cameras pack a serious punch.

Shooting Landscapes With The Fuji X100T

After playing around with the Fuji X100T I have had my eyes open to a whole new system that produces the most incredible colors I’ve ever seen from a camera. And it’s not coming from the optics or the sensor or any of the other tech specs. It’s these Fuji film simulators.

The Fujifilm Film Simulators – Why They Are Important

Fuji has for over 50 years been an expert at designing the looks of the film we’ve all grown up with. Today, they’ve taken their years of experience and expertise and placed it inside a digital camera. With looks mimicking classic film stocks such as, Velvia, Provia, Astia and more.

These looks are something very special to Fujifilm and they continue on the technology that powers them.

There is a lot more to the film simulators too than just color profiles. If you shoot JPG or use Fujifilm X RAW studio there is a lot more than just color adjustments. The images and colors are processed differently based on their exposure, if it’s pushed or pulled, or if there noise reduction and grain, it all intelligently happens inside the camera for a superior look.

Of course, you can still load the color profiles in Adobe to get very close to a similar look which is usually what I do when shooting landscapes.

How Fuji Film Simulators Have Change My Editing

Usually, with landscape photography I shoot my shot, often more than once and at a few at different exposures to accurately capture the dynamic range of the scene. Combine them, then spend the next day tweaking the colors to get it to look and feel sort of how it was when I was there. It’s obviously impossible to match this perfectly as the human eye is a chemical marvel that is constantly adjusting to the light around us. But with the Fuji X100T, I now shoot my shot, then cycles through a few of the film simulators. And just like that, I feel like the image is 90% there.

On this particular photo, I was using the film simulator look Velvia / Vivid and used very little Lightroom tweakage to get it looking like this. I’m very happy.

This was shot RAW though and the colors were loaded in manually in LR.

Location: Paradise Cove, Malibu California
Camera: Fuji X100T
ISO 200, f/16, 0.5 seconds
Stock: Velvia

What’s Next From Fujifilm?

I really think Fuji cameras will continue to grow in popularity. The X-T system is one of the coolest interchangeable camera systems out there. But I think Fuji will need to increase its megapixel count before it’s fully adopted by avid photographers. Not because it will make the cameras better, because it won’t. They need to do it simply because of marketing psychology. A mistake Canon made by not releasing a high megapixel sensor in response to Nikon and Sony which caused a lot of photographers to switch. Myself included. Although I did it for other reasons. Mainly because I feel like Canon only cares about sports shooters and wedding shooters.

Fuji Landscape Inspiration

If you want to see more incredible landscapes captured with the Fuji X-Series, check out the work of Elia Locardi. One of Fuji’s global ambassadors. I think you’ll be impressed.

As far as the future goes, I’ll continue to shoot Landscapes with the Fuji X100T, post my shots on this site and continue to update my Fuji X100T Review with anything new I discover. But this year, I’ll likely pick up Fuji’s next APS-C interchangeable, whatever that may be. I’m thinking the X-Pro 2. 

Location: Paradise Cover, Malibu California
Camera: Fuji X100T
ISO 200, f/16, 0.8sec
Film Stock: Velvia

Location: Dockweiler State Beach, Los Angeles California
Camera: Fuji X100T
ISO 200, f/16, 1.0 sec
Film Stock: None / HDR

This shot here has a little bit more of an aggressive Orton effect.

Location: Dockweiler State Beach, Los Angeles California
Camera: Fuji X100T
ISO 200, f/11, 1/5 sec
Film Stock: Velvia

Location: Dockweiler State Beach, Los Angeles California

Camera: Fuji X100T
ISO 200, f/11, 1 sec
Film Stock: Velvia