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First roll of Harman Phoenix photos up!


I think this is true of pretty much every photographic tool out there.

All films have their "quirks", and one can either learn them and exploit them, or can sit around and wait for the perfect product that will never materialize.

Back in the day, I thought Portra 160NC was a boring film, and for a lot of my work I still think the current Portra 160 is pretty darn boring even though it's about as technically perfect of a C-41 film as we could hope to get. I can't always make it "sing" but it's the right tool for some occasions, and plenty of photographers have built their entire portfolio out of this and other similar CN films. Velvia/Velvia 50 has that peculiar subtle yellow-red shift that's characteristic of the film, and combined with the saturation it makes the film "pop" for some subjects and look terrible on others. Even Tri-X could be chastized for its grain relative to the speed, while TMY-2 could be criticized for the subtle "always there" yellow filter effect it tends to give. If I can be forgiven for mentioning the "D" word here, I've shot tens of thousands of frames on the Nikon D8xx cameras(all 4 of them) and I've never warmed to the colors on them, although I like the D800/D800E the best of all of them. I love the D5 to the point it's been my main camera going on 2 years now, but sometimes it doesn't have the punch I'm looking for. I currently have a photo of my son set as my desktop background taken on my D3X back in October of last year, and it still wows me every time I look at it, but that camera loses its shine VERY quickly when the light is less than great...

I've only shot two rolls of Phoenix. I ended up getting lab scans of them as the lab just ran them through the scanner out of habit ignoring my specific "process only" instructions. The scans look pretty bad, and what I shot was probably less than optimum for the film as it was early evening on a sunny day in the middle of summer(or in other words, high contrast warm light). I've gone back and rescanned a few frames, and my scans are better but still not quite there.

With winter in full swing now, but mostly just dreary days, I really should load some more up and shoot it-I have 3 more rolls of 35mm in the freezer and 5 rolls of 120 I've not touched. I want to like this film, and as has been shown here in capable hands under the right light(coupled with good printing or scanning) so I really should just get off my butt, load up some more film, and use it. Looking out my home office window on this rainy, overcast day, I see lots of very familiar to me scenes that I think could pop with the color pallette of Phoenix, so maybe I'll even do that this afternoon, but we'll see...

Rescale films have never appealed to me, but then I've also never tried them. The current release might be a good excuse to do just that-what's the harm in burning a roll or two on something unimportant? Now that I'm doing C41 myself and my C41 developer usually goes bad before I exhaust it, I really don't see the harm.
 
The question is simple: would producers have created a similar film in the 70s, 80s and 90s?
The answer is no. And why?
Because there was no demand.
So the problem as I see it is another. That is, the direction the world of films is taking. A bad slope.
 

in the 70s-80s-90s film manufacturers (well, some of them) had all the money they needed to deliver a finished product. And expertise. And a huge market to sell their products, because it was film or nothing.
Comparing a long gone situation with the one we have today is a sterile exercise.
The film industry is taking a simple direction: doing all it can to survive and increase the market and the sold units, after a decade where it was one bankrupcy after another.

Someone is even trying to develop new products while surviving and the internet is bashing them for it, go figure...
 
brbo said:
That's the thing. You don't have to pay for it if you are not buying Phoenix.

But you would be paying for it if Harman went about making C-41 film the traditional way, "internalising" all R&D costs, that is transferring them to BW film customers.
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Wasn't the respondent saying that he does indirectly pay for it via the increased price being charged for other Ilford products he does use ?

So is there evidence that so far Phoenix development has been self funding and none of it has been charged via other Ilford products ?

Thanks

pentaxuser
 
The Ilford and Kentmere price increases have been very much in line with what we've seen in recent years, so there's no evidence that Harman have jacked up the prices of existing products to help fund R&D into C41 films.

That £10 million from Lloyds probably helped too...
 
pentaxuser said:
So is there evidence that so far Phoenix development has been self funding and none of it has been charged via other Ilford products ?
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Every Harman Phoenix 200 roll comes with a price sticker and everybody pays that price. That price is significantly above Kodak consumer film, so there is very little evidence to suggest that Phoenix is "subsidized" by other Harman products.
 
pentaxuser said:
So is there evidence that so far Phoenix development has been self funding and none of it has been charged via other Ilford products ?
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Modern business and accounting principles rarely encourage any such subsidization.
If something is being subsidized, the funds would normally have to come from the marketing budget for that product.
 
koraks said:
As businesses work in general, this is an unanswerable question.
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After reading the other replies and further thought, I think this is probably the most accurate and honest answer i.e we just do not know and are not in a position of having enough information to know

pentaxuser
 
Bought a roll of Phoenix in 35mm format to try out.
Is there a summary to say in 5 lines don't use it for this and use it for that?
I'm already and fully aware of it' s marginal latitude or dynamic range.
 
rhmimac said:
Is there a summary to say in 5 lines don't use it for this and use it for that?
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If you're going to scan it, then no - just shoot whatever you fancy. If you're going to wet/RA4 print it in the darkroom, then you'll get the best results by sticking to very (VERY) low-contrast scenes.
 
Low contrast scenes and follow the advice from Harman to "fill the frame" with your subject. So probably no landscapes, though you might get away with them if you're scanning rather than wet printing and if the contrast between land and sky isn't too great.

It's better for taking photos of people and things, fairly close up or zoomed in on the subject.
 
koraks said:
If you're going to scan it, then no - just shoot whatever you fancy. If you're going to wet/RA4 print it in the darkroom, then you'll get the best results by sticking to very (VERY) low-contrast scenes.
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Great, I scan, so I carefully fill up my frame, aiming not to gather too much contrasty zones and if so I'll meter for midtones and I'll fill in with flash when needed.
Thanks everyone!
 
I've only shot two rolls of Phoenix, both in 35mm. One in a SLR where I shot a variety of subjects from musicians performing to trees/plants, Christmas lights and so on. The musicians and the wildlife came out best. Indeed a handful of real keepers. The second roll was in a zoom P&S at a party, so mostly photographs of individuals or 2-3 people taken with a flash. Actually that resulted in about 20 frames that, when scanned, looked surprisingly "normal". I finished off that roll on a stroll around a market town in Spring and again got some decent shots. Maybe the metering system in the P&S was better for Phoenix than my Praktica BX20S.
 
MattKing said:
Modern business and accounting principles rarely encourage any such subsidization.
If something is being subsidized, the funds would normally have to come from the marketing budget for that product.
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On the other hand, some B&W films at Ilford are made at a loss I have read here. But other products cover up for that, the simply want to offer an as broad as possible gamma for us, not discontinuing products if they still can make money over the whole line.

From that perspective, it would be weird to criticise Harman for shifting the money to colour products. Maybe the PanF or Ortho+ the criticiser is using is also subsidised with money of HP5+ and FP4+ sales.
 
From those who said this was any evidence provided to substantiate their argument and if so what was that evidence?

Thanks

pentaxuser
 
pentaxuser said:
From those who said this was any evidence provided to substantiate their argument and if so what was that evidence?

Thanks

pentaxuser
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If I remembered who said it, I would ofcourse have added it. Maybe my post triggers other people who know what was exactly said and by whom.
 
Ernst-Jan said:
If I remembered who said it, I would ofcourse have added it. Maybe my post triggers other people who know what was exactly said and by whom.
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OK and thanks. It just sounded as if someone had speculated rather than had any real evidence but I asked the question on that "just in case " basis that such evidence existed

pentaxuser
 
FWIW, I believe Harman did a fair bit of cross subsidization when they were trying to bring the old Ilford black and white business out of receivership.
But they still had to face cold hard facts. I believe the first product to be discontinued by them due to low or no profits was the cool tone developer.
 

Did someone from Harman such as Simon Galley say this or say something so close that it could not be any question that it referred to cross subsidisation?

Thanks

pentaxuser
 
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