The Film Recipes Every Canon Photographer Needs

There’s something about the way that film recipes look that gives us all spellbound. It’s seriously almost like we were cursed by the wizards of photography to believe that every time we see film photos, we’d fall madly in love. It’s part of the reason why Fujifilm cameras are so appealing. And it’s also why Lumix is growing in popularity with the Real-Time LUT feature. But Canon has just never truly embraced it as something of their own. But luckily, you don’t need to rely on Canon for this. Instead, there are film styles out there that you can load up on various cameras. In fact, I loaded them up into a camera dating back all the way to 2017.

Film Recipes on Canon Cameras

To get film recipes on Canon cameras, you need a few things. First, if you’re using an interchangeable lens camera, you need the EOS Utility version that supports it. For everything that I did, I used EOS Utility 3. For clarity, I did this process of getting film recipes on Canon cameras in January 2024.

Make sure that your camera will connect to your computer. Honestly, I’d recommend using a cable here. I’m also using a Mac, which present it’s own problems, but this is all still doable.

I did some research on YouTube, Flickr, and articles. Then I found , who makes some of the best film recipes for Canon cameras. He’s got a of things that you can choose from, and he even lets you set your own price with them. I paid him a dollar each for the three that I purchased — and hopefully, the Phoblographer will probably get him a lot more. But I thought that it should be known that, yes, I indeed did pay for these.

I purchased the Portra, Krowdac, and Fuji Pro Negative styles. After unzipping the files, I loaded them all onto my cameras.

The Cameras I Used

I’ve got several Canon cameras around the office. The Canon EOS R3 and the Canon EOS R5 get the most use from me. When I’m photo walking, I’ll use the Canon EOS R or the Canon G1x Mk III. And if I’m shooting wildlife, I’ll use the Canon EOS R7. I use the Canon EOS R8 for web streaming. All of these cameras were able to easily load the film recipes.

So how do you get the film recipes on Canon cameras?

• Download the recipes from Thomas’s store
• Unzip them until they can’t be unzipped anymore
• Open up EOS Utility, whatever version is the latest
• Connect your camera to your computer via a cable
• Choose to adjust the camera styles
• Add three user-defined styles one at a time.
• Close the software and go shoot.
• If you’re using a camera that doesn’t have an interchangeable lens, then download the from Canon Hong Kong’s website.

Make sure that you’ve got the right cable. Sometimes, one cable works better than another. Also, remember that the picture style only affects the JPEG output, not the RAW files. You can further customize them in the camera if you wish. Sometimes I only shoot in tungsten or daylight. At other times, I use the auto-image optimization. It’s totally possible to not have to do any post-production at all if you’re using the exposure simulation mode. And even so, you can generally trust the color science. Experiment around and play with them to see how they react to different lighting scenarios.

I also really like adding in a for extra vibes.