First roll of Harman Phoenix photos up!

[Henning Serger]

I have to respectfully disagree. While I do not have your sophisticated testing methods, I do have my eyes, and have used many rolls of both Kodak Pro Image 100 and Lomo CN 100. In my opinion, they are not the same films.

No problem at all.
Only my humble suggestion: Just make a direct comparison under completely identical conditions: Same subject, same lighting, same camera, same lens, same camera settings, same processing and printing. All exactly the same for both films. And then in a blind test try to identify the two films.

When I've read here that Lomo CN 100 should be an older Kodak VR emulsion (which is very unlikely due to economic reasons as explained above), then of course one main factor comes to my mind: There is no VR anymore available for many, many years. So that claim cannot be proved in the end.
With ProImage 100 we have at least the possibility to make the direct comparison.

But let's stop here with the discussion about these two films, as it is off topic. Better to come back to Harman Phoenix.

Best regards,
Henning

 

[Dustin McAmera]

I have ordered a two-pack of Phoenix (and I already have an email that they tried to deliver that), and then I saw it listed as new at my local old-cameras shop, so I have bought two more rolls. <Mwa-ha-ha--haa emoji>

 

[Thwyllo]

The price seems realistic given the work that's gone into it. It became clear last week that those of us who deduced this would be something to fill the big gap in the market (affordable, amateur C41 film akin to Fuji C200 or Kodak Color Plus) were wrong. We've known since last week that this was an ISO 200 experimental film that wasn't going to be offered at some bargain price.

The price is only realistic if it's what the market will bear. Personally I wouldn't pay that sort of money for the film that's being described.

 

[mshchem]

I really think Harman did a fantastic job of creating suspense, and really created a new "brand" (even though Harman already existed).
Also this is a model for how to fund development of new analog technology. Skip the "Go fund me" nonsense.
Again a model of how to roll out new product. Go Harman!

 

[lamerko]

Despite the negative reviews and the fact that I haven't seen this new Harman film, I will be ordering 2-3 rolls. It's obviously not for professional use, but the effort to create it shows that these people still have serious intentions of staying in this business. I would support them.
Separately, I would really be interested to play with a completely "clean" film - without masks, antihalations and various other improvements

 

[brbo]

Well, for starters, it has color. I'd love to see your examples of NC500

I love the "you first" attitude and I'm now eagerly awaiting monochromatic examples from the rolls you shot...



If NC500 was utter garbage in comparison, Phoenix would be really really good and probably nothing short of a miracle* indeed. It's not though, is it? Orwo NC500 was announced almost two years ago, it's brother (LomoChrome '92) from another mother is already a testament of further improvement. I admit that I bashed Orwo NC500, considered '92 barely worth calling a borderline useful C-41 film. So, I have a problem calling Phoenix a miraculous home-run without giving some credit (even if a bit late) to Orwo/Lomo efforts.


* I understand that the "miracle" was used to describe "12 months form zero to hero Phoenix", but some here also provided quite convincing arguments that Harman weren't really starting with zero knowledge on colour film.

 

[pentaxuser]

I wish Harman Phoenix Colour Film the very best of luck.

For what it is worth, here is a comparison.

Harman Phoenix Vs Kodak Gold Vs Lomography CN100

I had a look at this, foc, so thanks. In every case to my eye Kodak wins. In some cases it was a "hands-down" victory

So just as well I don't represent Harman's targeted consumer

pentaxuser

 

[halfaman]

This may be the issue, my understanding is that the normal C-41 settings aren't optimal due to the lack of a mask. Harman's data sheet includes suggested scanner settings for this reason, do you know if the scanner settings were adjusted?

I don't think they created an specific setting for this, I don't know either if the photographer delivered the datasheet to the lab (probably not). Nevertheless, for what I know about Fuji Frontier scans, the reccomended settings are just to establish low contrast and low saturation base. Nothing else.

 

[pentaxuser]

Has anybody tried wet printing this stuff already? All I can find in the internet are from people scanning their films.

Well, let's hope that of the few left here who print optically someone will try

pentaxuser

 

[koraks]

Well, let's hope that of the few left here who print optically someone will try

Oh, I will for sure when I get the film in and make some time to play with it. Surely I won't be the only one, nor the first to do so.

 

[LeoniD]

I love the "you first" attitude and I'm now eagerly awaiting monochromatic examples from the rolls you shot...

I'm not trying to be rude, I just didn't like NC500. It can look kinda good with heavy editing, but I simply don't like it

 

[Lachlan Young]

Please don't forget that InovisCoat needed about a whole decade to get to their best CN emulsion. And that despite of having the original Agfa production machinery and a significant part of (but not all of) the former Agfa emulsion know-how.
So that Harman managed to create the Phoenix film in such a short time span is indeed really impressive, and deserves a lot of appreciation and respect.

And they did it by transforming XP2 (i.e. following the evolutionary path it was always supposed to take) - if incorporating the mask (and given that Harman have in-house organic synthesis capacity, that might be a lot faster than people assume) & anti-halation can be achieved reasonably efficiently, it may well jump to be level with the InovisCoat CN film a lot faster than people assume - and it's very clear that the R&D team know exactly what they want to sort out as a matter of priority

 

[Samu]

Well, let's hope that of the few left here who print optically someone will try

pentaxuser

I am one of those few, but my order of 5 rolls from Germany will be shipped only on 6th December. I thought that maybe somebody had already tried this, but unfortunately it looks like only folks using digital workflow have tried this film so far.

 

[BMbikerider]

You can largely compensate for the lack of orange mask with filter pack. You should indeed be able to make it print somewhat more normally by sandwiching it with a piece of unexposed but developed regular C41 film.

I have not done it for a while but in the past I printed ordinary B&W negatives onto RA4 paper. I used a piece of unexposed 120 but developed and bleach fixed C41 negative film above the glassless carrier. Because it is out of focus, making sure the film was flat is a secondary concern. The colour of the resulting print was more or less as I wanted with little change in the filtration required possibly because it was Kentmere film which had a marked blueish tinge to the base..

 

[Maris]

Someone will discover what Phoenix 200 is really good for and produce stunning work that won't be repeatable when the current batch runs out. What a unique opportunity!

Those with long memories will recall the grainy, gritty, muted, low resolution but gorgeous photographs from Sheila Metzner via the Atelier Fresson process.
Also remember GAF 500 colour slide film from the 1970s: grainy, contrasty, slightly off colours, but capable of beauty in its own way.

Congratulations to Harman for offering this non-mainstream, non general purpose film.

 

[Mike Crawford]

I’ve been watching the launch of Harman Phoenix with a bit of trepidation. I’m really happy they are working on this and that it’s a long term project, and look forward to following how the different iterations progress. However…… I spent an hour or more looking through some of the YouTube films earlier and despaired a bit. Couldn’t bring myself to watch a whole video! I do find that many of them seem to blend into one. Lots of jump cuts, and why do so many use the same sort of scratchy, sub trip hop soundtrack while editing in some slow motion clips of them trying to look cool holding their camera of choice? And the quality of the photos?

Mmmmmmmm. I fear I’m sounding like a grumpy old git, but what I do wonder about many, (but not all), of the crop of YouTubers, is the mantra that the lab scan is the finished item. In one of the videos I watched, which had some pretty soft looking yellow / brown scans, they commented that the images were soft and yellow, but as that’s how the scans are, that is what Harman Phoenix looks like! (I'm paraphrasing.) As we know, scanning, like printing is an absolutely subjective process, so if the film is being judged purely by a scan, it’s going to look different with every lab. What on earth is wrong with post production work in Photoshop or other programmes to refine the image, to make it more expressive, in the way that printing in the darkroom is going to bring out the best from a negative in a print? At least in Ribsy’s video, (one of the better ones), he did do some hand colour printing and his results on Instagram look promising though pretty strong and bold.

I’m curious about Harman’s marketing approach. It’s all linked to the younger analogue community, which is absolutely understandable and fitting and I’m not criticising that, but there seems to be no interest in getting the best out of the film. As part of the community of UK specialist printers, I used to do a lot of testing for Ilford / Harman on papers and occasionally chemistry over the years. Sometimes there were exhibitions for which we would give our clients Ilford film to shoot, which we would then print for the shows, often then used for Ilford calendars and wall planners. I know great professional colour printers still working in the darkroom and would be good to see what they could get out of this film. Likewise, for producing high res scans on an Imacon or drum scanner and then working on Photoshop which would seem another option. I recently had a job scanning 120 Boots colour neg form the 80s, (Boots being a UK chain of chemists), which had a really strange base tint unlike normal C41, but with a bit of work on the scan got a really good result.

I really am sounding like an old git!

With these thoughts, I was delighted to find this video from The Find Lab in the US.

I didn’t know of them, but seem a great team and have done a really good series of tests on the film by members of staff, including ones who are are professional scanners, so they’re really looking at it from a more holistic sense from shooting to processing to scan. The quality of the photos and the files are definitely some of the best I’ve seen so far. Will check out more of their videos. Pleased to see that Sissi Lu and Kyle McDougall are also releasing videos soon. I do enjoy their YouTubes, as they are not so full of themselves, are more contemplative and engaging and produce some really good work!! Makes sense they are not rushing their reviews out. Actually Kyle’s posted some interesting results on Instagram, and there are several comments that the dull English weather suits the film far better!!


Last thoughts on what is turning into an accidental essay. One of my main personal projects is shot on Delta 3200 and lith printed on discontinued Seagull Oriental, so has high grain and contrast, muted tones, limited tonal range and halation. Nocturnes All characteristics of Harman Phoenix. Maybe I should then be trying this film after all! Perhaps it will be the colour equivalent of lith printing? As said, am very pleased Harman have produced this, and while not for me just now, really look forward to what comes in the future.

Lastly, really good interview with Matt and Michelle form Harman / Ilford on the latest Sunny 16 Podcast which puts the project into context with future plans.

 

[bjorke]

...the marketing was into the fringes.

Wondering why you call the marketing "fringes." I don't think people who still have their old Nikon F3 are the target audience, because over time that's become the actual fringe, in terms of market size. Leica are now selling lots of M6's not to folks who already have a Leica/Nikon/Rollei, but to new buyers who see an M as a sort of Chanel bag. Ilford appears to be aiming at that audience, not yet set in their ways, and happy to have a "fashionably retro" look.

Will it succeed? Beats me.

But maybe you mean something else?

 

[pbromaghin]

Maybe I’m old school, but when did it become the norm to release your R&D ‘failures’ for profit to fund future R&D? In my mind, a respected company such as Harman has taken a hit for putting out such an inferior product. Even Adox, while claiming Color Mission was a step to a final product, released a very polished step, that could actually stand on its own, albeit slightly grainy.

I’ve always placed Harman up there in the top tier with Kodak and Fuji. Would they have put out something before it was perfected, even with claims of “Isn’t this cool?”, “Isn’t this funky?” or “Temper your expectations and have fun!”. No. So no thank you, I can buy a roll of far superior Gold or Fuji for less than the price of Phoenix.

Harman has annual revenues of only about 20 million pounds. Just how deep into any new product do you think they can go before they need see some revenue out of it? Even as Kodak limps along, their revenue is 50 times that.

 

[George Mann]

Will it succeed? Beats me.

The Lomo crowd will love it!

 

[albireo]

Someone will discover what Phoenix 200 is really good for and produce stunning work that won't be repeatable when the current batch runs out. What a unique opportunity!

Those with long memories will recall the grainy, gritty, muted, low resolution but gorgeous photographs from Sheila Metzner via the Atelier Fresson process.
Also remember GAF 500 colour slide film from the 1970s: grainy, contrasty, slightly off colours, but capable of beauty in its own way.

Congratulations to Harman for offering this non-mainstream, non general purpose film.

Beautifully put, I agree.

 

[Ten301]

Harman has annual revenues of only about 20 million pounds. Just how deep into any new product do you think they can go before they need see some revenue out of it? Even as Kodak limps along, their revenue is 50 times that.

I wish Harman well. Phoenix isn’t for me, just as many of the offbeat Lomo films aren’t my thing. If people want to buy it, by all means, do so. I choose not to buy a film I have no use for and will never use. When Harman does reach a level of quality with Phoenix in the ballpark of a Kodak or Fuji product, I will certainly buy it and support them.

 

[BrianShaw]

Have there been any reports of experiences at the San Clemente photowalk and pub crawl?

 

[Kino]

If you have a film stock or film stocks that you disappointingly compare Phoenix to, then it's a bit of a moot point, yes?

You should already have what you need.

What's the point of having yet another color emulsion that duplicates the "Professional" standards of Kodak and Fuji?

Frankly, from what I have seen so far, I rather like the look of the film.

Just look back over the history of color photography and you'll see the current "standard" of color film has only been around several decades out of about 100 years.

Do we reject all the previous color work that doesn't somehow rise to the current level of Kodak or Fuji color negative? I think not...

Phoenix may or may not evolve along the lines some people wish, but it is available unlike many perished, often mourned stocks which are never to return.

It's just one more option and I'm glad it is available.

 

[mtnbkr]

What's the point of having yet another color emulsion that duplicates the "Professional" standards of Kodak and Fuji?

This! We already have good color films. There's plenty of room for funky and unusual.

Chris

 

[brbo]

In the future Harman could do limited edition "reprints", like "Phoenix mk2023", etc.

Imagine reliving the journey!