ChobialRicoh GR Positive Film and Hi-Contrast B&W on iPhone
You can get close to a Ricoh GR's Positive Film and Hi-Contrast B&W on an iPhone by rebuilding them as films: a punchy slide-style colour look and a hard, grainy monochrome. The GR's small body, 28mm lens and snap focus are what make its look feel easy. The iPhone can cover much of that too. Below is what the GR modes do and two original recipes to start from.
The GR's Image Control modes
Ricoh's JPEG looks are called Image Control. The GR IV has 14 of them: Standard, Vivid, Monotone, Soft Monotone, Hard Monotone, Hi-Contrast B&W, Negative Film, Positive Film, Cinema (Yellow), Cinema (Green), Bleach Bypass, Retro, Cross Processing and HDR Tone. Each can be fine-tuned through parameters like saturation, hue, contrast and sharpness. On the GR III, Ricoh's own blog lists nine adjustable parameters, each over ±4 (GR official). A "GR recipe" is a mode plus those tweaks, and sometimes grain.
Two modes get most of the attention:
- Positive Film takes its name from slide (positive) film: rich colour, firm contrast, a solid bright red and a slightly yellowish green. Ricoh's blog contrasts it with Negative Film (introduced with the GR III Diary Edition and brought to the GR III and IIIx by firmware), which renders reds as a faded vermilion, blues muted and greens with a strong bluish tint (GR official).
- Hi-Contrast B&W is the GR's signature monochrome. It's untoned, very contrasty, separates sky and cloud hard, and can take a bold grain effect (GR official). It has the look of pushed black-and-white film printed on hard paper.
Bleach Bypass (low saturation, high contrast) and Retro (warm and faded) are also popular, but the two above are what people usually mean by "the GR look".
Why GR owners want it on their phone
The GR is a pocket camera, but the iPhone is in the other pocket, and it gets used more. A 2023 DPReview thread, "Good iPhone camera app with film simulation?", started with a GR III owner asking for what many GR shooters want from the phone: less HDR, less sharpening, film-like colour straight out of the camera with no editing step afterwards. The GR is also often hard to buy, and the GR IV has had the same shortages as Fujifilm's X100VI (Fstoppers).
The iPhone's default processing works against both GR looks. It lifts shadows, flattens contrast locally and sharpens hard, which is why iPhone shots can look like paintings. You need to start from RAW, not from a processed HEIF.
What an iPhone can and can't match
- Field of view: the GR is 28mm-equivalent. The iPhone 18 Pro's main camera is 24mm, a little wider. Step in half a pace.
- Frame: the GR shoots 3:2. Chobial has a 3:2 frame line. It's a mask, not a crop, so the full sensor is kept.
- Snap shooting: the GR's Snap Focus fires at a preset distance. On the iPhone, set manual focus once (Chobial's FOCUS control, with focus peaking) and leave it, then shoot with Camera Control: one click, no screen tapping.
- What it can't match: an APS-C sensor's depth of field and low-light noise, and the GR's one-hand dials.
Doing it in Chobial
- Open Films, tap + › New Film, and pick the Start From film named in the recipe (how to make a film).
- Enter the settings, name the film, and save. It appears in the camera's film strip.
- Choose the 3:2 frame. Set manual focus to your usual street distance if you like to shoot that way (manual controls).
- Shoot with Camera Control. Light-press it to switch between your two GR films without leaving the viewfinder (Camera Control).
- Later, re-develop any frame with the other film. Every shot stays a RAW negative.
These are original recipes inspired by the GR modes, not copies of anyone's published settings. Treat them as starting points.
Recipe: Crossing Light
A Positive Film-inspired colour look: saturated, firm, bright reds, warm greens. Start from Chobial Standard. Films › + › New Film › Start From.
| Control | Setting |
|---|---|
| Develop › Temperature | +200K |
| Develop › Sharpness | 25% |
| Tone › Contrast | +0.15 |
| Tone › Shadows | −0.10 |
| Color › Saturation | +0.15 |
| Color Mixer › Red › Saturation | +0.10 |
| Color Mixer › Green › Saturation | −0.10 |
| Color Mixer › Yellow › Saturation | +0.10 |
| Color Mixer › Blue › Luminance | −0.10 |
| Effects › Grain | 35mm ISO 100 stock (22% / 0.75) |
| Effects › Vignette | +0.15 |
Expose for the highlights, at 0 to −1/3 EV. Slide-style colour looks best slightly dense. For a stronger version, start from Chobial Saturated and skip the saturation boost.
Recipe: Hard Print
A Hi-Contrast B&W-inspired monochrome: deep blacks, dark skies, gritty grain. Start from Chobial B&W + R.
| Control | Setting |
|---|---|
| Develop › Sharpness | 15% |
| Tone › Contrast | +0.45 |
| Tone › Shadows | −0.30 |
| Tone › Highlights | +0.15 |
| Tone › Highlight Rolloff | 15% |
| Effects › Grain | 16mm ISO 250 stock (70% / 1.8) |
| Effects › Vignette | +0.35 |
Expose at −1/3 to −2/3 EV so the highlights hold. The red filter darkens blue sky, and the contrast does the rest. The coarse grain stays visible in the mid and light greys too, the way real film grain does. Low sharpness keeps the grain from looking crunchy.
Shooting it like a GR
- Keep the phone ready. GR shooters prize the short time from pocket to picture. Setting Chobial as the Camera Control app lets a click open it from the Lock Screen. The locked camera offers only the built-in films, so pick Chobial B&W + R or Chobial Standard for those moments, and switch to your own films once unlocked.
- Save the hard look for night. Street lights and black shadows suit the Hard Print recipe. Use the histogram (DISP) to check you're not clipping the lamps to a flat white.
- Check without the film. Touch and hold to see the scene without the film if you're unsure a frame will survive such hard contrast. The RAW keeps more than the film shows.
Other routes
- If you own a GR: shoot the real thing. You can also import its DNG files into Chobial and develop them with these films.
- RitchieCam, from the author of Ricoh recipe site Ritchie's Ricoh Recipes, is a simple no-edit filter camera (PetaPixel).
- No app: the iPhone Camera's Photographic Styles can push contrast and colour, and the Photos editor has a black-and-white filter. Styles work on HEIF, not RAW, and the grain Apple added on the iPhone 18 Pro is HEIF-only with no amount control (PetaPixel).
For monochrome with different colour filters, see Tri-X vs HP5 on iPhone. For colour recipes translated from Fujifilm settings, see Fujifilm recipes on iPhone.
Ricoh and GR are trademarks of Ricoh Imaging Company, Ltd. Chobial is not affiliated with Ricoh Imaging.
Questions
Can I use Ricoh GR recipes on my iPhone?
Not as-is. A GR recipe is a set of Image Control settings for the camera, and no iPhone app reads it. You can rebuild the look by hand in an app with tone, colour and grain controls, then shoot through it.
What does Ricoh GR Positive Film look like?
It's a slide-film-style colour mode: saturated, contrasty, with solid bright reds and slightly yellowish greens. Negative Film, added later, is the more muted counterpart with bluer greens.
How do I get Hi-Contrast B&W on iPhone?
Use a monochrome film with a red filter, push contrast hard, darken the shadows and add heavy, coarse grain. Chobial's B&W + R film with the 16mm ISO 250 grain stock is a good start.
Is the iPhone's main camera the same focal length as the Ricoh GR?
Close. The GR and GR IV are 28mm-equivalent. The iPhone 18 Pro's main camera is 24mm-equivalent, a little wider.