Kodak Ultramax 400
A warm, friendly Classic Negative recipe emulating Kodak Ultramax 400: soft skin, visible grain, and that everyday consumer-film glow.
Everyday · Portraits · Skin tones
Sample look
What this recipe is reaching for
A representative scene in the Kodak Ultramax 400 register this recipe targets — the colour, contrast, and mood it tries to land straight out of camera.
AI-rendered approximation (Gemini 3 Pro Image, prompted with the recipe's Fuji simulation and settings). Not a photograph shot with this recipe — real shots will vary with your light and subject.
Settings
15 parameters
Look
- Film Simulation
- Classic Negative
- Dynamic Range
- DR400
Tone
- Highlight
- −1
- Shadow
- −1
Color
- Color
- −1
- White Balance
- Daylight (5500K)
- WB Shift
- Red +2 · Blue −5
- Color Chrome FX
- Weak
- Color Chrome FX Blue
- Off
Detail
- Sharpness
- −2
- Noise Reduction
- −4
- Clarity
- −2
Texture
- Grain Effect
- Strong, Large
Exposure
- ISO
- Auto, up to ISO 6400
- Exposure Comp.
- +1/3 to +2/3 EV
Kodak Ultramax 400 is the drugstore-counter Kodak: warmer than Gold in the shadows, softer than Portra in the midtones, and openly grainy in a way modern color negative films rarely are anymore. This recipe leans on Classic Negative’s compressed midtone palette and adds back the warmth, softness, and texture that make Ultramax read as a casual snapshot stock rather than a portrait film.
Why this base
Classic Negative already carries the slightly muted reds and the cooler, separated blues that match Kodak’s consumer color science better than Astia or Pro Neg Std. Pulling Color to -1 takes the edge off Classic Neg’s natural saturation bump so skin doesn’t go ruddy, and Color Chrome Effect Weak deepens the secondary colors — foliage, denim, brick — without touching skin. DR400 is doing real work here: it protects the highlight roll-off on bright skies and window light, which is where Ultramax visibly clips on a real scan, and lets the -1 Highlight setting flatten the top end into that soft consumer-negative shoulder.
How to shoot it
The warm cast comes from the WB shift: +2 Red and -5 Blue against a Daylight 5500K base gives the print-scan warmth that’s baked into Ultramax frames, especially in shade and indoor mixed light. Meter +1/3 to +2/3 over the scene — Ultramax was always shot a stop hot at the drugstore — and let the -1 Shadow setting hold some weight in the lower midtones so faces don’t go pasty. Grain Strong / Large with Noise Reduction at -4 is the texture engine; combined with Sharpness -2 and Clarity -2 it produces the slightly soft, slightly hazy look of a 4x6 print rather than a clean digital file. Best results: open shade portraits, backyard afternoons, travel snapshots, anything that wants to feel like it came back from a one-hour photo lab.
What to avoid
This is not a clean studio recipe. The heavy grain and negative sharpness will fight you on architectural detail and small-text scenes, so switch to a cleaner Classic Chrome or Reala Ace recipe for those. Avoid stacking Color Chrome FX Blue on top — it’s deliberately OFF here because Ultramax’s blues are dull and slightly cyan, not deep, and turning it on pushes skies toward a Portra-blue that breaks the illusion. In hard midday sun the -1/-1 highlight/shadow combo can feel a bit flat; a half-stop of negative EV brings the contrast back without losing the warm cast.
X100V · X-Pro3 · X-T4 · X-T30 II · X-S20 · X-T5 · X-T50 · X-E5 · X-M5 · X100VI · X-H2 · X-H2S
Questions
4 answers
Ultramax has a slightly punchy, slightly green-shifted midtone character that Pro Neg Std smooths away. Classic Negative's built-in tone curve and color separation are closer to a consumer Kodak stock than the flatter Pro Neg bases.
No — the X-T3 doesn't include Classic Negative or Clarity, so this recipe can't be reproduced faithfully on that body. An ETERNA-based variant with similar WB shift gets you in the neighborhood but won't match the tone curve.
Ultramax 400 is a grainy consumer emulsion with soft micro-contrast. Grain Strong/Large plus Sharpness -2 and Clarity -2 mimic that gentle, slightly hazy rendering rather than the clinical edge a stock Fuji JPEG gives you.
A touch — the +1/3 to +2/3 EV nudge keeps shadows open and skin tones bright, which is how Ultramax is usually metered in daylight. In flat overcast, drop back to 0 EV to avoid washing out the warm cast.