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Simulating the Look of Ilford FP4 Black and White Film with Your Sony Camera

Chris Gampat
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04/04/2017
2 Mins read
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When you consider the history of Ilford film, Delta probably gets the most love despite another film like Ilford FP4 being highly capable and perhaps even better at delivering a look that so many modern digital photographers try to emulate. Through lots of experimentation though, I’ve been able to find a way to mimic the look of the film with a Sony a7 or Sony a7r II. It’s a fact, if there is one thing beyond battery life that photographers complain about with Sony cameras then it’s sometimes the colors. The camera company has been known to deliver incredibly saturated (sometimes a bit too much) colors in their images. This partially comes from the lenses that they work with. To get the best absolute best colors that you really want, I suggest leaving Lightroom for Capture One 10. But if you’d just like some great images which you’ll be fine with when it comes to the JPEGs then consider this short tutorial.

Sony’s Creative Styles

So before I really get into this, I’m going to reiterate a few things:

  • This works only with JPEGs. Which if you’re a film shooter who shoots film and then gets their JPEGs or TIFFs scanned, you’ll understand that there usually isn’t a whole lot of latitude with the scans anyway.
  • This isn’t AT ALL meant to replace the experience you get with film and the sensor output doesn’t completely emulate the look of Ilford FP4. But it comes pretty darned close due to how it renders both highlights and shadows.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s actually do this, right? With your Sony E mount or A mount camera, go to the Sony Creative Styles and scroll down to black and white. Dial in the contrast +1 and the sharpness +2. Lock it in and set your camera to RAW + Fine or RAW + JPEG. Now you’re ready to shoot.

Ilford FP4

Ilford FP4 gives a bit more detail from the shadows typically–which is really nice. When I shoot in Sony’s aperture priority, I tend to overexpose by a full stop. But when in full manual, I’m typically overexposing by just a tad of 1/3rd of a stop.

Of course, part of the fun in getting these looks has to do with how you develop the images. These are what Ilford FP4 could look like when developed with Rodinal according to my research.

You’ll also want to typically shoot at ISO 400.

Example Images

Now, I’m going to end this post like this: don’t consider this a replacement for film. It’s close, but it’s not perfect and it won’t give you the actual, real experience that you get when shooting film.

black and white capture one creative style film Ilford FP4 images iso 400 processing rodinal shadows sony Sony A7 sony a7r II
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.