This is the third article of Volume 2, devoted to landscape and travel photography, in its second half. If you own an X100VI, X-H2, X-H2S, X-S20, X-T50, X-M5, or X-T30, almost everything here applies to you as well. I’ll flag the rare differences whenever they come up.

📕 Volume 1 — Setup and Handling (7 articles, complete) → The X-E5 & X-T5 Guide is available: eBook and paperback!

🏞️ Volume 2 — Landscape and Travel Photography

1. Landscape and Travel Photography That Works

2. Quick Setup for Landscape and Travel

3. Landscape and Travel Settings (part 1/2)

4. Landscape and Travel Settings (part 2/2) 👉 (you are here)

5. Fuji’s Strengths for Landscape and Travel

6. 3 Original Landscape and Travel Recipes

7. A Day of Landscape and Travel Photography

👤 Volume 3 — Portrait and Everyday Life (coming)

🚶 Volume 4 — Street and Reportage (coming)

🗺️ Your roadmap

🎯 Your camera is organized: Fn buttons, Q menu, My Menu. What remains is to learn the settings that shape the JPEG that comes out of the camera, and to understand what each one does. This part 2/2 follows part 1/2. It covers the image settings and the film simulations.

Here is the path we’ll follow together:

• 🎨 The image settings, dynamic range, tone curve, color, and sharpness, with a starting value for each practice.

• 🎬 The film simulations, Velvia, Classic Chrome, Provia, and how to reach them quickly on each body.

• 💾 Checking custom settings C2 and C3, to confirm the values from part 1 and add dynamic range, grain, and the Chrome effects.

• ✅ The recap, a table and a checklist to close out the configuration evening.

It all ends with saving custom settings C2 and C3. The next article will cover what Fujifilm bodies bring to landscape and travel photography. Let’s go!

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🎬 From an organized camera to a JPEG that is set

With part 1/2 of this article, you learned how to configure the best landscape and travel settings so you can reach them in one or two gestures.

• 🔘 C2 and C3: press Q, turn the rear command dial, MENU/OK. The first click is mode P, A, S, or M. The next ones are C1 to C7.

• ⚡ Q menu: one structure, fifteen assignable slots, eight sets of values. 🔗 see article 1-5, My Q Menus, 128 shortcuts at your fingertips

• 📑 My Menu: eight entries, one page, no scrolling.

This part 2/2 covers:

1. The image settings: dynamic range, tone curve, color, sharpness, grain, white balance, photometry, shutter type.

2. The film simulations that suit landscape and travel, with the method that lets you reach them quickly.

3. Saving these settings into your custom settings C2 LANDSCAPE and C3 TRAVEL.

🎨 Set your image settings

The JPEG you take into the field

📖 What an image setting actually touches

The JPEG is developed, the RAW stays intact

The settings in this chapter act on the JPEG the camera produces. The RAW file keeps every bit of data from the sensor, whatever your settings.

🎯 Direct consequence: with IMAGE QUALITY FINE+RAW, the choice we kept in the previous article, you can experiment freely with the image settings. You will get a JPEG that is more or less successful, and a RAW of good quality that you can improve in post-production.

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This is the third article of Volume 2, devoted to landscape and travel photography. If you own an X100VI, X-H2, X-H2S, X-S20, X-T50, X-M5, or X-T30, almost everything here applies to you as well. I’ll flag the rare differences whenever they come up.

📕 Volume 1 — Setup and Handling (7 articles, complete) → The X-E5 & X-T5 Guide is available: eBook and paperback!

🏞️ Volume 2 — Landscape and Travel Photography

1. Landscape and Travel Photography That Works

2. Quick Setup for Landscape and Travel

3. Landscape and Travel Settings (part 1/2) 👉 (you are here)

4. Landscape and Travel Settings (part 2/2)

5. Fuji’s Strengths for Landscape and Travel

6. 3 Original Landscape and Travel Recipes

7. A Day of Landscape and Travel Photography

👤 Volume 3 — Portrait and Everyday Life (coming)

🚶 Volume 4 — Street and Reportage (coming)

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🗺️ Your roadmap

🎯 Your camera carries about twenty customizable controls, and most of them still sit on their factory assignment. My goal in this article is to put them to work for landscape and travel, so that every useful setting stays reachable without taking your eye off the viewfinder.

Here is the path we’ll follow together:

• 🗺️ An inventory of your access points, thirteen on the X-E5, fifteen on the X-T5, dials not included.

• 🔘 Your Fn buttons assigned, with the four functions that truly deserve direct access in the field, plus my assignment tables for each body.

• 🎚️ The command dials, including the front dial that holds up to four settings instead of one.

• ⚡ A Q menu built for both practices, 16 values for landscape, 16 more for travel, ready to copy.

• 📑 My Menu filled in, the personal page that replaces digging through seven tabs.

It all ends with the full table of my assignments, body by body. Part 2/2 will then take over on the rendering of your images. Let’s go!

🎬 From a configured camera to an organized one

You’ve read the previous article, and your two custom settings are in place: C2 for landscape, C3 for travel. Mode A is selected, your three Auto ISO banks are set, your autofocus is configured, and your files are recorded as FINE+RAW. Your camera is ready.

One obstacle remains in the field. You watch the light change, you know exactly which setting to adjust, and you spend the next fifteen seconds navigating menus to reach it. The light, meanwhile, moves on.

🎯 That’s the subject of this article: reaching every useful setting in a couple of seconds. Your X-E5 or X-T5 carries about twenty customizable controls, not counting the sixteen slots of the Q menu and the entries of My Menu. Most of these controls still hold their factory assignment, chosen by Fujifilm for an average photographer who doesn’t exist. You shoot landscapes and you travel.

We’ll work in two stages.

1. First, the physical controls: Fn buttons, dials, lever, lens ring.

2. Then the quick menus: the Q menu, whose values follow each of your custom settings C1 through C7, and My Menu, your personal page.

The rendering of your images, image settings and film simulations, is the subject of part 2/2.

This setup takes one evening, split in two: the first half with this article, the second with the next one. Do it comfortably at home, camera on the table, a cup of tea beside you and this article in front of you. The time you invest comes back on every outing: you’ll release the shutter at the right moment, instead of thirty seconds too late.

One last word before we dive in. All my assignments are proposals, tested in the field with both bodies over several months. Take them as a starting point, keep the ones that speak to you, replace the rest. A well-organized camera is a camera organized your way.

Let’s start with the inventory.

🗺️ Locate your access points

🎯 What customization changes

At the end of the previous article, I left you with a configured camera and one gesture still unrefined. To switch from landscape to travel, you currently enter the menu, scroll down to the custom settings line, choose C3, confirm. Three operations, a good fifteen seconds, and your eye leaves the viewfinder.

The same trip exists for dynamic range, for white balance, for metering. Every useful setting sits somewhere in the seven menu tabs, four or five presses away. Customization means bringing those settings up to the surface, until they fit in a single press of your thumb.

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📚 This article is part of the series The Complete Fujifilm X-E5 and X-T5 Guide: 25 articles to set up, master and get the most out of your recent Fuji X, from unboxing to reportage.

This article is the second in Volume 2, devoted to landscape and travel photography. X100VI, X-H2, X-H2S, X-S20, X-T50, X-M5 and X-T30 owners, almost everything here applies to you as well, and I will flag the rare exceptions as they come.

📕 Volume 1 — Setup and Handling (7 articles, complete) → The X-E5 and X-T5 Guide: the PDF, the eBook, the Paperback

🏞️ Volume 2 — Landscape and Travel Photography

1. Landscape and travel photography that works

2. Quick setup for landscape and travel 👉 (you are here)

3. Landscape and travel settings

4. The Fuji advantages in landscape and travel

5. 3 exclusive landscape and travel recipes

6. A day of shooting in landscape and travel

👤 Volume 3 — Portrait and Everyday Life (coming soon)

🚶 Volume 4 — Street and Reportage Photography (coming soon)

🗺️ Your roadmap

🎯 One minute is all it takes to prepare your camera before you head out. My aim in this article is to give you the five moves that decide almost everything, in the exact order in which I apply them myself.

Here is the path we will follow together:

• 🎒 The packed bag, with the right camera, two lenses and an alternative, batteries and seasonal accessories.

• 🎛️ The exposure mode, built from two controls alone, with the starting position that suits landscape and travel alike.

• 📶 ISO within limits, to keep clean images whatever the light throws at you.

• 🎯 Focus, one position for static scenes, another for moving ones, and the criterion that separates the two.

• 🗂️ File format and exposure compensation, two settings that decide the final quality of your images.

• 💾 Two complete configurations, in a table, ready to copy and to save into a custom profile.

It all ends with the checklist I run through on the doorstep, before every outing. Let’s go!

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🎬 From a trained eye to a ready camera

The previous article ended without a single menu path. We talked about light, composition and traps to avoid, because those three subjects decide the result long before any setting does.

Now we step inside the camera. The visit will be short: five settings cover almost every landscape and travel situation. One minute, stopwatch in hand, and your X-E5 or X-T5 stops working against you at the moment you press the shutter.

These five moves are the ones I apply myself before every outing, always in the same order. That order has a purpose: each move prepares the next, and the last one is adjusted in the field, as the light changes.

You will leave here with two complete configurations, one for landscape and one for travel, laid out in a table and ready to copy into your camera. All that remains is to save them into a custom profile, which we will do together at the end of the article.

A word about the method. Every move is described on both cameras, with the exact menu labels. The controls sometimes differ between the X-E5 and the X-T5, the result stays the same.

Pick up your camera, Fujistas. This article is meant to be read with the camera in hand.

🎒 Pack your bag

🎯 What is decided before the dials

The bag first, the settings second

The gear you carry conditions everything else. A camera left at home takes no photographs, an unsuitable lens wastes the finest light, and a flat battery ends the outing more surely than rain does.

This chapter opens the article for a simple reason: it is the first real move, the one you make the evening before. The five settings come afterwards, once the bag is packed.

📷 The right camera

Two philosophies, two favourite grounds

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🔓 The Newsletter Is Back

Publication resumes today, at its usual pace.

💳 Billing Resumes as Well

Paid subscriptions, suspended during the pause, return to their normal course. New subscriptions are open again too, at $7 per month or $60 per year.

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📸 Next Up: Article 2-2

Article 2-2, “Quick Setup for Landscape and Travel,” is already well under way. It is the second chapter of Volume 2 of The Complete Fujifilm X-E5 and X-T5 Guide, and it will be online by the middle of the week.

🙏 Thank You

A warm thank you to everyone who reads and supports this newsletter. Your loyalty is the best motivation there is, and this short interlude was a good reminder of it.

Happy shooting, Fujistas 📸

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Since its launch, I have published numerous articles, guides, film simulation recipes, and technical tutorials designed to help you better understand and get the most out of your camera. This project has been incredibly rewarding, and I sincerely thank you for following and supporting it.

All previously published articles and guides will remain available in the newsletter archives. I am not closing this publication, and I certainly haven’t ruled out bringing it back in a few months.

For now, I simply feel the need to explore new topics and rediscover the excitement that comes with launching a new editorial project.

Paid subscriptions are being paused, so no subscriptions will be renewed or charged during this period.

You will remain subscribed to the newsletter and will naturally be informed if I decide to resume publishing content about the Fujifilm X system.

Thank you once again for your loyalty and for sharing these twenty months with me.

This article opens Volume 2, devoted to landscape and travel photography. X100VI, X-H2, X-H2S, X-S20, X-T50, X-M5 and X-T30 owners, almost everything here applies to you as well, and I will flag the rare exceptions as they come.

📕 Volume 1 — Setup and Handling (7 articles, complete) → The X-E5 and X-T5 Guide: the PDF, the eBook, the Paperback

🏞️ Volume 2 — Landscape and Travel Photography

1. Landscape and travel photography that works 👉 (you are here)

2. Quick setup for landscape and travel

3. Landscape and travel settings

4. The Fuji advantages in landscape and travel

5. 3 exclusive landscape and travel recipes

6. A day of shooting in landscape and travel

👤 Volume 3 — Portrait and Everyday Life (coming soon)

🚶 Volume 4 — Street and Reportage Photography (coming soon)

🗺️ Your roadmap

🎯 Landscape and travel call for less gear than most people imagine, and far more attention to light. My aim in this article is to give you the eye, before you touch a single setting.

Here is the path we will follow together:

• 🏞️ Two neighbouring practices, to understand what landscape and travel really ask of a photographer.

• 💡 Light hour by hour, from raking sun to blue hour, with the subject that suits each one.

• 🧠 The three qualities that separate a pleasant photograph from a successful one, rule of thirds included.

• ⚠️ The five most common traps, with the fix for each.

• 🖼️ Three commented photographs, settings included, to see the theory at work.

It all ends with the three lighting moods that will run through this entire volume. Let’s go!

🎬 From a configured camera to a trained eye

Volume 1 ended with a camera ready to shoot. What remains is the most interesting part: deciding what to photograph, and how.

Volume 2 leaves the menus behind for the field. Landscape and travel make a natural pair: you set off walking, you carry little, you work with whatever light the moment offers. Above all, these two practices ask one thing of you, to look before you press the shutter.

This article lays that groundwork. Few menu paths, plenty of observation: understanding light according to the hour, recognising a composition that stands up, spotting the traps that ruin an image once you are home. The settings arrive in the very next article, and they will feel obvious by then.

A word about those traps. The ones I describe further down, I ran into them before you did. Avoiding them rarely calls for technical skill: it is enough to think of them at the right moment.

Settle in, Fujistas. First we look, then we photograph.

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🏞️ Two practices, one camera

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This guide brings together my first seven articles, revised, expanded, and laid out in a single volume. From the initial setup to the X-E5 vs X-T5 comparison, it’s all here, with the summary tables ready to keep within reach.

📸 What’s inside this Volume 1

• ⚙️ The initial setup, dialed in once and for all

• 🎛️ The physical keyboard: dials, aperture ring, command lever

• ⭐ My 15 shortcuts that change everything

• 🎯 My 7 custom profiles C1-C7, ready to copy

• 🧭 My reorganized Q menus, 128 shortcuts under your thumb

• 🎞️ The film simulation dial and the FS1, FS2, FS3 recipes

• ⚖️ The X-E5 vs X-T5 comparison, to choose with confidence

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📚 The books

Kindle eBook

The Kindle eBook is available on Amazon for $12.99
👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H9NKZ873

Paperback

The paperback is available on Amazon for $17.99
👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HBBFL5WS

🎯 Other ways to access this content

💎 Premium subscribers

You’re already covered. The seven articles are available to read on my newsletter:
👉 https://jmplisson.substack.com

The complete PDF of the guide is yours for free. It’s my way of thanking you for your support.
👉 https://jmplisson.substack.com/p/the-complete-guide-x-e5-and-x-t5-complete-pdf

🛒 Single purchase

If you’d rather buy it on its own, you’ll find the complete PDF on Gumroad. A nicely laid-out A5 edition, to read on your tablet or print.
👉 https://jmplisson.gumroad.com/l/xe5xt5CompleteGuideVolume1

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💡 My advice

A premium subscription remains the best value. You get to read the seven articles, the complete PDF for free, access to all the articles (40+) and PDFs already published, plus every upcoming article and PDF in the works…

Happy shooting, Fujistas 📸

We started with the initial setup, the one that gives you clean images from your very first outing. We then learned to use the camera’s physical controls, and moved on to the shortcuts, the C1 to C7 profiles, the Q Menus, and the recipes under the dial. We closed with the question everyone asks: X-E5 or X-T5?

Today, I’m gathering Volume 1 into a single document: the complete PDF, available right now (download link at the end of this article). The Kindle eBook and paperback editions follow in about a week; a dedicated article will announce them.

📚 What’s inside Volume 1

1️⃣ The Complete Starter Setup Guide

The starting point. The settings to put in place straight out of the box, for a camera ready to shoot.

2️⃣ The Physical Keyboard of Your Camera

Dials, rings, focus stick, buttons. Understanding the logic of the camera before you personalize it.

3️⃣ My 15 Shortcuts That Make All the Difference

The functions I assign to my buttons, and the reason behind each choice.

4️⃣ C1 to C7, Seven Profiles in Your Fuji X

Seven complete configurations, ready to recall with a single gesture as the situation changes.

5️⃣ My Q Menus, 128 Shortcuts at Your Fingertips

The Q Menu multiplied by your profiles. A library of settings, one press away.

6️⃣ Three Recipes Under the Dial

Three film simulations, fully set up and instantly available on the camera.

7️⃣ X-E5 or X-T5, Which One Is Right for You?

The honest comparison between the two bodies: ergonomics, use, and temperament.

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📦 The complete PDF of Volume 1

I’ve gathered the seven parts into a single document. Everything is there: the full texts, the settings tables, the menu paths, and the recipes. One continuous guide, laid out for reading as much as for printing, that stays on your computer, your tablet, or your phone. A hundred and fifty pages, A5 format.

Two ways to get it, whichever suits you.

A big thank you to those who take the step: you help me more than you know. 🙏

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🛒 Would you rather buy it than subscribe?

The PDF is also on sale on Gumroad, on its own, for $17.90. You download it, it’s yours, no strings attached.

👉 LIEN GUMROAD EN: https://jmplisson.gumroad.com/l/xe5xt5CompleteGuideVolume1

📖 The Kindle eBook and the paperback are coming

For those who would rather read anywhere but on a computer screen, Volume 1 will soon be published as a book.

📱 The Kindle eBook: the complete Volume 1, with its tables and diagrams, on an e-reader, a tablet, or a phone. Easy to carry in the camera bag, to read again on the train or out in the field.

📕 The paperback: the same content, printed and bound. A book to set down next to the camera, to annotate, to dog-ear. Some settings stick better with a pencil in your hand.

Both editions land in about a week. A dedicated article will let you know as soon as they go live, with the links.

🏞️ On to Volume 2

Volume 1 gave you a configured camera. Volume 2 takes you outside to make photographs.

Six articles devoted to landscape and travel: the settings that hold raking light, controlled depth of field, the recipes that do justice to skies and stone, and packing a light bag for far-off trips.

The first article of Volume 2 arrives very soon. Stay tuned, Fujistas.

💎 Are you a premium subscriber?

Your download is waiting just below. Thank you for the support that makes this work possible.

⬇️ Your download

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This article closes Part 1. It focuses on the two bodies in the title and compares them point by point. Owners of the X100VI, X-H2, X-H2S, X-S20, X-T50, X-M5, X-T30, you’ll also find plenty here to place your own body, even though the duel is between the X-E5 and the X-T5.

📕 Part 1 — Configuration and handling

1. The Complete Setup Guide

2. Your Camera’s Physical Keyboard

3. My 15 Shortcuts That Change Everything

4. C1 to C7, Seven Profiles in Your Fuji X

5. My Q Menus, 128 Shortcuts Under Your Thumb

6. Three Recipes Under the Dial

7. X-E5 or X-T5 – Which One Is Right for You? 👉 (you are here)

🏞️ Part 2 — Landscape and travel photography (coming soon)

👤 Part 3 — Portrait and everyday life (coming soon)

🚶 Part 4 — Street and reportage photography (coming soon)

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🗺️ Your roadmap

🎯 Torn between the X-E5 and the X-T5? This article is for you. My goal is simple: to help you choose with confidence, and without regret.

Here’s the path we’ll follow together:

• 🧬 The shared foundation, to see why image quality doesn’t separate these two bodies.

• 🎨 Two design philosophies, the SLR spirit of the X-T5 against the rangefinder spirit of the X-E5.

• 🎛️ Controls and ergonomics, those details the hand feels with every shot.

• 🔭 The viewfinder, screen, ruggedness, and battery life, everything that counts in real use.

• 🕰️ The timing question, because a body’s age matters when you buy.

It all wraps up with a profile-based buying guide and a full comparison table to keep handy. Let’s go!

🎬 Two bodies, one same heart

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This break did me a world of good. So here I am, full of energy and ready to pick up our Fuji newsletters again.

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📅 Coming before the end of the weekend

Time for the next installment of the X-E5 & X-T5, The Complete Guide series, with the final article of Volume 1: X-E5 & X-T5: the differences to know. A clear overview of what sets the two bodies apart, to help you get the best out of yours.

🎁 And after that

Volume 1 keeps rolling out. On the menu:

• 📕 the complete PDF of Volume 1, reserved for paid subscribers;

• 📗 the Kindle and print editions of that same Volume 1.

Then come Volumes 2 and 3, to keep the adventure going together.

Thank you for your loyalty during this pause. There’s a lot in store!

Happy shooting, Fujistas 📸

This kind of trip is where cameras really get tested: long days in the saddle, unpredictable weather, early-morning shoots on rugged coastlines. Cycling photography has its own constraints, and it reveals a lot about how a camera handles in the real world.

📅 The next article publishes on June 28.

On the agenda: The key differences between the X-T5 and the X-E5. Two X Series bodies I shoot with daily, and whose differences go well beyond form factor. Ergonomics, menus, specific behaviors, the strengths of each — I’ll cover it all.

In the meantime, the archive is there if you want to revisit previous articles.

Happy shooting, Fujistas 📸

🎞️ An important note before we start. The Film Simulation dial is a recent addition to the Fuji X lineup, introduced first on the X-T50, then on the X-M5, and most recently on the X-E5, which offers the most refined implementation to date. Three cameras are therefore primarily concerned by this article: X-T50, X-M5, and X-E5 owners, everything you’ll read about the dial, the FS1/FS2/FS3 positions, and the FS Recipe mode applies directly to your camera, with a few X-E5-specific particularities that I’ll flag along the way.

🛠️ X-T5, X100VI, X-H2, X-H2S, X-S20, and X-T30 owners, you’re not forgotten. An entire chapter (« On X-T5 and X100VI — emulating the Film Simulation dial ») shows you how to bring the same color-switching agility to your camera, using a clever combination of Fn buttons and Custom Settings C1-C7.

📕 Part 1 — Setup and First Steps

1. Your X-E5 / X-T5 Complete Setup Guide

2. Your Camera’s Physical Keyboard

3. My 15 Shortcuts That Change Everything

4. C1 to C7, Seven Profiles in Your Fuji X

5. My Q Menus, 128 Shortcuts Under Your Thumb

6. Three Recipes Under the Dial 👉 (you are here)

7. The Differences You Should Know Between X-T5 and X-E5

🏞️ Part 2 — Landscape and Travel Photography (coming soon)

👤 Part 3 — Portrait and Everyday Life (coming soon)

🚶 Part 4 — Street and Reportage (coming soon)

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🗺️ Your Roadmap

Everything you’re about to learn

This article covers everything you need to know about the X-E5’s Film Simulation dial and its three customizable positions FS1, FS2, and FS3. You’ll walk away with a clear understanding of this control, of its FS1/FS2/FS3 positions, of the control lever that activates them, and of the method to reproduce the same fluidity on your X-T5 or X100VI.

• 🎞️ The Film Simulation dial, color at your fingertips

• 🎡 The ten positions of the dial

  • 📍 Six engraved Film Simulation positions

  • 🎨 Three customizable positions: FS1, FS2, FS3

  • 🎚️ The C position

  • 🖤 The special case of ACROS

• 🎨 FS1, FS2, FS3 — the real innovation

  • 🤝 The fundamental difference with C1-C7

  • 📋 What an FS position stores

  • 🛠️ Saving a recipe to FS1, FS2, or FS3

• ⚡ The control lever — toggling the recipe on the fly

• 🎚️ The C position — when the dial steps aside

• 🛠️ On X-T5 and X100VI — emulating the Film Simulation dial

  • 🧩 Two Fn buttons for a two-stage system

  • ⚖️ What you gain, what you lose

• ✅ The recap

• ⚠️ Three pitfalls to avoid

• 🎬 What’s next?

🎞️ The Film Simulation dial, color at your fingertips

Fujifilm has always stood by a clear philosophy: assigning essential settings to physical controls. The shutter speed dial, the ISO dial, the exposure compensation dial — all sit on top of the camera, within thumb’s reach, operable without leaving the viewfinder. This approach, inherited from the analog tradition, is at the heart of the Fuji experience, and it’s a big part of what we love about the brand.

In 2024, Fujifilm took this logic one decisive step further. For the first time in the Fuji X lineup, a physical dial was entirely dedicated to the Film Simulation. Introduced first on the X-T50, generalized on the X-M5, then brought to maturity on the X-E5, this dial lets you switch color rendering in a quarter of a second, with a single gesture, without ever taking your eye off the scene.

🎨 What the dial does for color

You already know the principle for shutter speed: you want 1/250, you turn the shutter speed dial to 250, done. For ISO, it’s the same on the X-T5 and X100VI: you want ISO 400, you turn the ISO dial. The Film Simulation dial applies exactly the same logic to the world of image rendering. You want Velvia to saturate a landscape, you turn the dial to V. You want ACROS for a mineral black and white, you turn the dial to A. No menu to open, no button to memorize, no screen to consult.

✨ What the X-E5 brings on top

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X100VI, X-H2, X-H2S, X-S20, X-T50, X-M5, X-T30 owners, you’re not forgotten. The Q Menu and its eight-context behavior are available identically on all recent Fuji X cameras. The default grid may vary from one camera to another — I’m actually presenting the X-E5, X-T5 and X100VI grids side by side — but the reorganization method and the slot choices I suggest are directly applicable to your camera.

📕 Part 1 — Configuration and Getting Started

1. Your Complete Configuration Guide

2. The Physical Keyboard of your Camera

3. My 15 Shortcuts That Change Everything

4. C1 to C7, Seven Custom Profiles in your Fuji X

5. My Q Menus, 128 shortcuts at your fingertips 👉 (you are here)

6. Film Simulation Dial and FS1 / FS2 / FS3

7. The Differences to Know Between X-T5 and X-E5

🏞️ Part 2 — Landscape and Travel Photography (coming soon)

👤 Part 3 — Portrait and Daily Life (coming soon)

🚶 Part 4 — Street Photography and Reportage (coming soon)

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🗺️ Your Roadmap

Everything you’ll learn

This article explains everything you need to know to reorganize your Q Menu and multiply it by eight thanks to your Custom Settings C1-C7. Here’s how it’s structured.

• 🎬 The Last Brick in your Ergonomic Chain

• 🧭 The Q Menu and its 8 Faces

  • 🔢 16 slots, one grid

  • 🎭 One camera, eight configurations

  • 🎚️ Navigating between the eight Q Menus

  • 💾 Volatile or persistent modifications

  • 🧠 The last active Q Menu is remembered

• 📋 The Three Default Grids

  • 📷 The X-E5 grid

  • 📸 The X-T5 grid

  • 📹 The X100VI grid

  • 🔍 Critical reading

• ⚙️ Editing the Q Menu

  • 🎨 The background

  • 🔢 The number of slots

  • ⚡ The quick method

  • 🐌 The menu method

  • ✏️ Editing the content of a slot

  • 🚫 Hiding a slot with NONE

• 🎯 My Q Menus, 128 shortcuts at your fingertips

  • 🤝 My approach: complement the Fn buttons, don’t duplicate them

  • 🛠️ Method: configure once, multiply by eight

  • 🖼️ Slots 2-6 — Image and quality

  • 🎨 Slots 7-11 — Fine JPEG rendering

  • 🎯 Slots 12-15 — Focus and shutter

  • 👁️ Slot 16 — Visual comfort

• ✅ The Summary

• ⚠️ Three Pitfalls to Avoid

• 🎁 Bonus — The Other Dashboard of your Fuji X

• 🚀 What’s Next?

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🎬 The Last Brick in your Ergonomic Chain

Your Fuji X has four customization bricks that stack up to save you time in the field. The first three were the focus of previous articles.

🎛️ The physical keyboard (dials, aperture ring, AF selector, Drive button). The controls that take precedence over everything, because they’re always at your fingertips and no Custom Setting can override them.

🎚️ The Fn buttons and the control lever. Your ultra-fast gestures, one function per button, accessible without taking your eye off the viewfinder.

💾 The Custom Settings C1-C7. Your seven complete configurations ready to load in two seconds, each tailored to a different situation.

🧭 The Q Menu (this article). Your visual dashboard: a grid of 16 slots displayed with a single press of the Q button.

The Q Menu complements the Fn buttons. Where the Fn buttons act quickly and blindly, the Q Menu gives you an overview of your image settings and lets you adjust them one by one without diving into the menus.

This article delivers on a double promise. Reorganize this grid of 16 slots so it matches your practice. And exploit it under its eight faces: one Q Menu for PASM modes, seven Q Menus for C1 to C7. That’s 128 shortcuts at your fingertips, ready to use.

🧭 The Q Menu and its 8 Faces

Before reorganizing your Q Menu, you need to understand how it really works. And the surprise is significant: what you think is one Q Menu is actually eight Q Menus that share the same structure, but with values specific to each context.

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Owners of X100VI, X-H2, X-H2S, X-S20, X-T50, X-M5, X-T30, you are not forgotten. The C1-C7 Custom Settings are available identically on all recent Fuji X cameras. The saving procedure, the activation method, and the seven Custom Settings I propose are directly applicable to your camera.

📕 Part 1 — Setup and getting started

1. Complete Setup Guide

2. The Physical Controls of Your Camera

3. My 15 Shortcuts That Change Everything

4. C1 to C7, seven profiles in your X Series Fuji 👉 (you are here)

5. The Q Menu, reorganized

6. Film Simulation dial and FS1 / FS2 / FS3

7. Differences to know between X-T5 and X-E5

🏞️ Part 2 — Landscape and travel photography (coming soon)

👤 Part 3 — Portrait and everyday life (coming soon)

🚶 Part 4 — Street and reportage photography (coming soon)

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🗺️ Your Roadmap

Everything you’ll learn

This article explains everything you need to know to turn your seven Custom Settings C1 to C7 into seven ready-to-use profiles. Here is how it is structured.

• 🎯 Why seven custom settings change everything

  • 🎬 Seven cameras in one, in two seconds

• 🧩 Understanding what custom settings memorize

  • 🎨 Four domains of memorized settings

  • 🚫 What custom settings do not memorize

• 💾 Saving a custom setting

  • 🆕 Create a new C1-C7 Custom Setting

  • 🔧 Manage your C1-C7 Custom Settings

• ⚡ Activating a custom setting

  • 🎯 The fast method

  • 🐌 The slow method

  • 💡 Tip: assign SELECT CUSTOM SETTING to an Fn button

• 🎨 My 7 custom settings

  • 🚨 C1 - EMERGENCY FULL AUTO

  • 🏞️ C2 - LANDSCAPE

  • 👤 C3 - PORTRAIT

  • 🚶 C4 - STREET B&W

  • 🏃 C5 - ACTION

  • 🌙 C6 - LOW LIGHT

  • ⏱️ C7 - LONG EXPOSURE

• ⚠️ Three pitfalls to avoid

• 🎬 What’s next?

🎯 Why seven custom settings change everything

Picture the scene. You are photographing a landscape at dusk, tripod set, ISO 125, Velvia simulation, Daylight white balance, dynamic range DR200. The light fades quickly, you take your last shots and pack up the tripod. On your way back to the car, you spot a heron standing motionless at the edge of a pond. The light is low, the subject is ten meters away, and you have maybe thirty seconds before it flies off.

Thirty seconds to switch from a landscape configuration to a wildlife one. Without a custom setting, you have to adjust manually: raise the ISO Auto ceiling, switch to AF WIDE/TRACKING mode, enable subject detection on Bird, switch to electronic shutter for silence, change the simulation from Velvia to Provia. Six parameters to adjust in sequence, through the viewfinder, with a heron that will not wait for you. The shot of the day slips away.

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Owners of X100VI, X-H2, X-H2S, X-S20, X-T50, X-M5, X-T30, you’re not forgotten. This article offers shortcuts that apply to all recent Fuji X cameras, but the er…

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Owners of X100VI, X-H2, X-H2S, X-S20, X-T50, X-M5, X-T30, you’re not forgotten: nearly all of this series applies to you, and I’ll point out the rare specifics w…

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Owners of X100VI, X-H2, X-H2S, X-S20, X-T50, X-M5, X-T30, you’re not forgotten: nearly all of this series applies to you, and I’ll point out the rare specifics w…

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I’m thrilled to announce the launch of a new major series: X-E5 & X-T5, The Complete Guide.

The series is built around the Fujifilm X-E5 and X-T5, but it will be just as useful for owners of other recent Fuji X bodies: X-T50, X-S20, X100VI, X-M5, X-H2S, and more.

The goal: understand the settings that really matter, configure your…

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📗 Paid subscribers

Today, I am offering all paid subscribers The Fujifilm X Series Recipes Guide as a PDF. A carefully laid-out document, designed to be read on your phone, your tablet, or printed if you prefer paper.

📱 Kindle eBook or paperback

The Fujifilm X Series Recipes Guide is also available as a Kindle eBook or as a paperback:

• Kindle eBook — $9.99

• Paperback (7 × 10 inches, full color) — $17.99

• https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYJK77GK

🆓 Free subscribers

Free subscribers are not forgotten. To read and keep The Fujifilm X Series Recipes Guide, you can:

• Buy the PDF on Gumroad — $14.99 — https://jmplisson.gumroad.com/l/fuji-recipes-guide

• Buy the Kindle eBook or paperback on Amazon — see link above

Of course, you can also subscribe to a paid plan of my newsletter to get full access to everything.

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📕 What’s inside the guide

The 9 articles of the original series are brought together in a single document, with before/after photos, detailed parameter tables, field tips and visual characteristics for each recipe. Here is the outline:

💡 The fundamentals (chapters 0 to 3)

• Welcome to the Guide — An introduction to the series and the SOOC philosophy.

• What Is a Fuji Recipe? — Understanding what really lies behind the settings and why it is more than just a filter.

• How to Create Your Own Recipes — The practical guide to building your own looks from A to Z: film simulations, tone curve, white balance and every other slider explained.

• How to Save Your Recipes — Mastering the custom settings C1 to C7 to switch styles in a split second.

🎞️ 10 recipes across 5 thematic universes (chapters 4 to 8)

• Vintage Vibes — Kodachrome 64 and Fujicolor C200. The timeless charm of film photography.

• Urban Stories — Classic Chrome Street and Cinematic Shadows. The contrast and atmosphere of the city.

• Black & White Soul — Acros B&W and HP5 Monochrome. The purity of monochrome, from finesse to bold grain.

• Color of Nature — Velvia Deep Forest and Kodak Ektar 100. The vibrant colors of landscapes and natural scenes.

• Soft & Dreamy — Portra 400 Soft and Nostalgic Neg Glow. Poetic light and pastel tones.

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🎨 A book designed to last

The PDF and Kindle guide has been laid out like a true photo book. Careful typography, a palette inspired by vintage film boxes, parameter tables in technical-sheet style, before/after photos side by side. A format that is pleasant to read on a mobile screen and perfect if you want to print it.

💛 A gentle reminder about the subscription

If you enjoy this kind of content, the newsletter itself remains by far the best deal. For $7.90 per month or $65 per year(less than the price of the paperback alone), you get:

• Full access to everything published so far

• All upcoming guides, recipes, articles and podcast episodes

• Downloadable resources reserved for paid subscribers

• Early access to new releases

I am already working on what comes next — more recipes, new camera-specific guides, deeper dives into the Fujifilm universe. Subscribing is the easiest way to follow along and support this independent work.

📥 Download the PDF

The download link for the PDF is available below for subscribers of The Unofficial Fuji X Series. Keep it close — you will come back to it every time a light, a subject or a place makes you want to try a new look.

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Fujifilm has always stood by a clear philosophy: assign essential settings to physical controls. The shutter speed dial, the ISO dial, the exposure compensation dial — all controls the photographer operates without lifting an eye from the viewfinder, without diving into menus. This approach, inherited from the analog tradition, is at the heart of the Fujifilm experience; and it’s what we love about it.

The X-E5 takes this logic one step further with something new in the X-E series: a dial entirely dedicated to Film Simulations. By simply rotating the dial, the photographer switches from one look to another in a fraction of a second. Even better, three positions on the dial can hold custom recipes, toggled on or off on the fly.

The X-T5, the flagship of the lineup, doesn’t have this dial. That said, its Custom Settings system — combined with well-configured function buttons — makes it possible to get very close. Both approaches are worth understanding and comparing.

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🎡 The X-E5 Film Simulation Dial

🕹️ The Ten Positions on the Dial

The X-E5 Film Simulation dial has ten positions in total. Six correspond to built-in Film Simulations, engraved directly on the dial:

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