Harman Photo cryptic announcement/teaser

koraks · Nov 6, 2023

Don_ih said:
It's far more likely that they would be helped out by expert help and training from Fuji. Harman is doing work for Fuji (Acros II) so it's not out-of-the-question to get direction from Fuji employees.

It's conceivable.
A more likely scenario re:AcrosII is that it's just a Harman product and there's no expert help or trainig from Fuji involved at all. If there once was, it was probably decades ago.

Don_ih · Nov 6, 2023

koraks said:
A more likely scenario re:AcrosII is that it's just a Harman product and there's no expert help or trainig from Fuji involved at all. If there once was, it was probably decades ago.

No, I mean they are providing Fuji with a service so it would not be unusual to get something else in return. They registered the Harman Photo domain name in 2021. This has been being planned for quite some time.

MattKing · Nov 6, 2023

Ian Grant said:
Well probably quite a few, I'm not sure when Kodak stopped coating film and paper here in the UK, but they still were when I worked in the precious metal industry back around 2003.

They were coating colour paper for at least a couple of years after the 2012 bankruptcy - the sale of the Harrow manufacturing site by Kodak Alaris was the end of that.

Agulliver · Nov 6, 2023

brbo said:
So, can we take your statement as a semi-official confirmation that Harman is releasing a colour film better than or at least on par with Kodak/Fuji?

What I took the post to mean was that Harman won't release a poor product or one that is of beta test quality. If they really have cooked up a colour film....it may not quite be as good as Kodak or FujiFilm but it won't be far off. It will be good quality. After all, their Ilford B&W films are market leaders and the Kentmere films are hardly bad. If we are looking forward to HarmanColour, it's going to be something ready for the market.

koraks · Nov 6, 2023

Don_ih said:
No, I mean they are providing Fuji with a service so it would not be unusual to get something else in return.

I understand. I think the deal is most likely quite simple. Harman makes the product. Fuji pays for it. No fuss, no intricate technological collaborations, etc. Just a rebranding/OEM kind of deal.

Don_ih · Nov 6, 2023

koraks said:
I think the deal is most likely quite simple. Harman makes the product. Fuji pays for it. No fuss, no intricate technological collaborations, etc. Just a rebranding/OEM kind of deal.

Probably - but this is the thread of speculation and fantasy. And we have another 25 days to wait.

brbo · Nov 6, 2023

Don_ih said:
Probably - but this is the thread of speculation and fantasy.

Sure, but let's not disregard what little is being shared by Harman. They said "No colabs [sic]" when people were speculating on collaboration with Fuji or Ferrania.

analogwisdom · Nov 6, 2023

Wow, there's certainly been a lot of discussion. I'm frustrated with the whole thing. The "announcement of an announcement" drove me crazy, and I have very little faith it'll be anything that's worth all of this hype they're trying to create...

Don_ih · Nov 6, 2023

brbo said:
Sure, but let's not disregard what little is being shared by Harman. They said "No colabs [sic]" when people were speculating on collaboration with Fuji or Ferrania.

I didn't say collaboration. Training is something that's needed for anyone to be able to do a job. It doesn't make the work the product of the trainer. So, if Harman made a deal with Fuji to get expertise, its not a collaboration. It's bought and paid-for.
But it's still just speculation.

BobD · Nov 6, 2023

Has anyone guessed that it might be a Kodak Panalure-type paper?

Minolta93 · Nov 6, 2023

BobD said:
Has anyone guessed that it might be a Kodak Panalure-type paper?

I doubt it's any kind of paper. I really do think a color film makes sense, but it seems unlikely given how hard it is to do.

Roger Cole · Nov 6, 2023

brbo said:
So, can we take your statement as a semi-official confirmation that Harman is releasing a colour film better than or at least on par with Kodak/Fuji?

That's absurd. Don't be absurd.

Roger Cole · Nov 6, 2023

Agulliver said:
What I took the post to mean was that Harman won't release a poor product or one that is of beta test quality. If they really have cooked up a colour film....it may not quite be as good as Kodak or FujiFilm but it won't be far off. It will be good quality. After all, their Ilford B&W films are market leaders and the Kentmere films are hardly bad. If we are looking forward to HarmanColour, it's going to be something ready for the market.

Exactly. Ilford/Harman do not make junk. At least, as far as I'm aware they never have and I've been using their products since 1976 or 77. Oh of course it's always possible for a good company to slip up, but I highly doubt that will be the case, whatever the product turns out to be.

brbo · Nov 7, 2023

Roger Cole said:
That's absurd. Don't be absurd.

I hear ya!

To my defence, you did come across like you know for certain that Harman can come up with a state of the art colour film. You've now clarified that you just thought Harman won't make a "junk" product. I agree with that. There are manufacturers of colour films that can produce "not junk" colour film like Adox Color Mission 200 and Lomochrome Color '92. Especially Adox Color Mission 200. But, as good as it is, it's not a match for the best Fuji/Kodak films like Ilford BW films are.

foc · Nov 7, 2023

We need one of these, so we can go to 1st December and we can come back with the ~~colour film,~~ new Harman product and end all the speculation.

Agulliver · Nov 7, 2023

collaboration.....I suppose we are being pedantic and looking to read between the lines at the same time. Harman have stated this new product is not a collaboration. first they denied a tie-up with FujiFilm then stated no collaboration with any other company.

But what might "collaboration" mean? As suggested up-thread, I suppose it could mean that another entity such as FujiFilm helped them in the past, but their involvement ended and Harman have taken on the final steps towards production themselves. Though that's stretching the definition of "no colabs" a bit thin, in my opinion. If this turns out to be a colour film, prior efforts working together over the last couple of years would have been very helpful.

Worth noting that Harman also state this is not a relaunch of a product they've previously made.

It really does look more like it's colour film, however difficult and unlikely that is. Perhaps they've been secretly working away on it for a couple of years or longer. If FujiFilm were involved in any way, we know their production problems started at least two years ago and probably longer. As far as we know the last shipment of genuine Fuji Superia 400 was over 12 months ago and that came after a year of no availability of fresh film. It is just possible that they did work with Harman to help Mobberly create a colour film. All seems a bit of a pipe dream, but then in 2005 it was far from certain that we'd ever see Ilford HP5+ again let alone the entire range survive to this day.

Don_ih · Nov 7, 2023

At this point, we can say for certain that it's something. And that's better than the previous trend of companies disappearing and of product lines being discontinued.
So everybody dance!

koraks · Nov 7, 2023

Agulliver said:
It is just possible that they did work with Harman to help Mobberly create a colour film.

If we're speculating anyway: what would FujiFilm's interest be in setting up Harman to produce color film?
And speculating some more: silver halide film & paper production seems to rely rather heavily on relatively senior employees in some places...it's hard to replace these, and suppose you're running a successful operation coating a high-demand color product (i.e. Instax), what would the sense be in spreading out the scarce knowledge & competence resources over not just your own operation, but also a competitor's?

The whole thing still doesn't add up.

Just speculating, of course.

Don_ih · Nov 7, 2023

At this point, I doubt Fuji sees Harman/Ilford as a competitor. Harman is presently a Fuji subcontractor. That in itself is odd because Fuji does not need to make or brand 35mm film at all.

koraks · Nov 7, 2023

Don_ih said:
At this point, I doubt Fuji sees Harman/Ilford as a competitor.

Well, competition and cooperation usually go hand in hand in such business relationships. It's very common. But I don't think Fuji considers Harman as the kind of competitor they're very worried about. Yet, it would make little sense to keep Superia 200 afloat by having Kodak coat it, and then help Harman to set up their own color negative film manufacturing capability. Yes, if you like speculating (it seems to be the thing these days, so let's indulge) you might argue that Fuji's doing this so that Harman can then start producing Fuji's token color negative film as well. But I really, really doubt that Fuji could be bothered to even spend time on considering this, let alone invest any meaningful effort into it.

Agulliver · Nov 7, 2023

It is speculation, and trying to fit the few available facts within that speculation. The Fuji idea comes in because there's clearly cooperation between FujiFilm and Harman on Acros II. But it's entirely possible that some of us are putting 1+1 together and getting 3.

But it is also believed, including by those who should know, that making a marketable colour film from where Harman were just a few years ago is nigh on impossible. So if this is a colour film, it would make sense if they'd had support from someone already making the stuff.

Maybe it is a bluetooth speaker after all.

koraks · Nov 7, 2023

Agulliver said:
there's clearly cooperation between FujiFilm and Harman on Acros II

"Cooperation" is a vague term. It can be as little as an arm's length administrative deal or as intensive as a full-blown R&D partnership. Since Harman's work for Fuji only requires the former, I'd consider this more likely. And that would be virtually meaningless for other film products made by Harman.

Consider that Harman has no technology that's of particular interest to Fuji, so some kind of R&D collaboration between them would be very biased towards the competence of Fuji. Logically it would only materialize if Harman put big $$$ at the table. Money they likely won't have in the light of the investments needed to keep existing infrastructure functional.

The whole idea of Harman having secretly figured out a fully fledged color film product in total secrecy over the past years sounds very frivolous to me. On the other hand, Harman engineering a new-ish B&W film based on their existing competencies seems quite likely. Hence my expectation that this is something like Harman Pan 1600 that's about to hit the shelves.
Would make good sense for the winter season, too, speaking of timing.

Don_ih · Nov 7, 2023

There would be no reason to make a new b&w film branded Harman, but there is a reason to continue using the name Ilford - it has a history that is synonymous with black and white photography. And Ilford has multiple product lines that directly compete with each other - HP5 and Delta 400, FP4 and Delta 100, as examples. So there's a precedent for making a new Ilford-branded product that would complete with their 3200 film.
The very forced separation of Ilford from this new Harman product strongly suggests it's colour film.

Helge · Nov 7, 2023

koraks said:
"Cooperation" is a vague term. It can be as little as an arm's length administrative deal or as intensive as a full-blown R&D partnership. Since Harman's work for Fuji only requires the former, I'd consider this more likely. And that would be virtually meaningless for other film products made by Harman.

Consider that Harman has no technology that's of particular interest to Fuji, so some kind of R&D collaboration between them would be very biased towards the competence of Fuji. Logically it would only materialize if Harman put big $$$ at the table. Money they likely won't have in the light of the investments needed to keep existing infrastructure functional.

The whole idea of Harman having secretly figured out a fully fledged color film product in total secrecy over the past years sounds very frivolous to me. On the other hand, Harman engineering a new-ish B&W film based on their existing competencies seems quite likely. Hence my expectation that this is something like Harman Pan 1600 that's about to hit the shelves.
Would make good sense for the winter season, too, speaking of timing.

It would have to be one hell of a B&W film to make sense. 6400 with the grain of 400 or EI 50 IR with a big notch between blue and and red to allow use of yellow filters, would qualify.
But anything too close to the current lineup wouldn’t warrant the massive campaign.

Agulliver · Nov 7, 2023

koraks said:
The whole idea of Harman having secretly figured out a fully fledged color film product in total secrecy over the past years sounds very frivolous to me. On the other hand, Harman engineering a new-ish B&W film based on their existing competencies seems quite likely. Hence my expectation that this is something like Harman Pan 1600 that's about to hit the shelves.
Would make good sense for the winter season, too, speaking of timing.

I'm also very sceptical that they could have perfected colour film, especially C41 which is where the market demand is.

Is there any reason why this 1600 ISO panchromatic B&W film couldn't be sold under the Ilford name, though? I'd certainly be all over it as I push HP5+ to 1600 frequently, and a native 1600ISO B&W film would fit very nicely in my arsenal.

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