Video / Movie Mode — settings, differences, and photo→video translation

Film-look recipes for movie recording are not the same as stills recipes, because the X-T5 exposes a reduced set of image-quality controls in movie mode. This file documents exactly what's available (from the X-T5 manual, Image Quality Setting (Movie Recording), printed pp.201–204) and how to translate a photo grade into a faithful video grade.

Accessing movie image-quality settings

Press MENU/OK in the movie shooting display and select the H (IMAGE QUALITY SETTING) tab. These are stored separately from the still-photo settings, even for controls that exist in both modes, "settings must be adjusted separately" (manual). Changing Film Simulation for stills does not change it for movies, and vice versa.

What IS available in movie mode

What is NOT available in movie mode (critical)

These stills controls are absent from the movie Image Quality menu, so their character cannot be baked into video:

• Grain Effect (roughness/size), no in-camera film grain in video.
• Color Chrome Effect: no extra depth in reds/yellows/greens.
• Color Chrome FX Blue: no extra blue depth. (This also means the X-Trans IV→V blue conversion rule is irrelevant to video.)
• Clarity: no mid-tone micro-contrast control.
• Smooth Skin Effect: unavailable.

Consequence: a stills recipe can never be reproduced 1:1 in video. The colour and tonal foundation transfers (Film Sim + WB + DR + Tone Curve + Color + Sharpness), but the texture and colour-richness layer (grain, chrome effects, clarity) is lost.

Translating a photo recipe → video recipe

When adapting one of our stills recipes to movie mode:

1. Copy directly: Film Simulation, White Balance + WB Shift, Dynamic Range, Tone Curve (Highlight/Shadow), Color, Sharpness, High ISO NR. These behave the same.
2. Drop (unavailable): Grain, Color Chrome Effect, Color Chrome FX Blue, Clarity.
3. Compensate for the dropped controls: - Lost Color Chrome Effect / FX Blue removed some richness/depth → consider a small Color bump (e.g. +1) to partly restore saturation weight, judged by eye. - Lost negative Clarity (which softened mids for a dreamy look) → you may nudge Sharpness down slightly to keep a soft feel; there's no true clarity substitute in-camera. - Lost grain → grain, if wanted, must be added in post (it's a texture, not a colour, so it doesn't compromise the SOOC colour goal). → post-grain-settings.md derives the grain scale and inter-stock ratios from the datasheets' own 48 µm measurement aperture, and documents which effects to use in Premiere Pro and free DaVinci Resolve (note: ResolveFX Film Grain is Studio-only).
4. Set Dynamic Range deliberately: since AUTO isn't available, pick —/200/400 to match the stills recipe's value (and remember the F-Log/HLG dependency and ISO floors).
5. Verify separately: because movie settings are independent, re-enter every value in the movie IQ menu; don't assume the stills preset applies.

F-Log / HLG vs SOOC film-look (important distinction)

The MOVIE SETTING > F-Log/HLG RECORDING option changes the intent entirely: - F-Log / F-Log2 / HLG = flat/log capture meant to be colour-graded in post. Film Simulation looks are not baked in the same way; DR options and film-sim behaviour change. Use this when the deliverable is edited/graded footage. - Standard (film-simulation) recording = the SOOC film-look path, directly analogous to our stills recipes, the Film Simulation and IQ settings are baked into the footage. This is the mode our video recipes target.

When building video recipes we will target standard film-simulation recording (baked-in look) unless a recipe is explicitly a log/grade-in-post workflow.

Where video recipes will live

Video recipes will be organised parallel to stills, e.g. the notes (or a dedicated video/ area) with their own the notes grade notes, cross-referencing the stills version and noting exactly what was dropped/compensated. Structure to be confirmed when we build the first one.

Last updated: 2026-07-25