First roll of Harman Phoenix photos up!

[pbromaghin]

Why on earth should any of us think we have a right to care that Ilford is subsidizing the creation of a color film out of sales of other films? Just where do people think the money for a new product comes from? It is corporate death to stand still.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Why on earth should any of us think we have a right to care that Ilford is subsidizing the creation of a color film out of sales of other films? Just where do people think the money for a new product comes from? It is corporate death to stand still.

Ilford was directed to stop making color film by the UK if I remember correctly. I would like to see Ilford product a worthy color print film. There is no question that to do so would require resources [money, brains and time] to bring it back.

 

[MattKing]

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

Simon Galley posted about the reasons for discontinuance of the cool tone developer.
They were really reluctant to make the decision, because their initial promise was to not discontinue any of the products they committed to keeping in their line after the business was revived, and the cool tone developer required them to break that promise.

 

[MattKing]

Why on earth should any of us think we have a right to care that Ilford is subsidizing the creation of a color film out of sales of other films?

Everybody has a right to care - if the concern is based on concern for Harman's wellbeing.
Products that require subsidization can kill a business.

 

[koraks]

Ilford was directed to stop making color film by the UK if I remember correctly.

That sounds a little odd, to be honest. Western governments generally don't decide these matters.

 

[foc]

Ilford was directed to stop making color film by the UK if I remember correctly.

I think you may be referring to the UK Monopolies Commission back in 1966.

For more details, please read @Ian Grant post #03 here

Also check out 1966 in both of these

https://www.ilfordphoto.com/about-us/history/

https://www.photomemorabilia.co.uk/Ilford/Chronology.html

 

[koraks]

I think you may be referring to the UK Monopolies Commission back in 1966.

That makes sense; so it wasn't a case of Ilford being 'directed to stop making color film', but rather a poorly designed anti-monopoly policy that backfired.

 

[Sirius Glass]

That makes sense; so it wasn't a case of Ilford being 'directed to stop making color film', but rather a poorly designed anti-monopoly policy that backfired.

Now would be a good time to fix past mistakes.

 

[koraks]

Now would be a good time to fix past mistakes.

Looks like 60 years after the fact, they're making progress!

 

[blee1996]

Tried Harman Phoenix with pinhole, and it kind of gives the bold Holga look. The blur in the foreground is due to wind motion: it was 2 seconds exposure. Shot at ISO 100, Kodak C41 kit home developed, scanned as slide and inverted in Negative Labs Pro.

Backlit blossom - ZeroImage69_Phoenix200A_009 by Zheng, on Flickr

Up close the fluffy - ZeroImage69_Phoenix200A_004 by Zheng, on Flickr

A dreamy lane - ZeroImage69_Phoenix200A_001 by Zheng, on Flickr

 

[dalahorse]

... I expect it will go down well with the folk who enjoy "effects" films and will help fill the coffers for more R&D towards a 'normal' C41 film.

This is what I think Harman is going for with Phoenix. It would seem that there are a lot of young photographers who have been inspired by family photo albums full of color shifted machine prints and Polaroids from the 1970s and 1980s. These are, I suspect, the same photographers shooting with potato quality cameras and special effect films. It sort of reminds me of starting out as a kid with my lumpy grain drugstore prints from my Kodak Disc 3100 - complete with fingertips partially covering the lens - from back in 1984.

Rather than discard several batches of prototype film, Harman might as well sell it to that niche market. Hopefully some of the profit will go into further R&D to produce "normal" color print films. And hopefully some of the profit will also go into other Phoenix-like films, which is what the retro-inspired buyers are interested right now. If Harman doesn't pay attention to what up and coming young photographers and bloggers want, they'll miss out on an entire genre of film photography.

 

[thinkbrown]

I've shot a fair few rolls of Phoenix now and I'm getting to the point where I'm very happy with the results. I'm metering it at 125, processing it in ecn-2, and then inverting manually. The typical negative reversal tool I use delivers poor results but a straight inversion and then minor tweaks of the RGB levels seems to yield consistent results.

Skin tones are definitely still a weakness and it often seems like you have to choose between the scene looking generally correct and people looking slightly jaundiced, or the scene skewing slightly blue and skin tones looking more natural.

Included photo is a scan of a 6x7 negative shot on my mamiya press.

 

[AnselMortensen]

Nice! The colors look like a 1960's "chrome" postcard.

 

[dcy]

I've ordered a few rolls of Harman Phoenix, and even Harman Red. I am more than happy to subsidize the R&D for new color films and I want to vote with my wallet to tell the company that want them to pursue this work.

I shot a roll of Harman Phoenix, which I somehow managed to lose . Then I shot another roll this past weekend, and I'm going to send it to a lab. I'm expecting the lab scans to look fairly awful, so I look forward to DSLR scanning to see what I can accomplish with this film. I shot half the roll at ISO 160 and half at ISO 125 to compare.

I don't have equipment to develop C-41 or ECN-2 at home, but I do plan to go in that direction. I think the next few rolls I'm sending to the lab will be the last, and after that I'll move to developing at home. But I do want to see Phoenix developed at a lab so I have a basis for comparison.

@thinkbrown : You said you developed Phoenix in ECN-2. Am I right to assume that that's to reduce contrast?

 

[thinkbrown]

@thinkbrown : You said you developed Phoenix in ECN-2. Am I right to assume that that's to reduce contrast?

Honestly it's primarily a convenience thing. I started mixing ecn2 from scratch when I started bulk rolling vision 3 films. I didn't want to maintain two sets of color chemistry and realized I prefer the look of c41 film cross processed in ecn2 a hell of a lot more than ecn2 film in c41. So now everything goes through ecn2.

I have noticed that a number of the more "experimental" color films (Phoenix, NC500/400) tend to look better to my eye cross processed ecn2 compared to the standard process photos I've seen online.

 

[dcy]

Honestly it's primarily a convenience thing. I started mixing ecn2 from scratch when I started bulk rolling vision 3 films. I didn't want to maintain two sets of color chemistry and realized I prefer the look of c41 film cross processed in ecn2 a hell of a lot more than ecn2 film in c41. So now everything goes through ecn2.

Quick tangent: Where do you get the bulk rolls of Vision3? I do not currently bulk load but it's something I'm considering for the future, but I can't find bulk rolls of Vision3 online.

I have noticed that a number of the more "experimental" color films (Phoenix, NC500/400) tend to look better to my eye cross processed ecn2 compared to the standard process photos I've seen online.

That's interesting. My understanding is that ECN-2 gives muted colors. That sounds great or Phoenix which often looks too intense, but the photos I see online for NC500/400 look muted, so I'd assume ECN-2 would make it worse.

I have a few rolls of Color '92. I shot one roll and was happy with the negatives I got from the lab. Now I'm wondering if they'd look better in ECN-2.

 

[thinkbrown]

You don't get bulk rolls of vision 3 easily anymore unfortunately. I've still got a couple in the freezer.

As far as the NC500 goes, I'm pretty happy with the results

 

[dcy]

You don't get bulk rolls of vision 3 easily anymore unfortunately. I've still got a couple in the freezer.

Just my luck that I'd get into film photography right at the time when bulk rolling color film becomes impossible. Well, let's hope Harman's work pays off and that they make a fantastic color film and sell it in bulk rolls.

As far as the NC500 goes, I'm pretty happy with the results

Looks great. Honestly, I think they look about the same as the C-41 photos I've seen online.

 

[koraks]

My understanding is that ECN-2 gives muted colors.

That's not accurate. The Vision3 films that happen to be ECN2 films are low-saturation films. This is not inherently linked to fact that they are made to be developed in ECN2 developer, though. It would be technically possible to create a high-saturation ECN2 film, but Kodak doesn't feel there's a market for it (and they're quite likely right).

Just my luck that I'd get into film photography right at the time when bulk rolling color film becomes impossible.

If it's any consolation, this possibility ceased 15 years ago or so when the last C41 bulk rolls disappeared from the market. There has been a bit of a revival lately with Kodak's Vision3 motion picture stock, but Kodak has put a stop to that because it ate too much into their still film business.

On the topic of Vision3, ECN2, Kodak's sales strategies etc. there are several threads that you can refer to. Let's keep this one here focused on Harman Phoenix. On that subject - if you want to control contrast and saturation of Phoenix, the most feasible route is to give sufficient exposure so that important shadow detail is recorded, scan the negatives in such a way that the entire tonal range is captured and then adjust contrast and color to taste digitally. Whether you develop in C41 or ECN2 really doesn't matter if you follow that route.

 

[dcy]

On the topic of Vision3, ECN2, Kodak's sales strategies etc. there are several threads that you can refer to. Let's keep this one here focused on Harman Phoenix. On that subject - if you want to control contrast and saturation of Phoenix, the most feasible route is to give sufficient exposure so that important shadow detail is recorded, scan the negatives in such a way that the entire tonal range is captured and then adjust contrast and color to taste digitally. Whether you develop in C41 or ECN2 really doesn't matter if you follow that route.

The YouTuber Shaka1277 seemed to get good results (i.e. controlled contrast) by rating it at ISO 125 and doing a -1 Pull in C-41. He gave an explanation for why pull processing lowers contrast and it made sense to me.

As I mentioned earlier, I will send my current roll to the lab so I have at least one example of this film processed by someone who probably did it correctly. After that, I'll order the Bellini kit that was so highly recommended in my first thread in this forum, and then I'll go from there.

 

[koraks]

The YouTuber Shaka1277 seemed to get good results (i.e. controlled contrast) by rating it at ISO 125 and doing a -1 Pull in C-41. He gave an explanation for why pull processing lowers contrast and it made sense to me.

I don't doubt he got good results that way, but it wasn't due to the reduced development. It's really down to making a proper scan that encompasses the entire dynamic range of the negative and then color balancing that to taste. This will work fine with regularly processed Phoenix provided you have sufficient control over the scanning process.

 

[thinkbrown]

Phoenix has pretty limited dynamic range though, so trying to ensure you get a scene onto the negative without blowing the highlights or absolutely crushing the shadows is where all the development trickery comes in.

How you scan it is important too because software that's expecting a traditional orange mask will not do the negatives justice.

 

[dcy]

I don't doubt he got good results that way, but it wasn't due to the reduced development. It's really down to making a proper scan that encompasses the entire dynamic range of the negative and then color balancing that to taste. This will work fine with regularly processed Phoenix provided you have sufficient control over the scanning process.

The video was a comparison. He tested a "normal" process, overexposing, and overexposing with a -1 Pull. Presumably the scanning was the same in every case, and he got better results "overexpose-and-pull" option.

However... Thinking back to the video, I misremembered the purpose of the pull --- it was NOT to reduce contrast; it was to reduce grain.

EDIT: But yeah, the evidence is pretty strong that how you scan this film specially important because this film doesn't have the orange mask.

 

[koraks]

Well, in fact, choices made in scanning are always important, even if there's a mask. And there's a truckload of science behind it, too, which fortunately as amateur photographers we don't have to worry about too much most of the time! However, I do acknowledge that some scanning solutions may be thrown off if you feed them Phoenix and tell the system it's scanning a color negative. It'll be biased towards low contrast and RGB curves that are shifted in relation to each other (it's not just the mask), while in reality it'll be scanning a high-contrast material with much more parallel curves. The result is often a basically useless scan. However, even on these systems, a workaround may be to tell the machine it's scanning E6 slide film and then do the color balancing manually.

Phoenix has pretty limited dynamic range though

It does shoulder off, but it can still capture a decent range. The main challenge is the very high gamma, which makes it seem (when optically printing or scanning in an inopportune way) that its dynamic range is more limited than it is in reality. Scanned properly, it has a reasonable dynamic range. Not as much as regular CN film, but adequate for many regular scenes. It will be a bit more finicky in terms of proper exposure to optimize its output. For regular pictorial use, it's a more challenging film than normal CN films. But personally I don't see why people would want to use this for regular pictorial use as there are way better alternatives for that; Phoenix' unique nature lends itself to highly specific, artistic uses.

 

[thinkbrown]

But personally I don't see why people would want to use this for regular pictorial use as there are way better alternatives for that; Phoenix' unique nature lends itself to highly specific, artistic uses.

Well this is one place we're just gonna have to disagree haha. I really like Phoenix as a general purpose film. It's sort of like ektar where as long as there aren't people in the shot the colors are super pleasing.