After using Sophia’s Fujifilm X100VI - I wanted my own, but owning two of the same camera felt a bit silly, plus the dang camera is still sold out. Thus I decided to give the Nikon Zf a try after learning that they had their own recipes. One of my biggest draws to the Fujifilm system was enjoying photography without the need to spend even more time behind the computer editing - I do that plenty for work and many of the other images I take. The question is, are they as good or close to Fujifilm’s community recipes?
I admit I was quite late to the Nikon Zf party and feel like their recipe capabilities kinda flew under the radar? No better time than the present though! Last month I bought the Nikon Zf and took a 2+ week road trip across the west snapping images on the Nikon Zf. If you want my full thoughts about the camera, I’ve written an entire review (if you enjoy things like shutter sounds and rambling).
This road trip didn’t consist of any dedicated photography, meaning the objective of many places was to enjoy them as we passed through without trying to time the perfect light or conditions. Thus many of the images you’ll find here resemble exactly what you’d get on a family trip, sight seeing, or just walking around to capture whatever catches your eye!
All of these recipes work with any Nikon camera that supports Imaging Recipes - Nikon Zf, Z6III, Z5II, Z50II
Every image on this page has been unedited with the exception of a possible crop or exposure adjustment.
Updated May 2025
Kodak Gold 200
One of my favorite recipes on the Fujifilm X100VI is the Kodak Gold 200 that we found on fujixweekly. I’d love to say I just enjoy the film but I really don’t have much experience shooting film so I can mostly only relate it to my experience of past recipes. This recipe seems to work best if you push your white balance a bit warm. One thing I’ve noticed if you’re coming from Fujifilm recipes it that the white balance isn’t used as creatively on the Nikon system.
Shooting in raw on the Nikon means the white balance isn’t baked in unlike on Fuji’s system. So you can always adjust this later or push it however much you enjoy it. Also feel free to tweak this recipe to your own liking and save it as your own!
That’s exactly what I did and the majority of the credit for this and other recipes on this page goes to Stephen Morais. He created a collection of great recipes and I adjusted a few of my favorites for this road trip that you can download here.
Kodak Portra 800
The two recipes I find myself using the most on the Fujifilm X100VI is Kodak Gold 200 and Portra 800. I’ll say these recipes don’t perfectly translate from camera to camera but they each have their own unique look. Fujifilm recipes have a bit more glow and saturation to them, especially since their white balance impacts images differently than it does for Nikon Zf.
I really enjoy this Portra 800 recipe (once again huge credit to Stephen Morais) for it’s rendition of colors. The images come out pleasantly saturated but nothing ever feels too overcooked. You’ll see it clearly works in all types of conditions or placements such as the desert, forest, and garden. A really versatile look. Download it here.
You’ll notice a few images on this page that have a significant glow to them, these were taken using a mist filter.
Kodak Ektar 100
Just because this is the least represented recipe here doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a place. Sometimes recipes really fill a certain niche and I haven’t quite found where Ektar looks the best. It has a very contrasty look which isn’t something I tend to shoot or try to shoot in camera all that much. You’ll notice later on that theres a few recipes that work quite well for very specific subjects or atmosphere. I wouldn’t say thats necessarily the case for this recipe, I just didn’t end up choosing it heavily.
It’s also important to remember that everyone sees and shoots differently. You might look at these images and want much more or prefer them over the look of some of their sister images. You’ll notice a few of the same scenes on this page with the intention of showing you how a recipe varies from one to another.
credit: adapted from Stephen Morais
Fujifilm Provia 100F
Sometimes you need a bit of color in your images and that’s what Provia is for. Sometimes almost too strong but what I enjoy about this recipe is it approaches oversaturated (just like the film at times) but never reaches it. Even on more dull scenes like the one from Yosemite or the coast, it manages colors well without feeling too punchy.
Contrast that with the flowers in the garden and you can see the versatility of this recipe. Just because there isn’t a lot of examples here doesn’t mean this recipe doesn’t have a spot in many situations. Download it here.
credit: adapted from Stephen Morais
Warm Autumn
This was likely my favorite recipe to shoot on from the trip although I don’t think it’s the best recipe here. It really reminded me of the warm tones I get when shooting images on the Fujfilm X100VI with a warmed color temp and not fixing it in post. You’ll notice theres a really major color shift in the yellows and greens. Yet if I only showed you a certain image it’s something you might not ever notice, such as the cactus images.
This is because the hue shift on the HSL for yellow and green is nearly maxed out. This is something I’ve never really done on my images but it feels like it works here. While the colors might be strange, you can always alter this recipe to your liking and simply remove that shift.
Ultimately I think I kept coming back to this recipe because of it’s warm glow, not necessarily it’s color shift. It alway pushed warmer tones to closer to what I enjoy, thus I used it often. A few of these images do use a mist filter.
credit: adapted from Brittany Eliza Kunkel
Download My Recipe Pack!
Recipes feel like the type of thing some creators might start charging for, but I hope that doesn’t happen. The more people that can get these in their hands along with developing a bigger community - the better! All I ask is for your email, and I promise I rarely send anything out but if I do start to bug ya, you can always leave.
Thanks for being here and if you need to know how to install these, instruction are below.
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Download and open the folder. You should see 5 .NP3 files
Copy these 5 files to the root of your SD card.
Insert the SD card into your Nikon camera
Open camera menu and navigate to: Photo Shooting > Manage Picture Control
Select “load/save”, then choose “copy to camera.”
Select the file and pick which slot you want it to be (C1-C9)
Repeat for all other recipes.
Black & White
As I said in my video, I absolutely love the B&W switch on the Nikon Zf and I didn’t expect to use it at all! I suspect one of the reasons I used it so much is because the black and white rendition on the Nikon Zf is great. It doesn’t have color filters (that I know) like the Fujifilm line does, but I suspect you could create one or two recipes that do exactly that!
The images here are using Nikon’s two (of three) default Black and White recipes. I specifically included the first two cactus images to show the “monochrome” recipe next to the “deep tone” recipe. The darker image being the deep tone variant, which I found myself using quite a lot!
One thing I gotta say is, I need to try and shoot in black and white more often. Being able to see scenes using the switch on the Nikon Zf was invaluable to find some of these images.
This was likely my favorite Nikon Creator recipe I used, but I didn’t try out all that many - just threw a couple on my camera and hit the road. This is one of the most versatile recipes I have on the camera, as you can see from the gallery. I suspect this is because it’s not necessarily adding a bold look, just adjusting the image in a really pleasing way. The recipe seemed to work in both colored contrasted light and cloudy mist.
Notice the two very similar images of the yellow flowers on the Oregon coast. One of those was as the rain came in and one was taken on a separate day as the sun was setting. The recipe was used for both and works great in either scenario.
Tender Clear by Fuka Kamata
This was a recipe that sat on my camera not getting much use for awhile. Sometimes this happens because we just don’t end up liking a recipe or style, but other times it is because we haven’t come across the type of scene it works best on.
It’s pretty clear that moody foggy trees go great with this recipe.
Fern by Ian Harland
Another recipe that I couldn’t quite find the right scene for most of the time. This one really shined in the Red Woods. One note is to be careful of white balance. I feel like my Nikon Zf on auto balance did not get it correct throughout that walk in the forest, typically making the images too cold - at least for my taste.
The beauty thought is that we can always change it later if we need to, but it saves a lot of time getting it right in camera
DG Film Look by Danny Gevirtz
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