As someone that still regularly shoots film and also owns a Fuji X Series camera, I don't find the film simulations that Fujifilm puts in the X models to be any good, so I feel like there is still a lot of worthwhile work to be done here.
Since the camera can store the same photo in 2 different formats (RAW+JPEG), I'm wondering if it would be worthwhile to use a lot of these file pairs to try to get a LUT allowing to map Fuji RAW files to Fuji-Like JPEG results.
Is there anybody knowledgeable here to tell me whether this approach is doomed from the start or if it could be promising?
I feel like you might be in the minority, I continually hear overwhelmingly positive remarks regarding Fuji's film sim. I'm not aware of anything comparable at that price point, and I have yet to see any non-pro film sim come close to the stock Fuji sims.
Compare this to RNI film's preset pack for Lightroom which I find are much more interesting.
I think a big reason they won't ever come close to true film is that proper film simulation is likely lossy (grain/etc) which no digital film simulation in a camera is going to risk.
Sure but now you're paying a yearly subscription for Lightroom and buying third party presets. The Fuji profiles are free with the body and are pretty good for the vast majority of users.
Besides if you're developing from raw anyways, you probably don't care about the Fuji sims in the least. It's apples to oranges. For more casual JPEG shooters they're easily accessible and look great.
And the RNI profiles are definitely the best in class and built after the real emulsions very carefully, at least I can confirm that for Fuji Pro, Fuji Superia and Kodak Portra & Ektar - the stocks I'm very familiar with.