Film Simulation Americana | Ricoh GRiii X
Testing the Ricoh Recipes film simulation ‘Americana’ in Northern Idaho
Today I took my Ricoh GRiii X (40mm F2.8) pocket mirrorless camera along with me on some hikes in North Idaho. Iif you want to be cool “North Idaho” is what the locals call it, but when grammatically correct it’s “Northern Idaho”.
I figured this new-to-me environment would be a fresh way to test out the Ricoh Recipes app and specifically it’s “Americana” film simulation. I like North Idaho for this “Americana” filmsim vibe, much as I would probably enjoy it in my native Georgia, because it captures the wildness of the Northwest with the grit of the people who live here. More so, I like North Idaho because it’s a bit rougher ‘round the edges than the urbanized Portland or faux-wild Bend Oregon that I spend a lot of my time in.
Idaho feels like the Tennessee of the Northwest. It can be well mannered and cleans up nicely when it needs to, but it feels the most authentic (for better or worse) than the neighboring states of Oregon and Washington. This is as far as I’ll get into social commentary on a photography page though. Point being, if you like rusted trucks as decoration, the occasional seaplane in a lake, and plentiful deer…North Idaho might be more your speed than Portland or Seattle…but you probably already knew that.
Okay, next.
IF you haven’t read my other articles on the Ricoh Cameras… (hint), or watched my Youtube videos about them as well… (double hint) … then you should know that the Ricoh GRiii X is a small mirrorless camera that fits into the niche category of point-and-shoot street photography cameras. I also had the base GRiii (and sadly sold it last week). The GRiii X uses a 24mpx crop sensor combined with a 26mm F2.8 fixed lens, giving you a 40mm full frame equivalent.
More importantly, the Ricohs produce amazing raw files that often rival my professional Canon cameras, and also produce unique “film simulation” jpegs. Some fans of Fujifilm may be familiar with their film simulations, and I *admit* that Fujifilm probably produces a better “out of the box” film simulation experience.
Fujifilm gives you expertly designed and researched in-camera film presets that are honestly pretty awesome. Ricoh goes the more creative route and gives you some barebones building blocks, but those blocks are optimized to be combined into creative formulas or “recipes” to emulate an almost infinite amount of film simulations if you can be creative.
Luckily, for those who don’t want to be so creative, Ricoh also has a free app called Ricoh Recipes which you can use to just plug-and-play those recipes and get your desired look.
I was initially pretty happy with the Americana recipe but upon review, I don’t think I’ll be using it as much in the future. It’s a unique look, but a bit too specific for my tastes. I’ve swapped it out for the KodaKolor recipe instead now. My biggest complaint with Americana was the green tint and warm hue the recipe gave to everything. It’s also what I really liked about the recipe. Check out the photos below for more examples
If you’ve had any interest in this recipe or my behind the scenes elements of these photos, you can check out the Youtube video I posted for this article as well here.
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