Ilford Kentmere 200 (35mm, 120) coming soon...

@MattKing well put

I have no interest in shooting red scale film, but it seems popular in some circles, and glancing around online stores it looks like it is a buck more for a ready made roll of it with adjusted DX code...

A extra dollar to avoid having to faff about and risk exposure or scratches for flipping a roll of film around on the spool sounds like money well spent instead of doing it myself if that's what I really wanted. And saving me the time of hunting down or modifying the DX code on the spool? An even better deal.

At the same time I'm going to argue that even if it is their 100 or 400 film repackaged with push/pull times as the default to hit the ISO 200 midpoint, then I'm honestly not really going to worry about that if they're fair on pricing. There is value in a product being packaged for a specific use. Point and shoot cameras with few adjustable controls are popular, and again I can see the value in the 'properly' DX coded cartridges. And even in medium format, that simple change of of the exposed roll tape has value if I know I'm going to be using a mix of that film at ISO 200 and its original rating. It keeps me being off a stop because I messed up and labeled a roll wrong for push/pull processing.

Or worse, because I really messed up and swapped the label with another roll, and spoiled two of them...

Box Pretty!!

As @MattKing says above, there's nothing wrong and almost certainly nothing to fear from Harman branching out into the wider photographic market. Remember always that their license to use the Ilford name is quite limited and largely applies to B&W photo products which were already brought to market many years ago.

The Kentmere 200 "mystery" may well be solved when we actually see what the film can do. It probably does have some characteristic which sets it apart from K100 and K400. And it's also worth remembering that a lot of the younger folk being careful with money and buying Kentmere are not developing their own film, and/or not pushing/pulling....so having another speed option makes sense. A reliable 200ISO B&W film is also going to be something that might appeal to people who would otherwise like to buy Fomapan 200 in 120 format, given the reported issues with that particular film.

The Redscale thing is a bit of a gimmick, but it's a popular one. The small price increase for the convenience of not respooling your own film and having a factory loaded cassette that any lab can process is worth it for those people who like the redscale films. And Harman are very open about it being Phoenix turned backwards. They specifically state this on the website.

It has been nigh on a decade since Pemberstone took ownership of Harman/Ilford Photo/Kentmere. And in that time they've continued to be very good to us folk who traditionally buy their Ilford (and perhaps Kentmere) products. There's certainly no evidence that they want to drop any products....but if they're to continue to thrive, they do need to add to their portfolio of products. And the new Harman and Kentmere branded products are part of that. It all ensures that our beloved Ilford films remain in production, available at fairly reasonable prices.

grain elevator said:

I doubt Harman want to do this to their reputation, but if there has been a change in the marketing department, I suppose it's possible.
I don't see the need for a 200 speed film along with 100 and 400 unless it has characteristics other than speed that differ from the other offerings. Maybe it's designed to be a XX and FOmapan 200 replacement with an especially long straight line?

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Fantastic if true. I'm in the process of abandoning Foma film & chemicals in 120 and if what you suggest ends up being true, this will be the last nail in the coffin.

However, as much as it pains me to say it, I actually fear @loccdor might be right. I fear this might have been conceived as an alternative to the Maco Rollei Retro products, marketed at 2X or 3X their box speed and loved by the newcomers & the clueless elders alike for their 'rich blacks'.

I mean, one does not have to go too far. Take Kentmere 400 for instance. If you head to Reddit, the urban myth is that it's a 'flat film'. So a real 400 ISO film is, in 2025, a 'flat' film. Most people are clueless about the link between development-related variation and contrast variation, and I suspect most new users would just drop their film at the local lab who do bog standard development unless instructed otherwise.

Result: Kentmere 400 is, in the analogue photography social media world, 'flat'. So now Harman wants to show that no, Kentmere film can have those 'rich blacks' too. 50 ISO aerial film and slap a 200 on the box.

I really, really hope I'm proven wrong soon.

@albireo That would surely fly in the face of everything Harman has ever done.

I get people being concerned 10 years ago when Pemberstone suddenly entered the story, but I really don't understand all this worry now. Heck, I suffer from sometimes quite terrible anxiety but this is one thing I just ain't got the jitters over.

koraks said:

The high contrast is indeed a clue; this might for instance be the medium-speed emulsion for a C41 product.

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I'd suggest that it's more likely to be the slow component - with the XP2 Super derived emulsions as the fast component - the various couplers will cost a stop + of speed - especially if the whole thing is to end up somewhere between 100-200. It probably has a curve shape designed to ensure that it therefore interlinks correctly with the fast component - and that will be what may make it seem more contrasty, even if Kentmere 200 is supplied to nominally deliver a 0.62 average gradient, rather than the 0.9+ needed in a product that will eventually be masked. The people who make all sorts of strange claims about old Super-XX may, however, be in a for a rude shock about their curve shape assumptions.

It will be quite easy for Ilford to manipulate curve gradients (and all other curve characteristics) at will in their emulsion design systems - so you could take a material initially aimed at a 0.9 average gradient for use in a masked colour neg product and coated at a gsm of silver needed to form part of a larger set of multi-emulsion layers - and instead aim it at 0.62 gradient and coated at the gsm needed to fulfill the necessary characteristics of a B&W neg film.
Done in reverse with XP2's emulsions, that is essentially how Phoenix was arrived at - the curves and gradients they used aren't arbitrary, but they make a lot of sense if you understand the effects of colour and contrast masking (and the aim contrast for masked separations) - which is admittedly a sufficiently arcane and obscure field that it leads to all sorts of self-evidently erroneous claims about Harman's knowledge and abilities.

Essential Photo Supply has Kentmere 200 pages on their site, 36 exposure is $7.99, 120 is $6.99, and 100' bulk is $89.99 (though the photo/description has info for Kentmere 100, so not sure if its a messup on their part or what).

The 35mm & 120 rolls are available to buy (was able to add them to the cart), the bulk roll shows "sold out"

Until a characteristic curve is published, one has no idea of what this really is without actually testing it.

Comparisons with Foma/Arista 200 are probably unrealistic. That's the only "straight-line" emulsion still on the market; and it sure ain't actual 200 speed; not even close.
FP4 has the longest straight line of any Ilford product, but you need to boost the shadows up off the toe by exposing it around 50.

As for Super XX, all those "walking dead Zombie sheet film" horror flicks are just fiction anyway. It's not coming back from the dead. No need to panic, Lachlan. However, it's still possible to be gored by the triple horns of Triassic-X, the last living relative of Triceratops.

DREW WILEY said:

Until a characteristic curve is published, one has no idea of what this really is without actually testing it.

However, it's still possible to be gored by the triple horns of Triassic-X, the last living relative of Triceratops.

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What about T-Rex Pan?

Thread split into two and locked. The moved posts - which reflect the official release of the film on May 8, 2025 and discussion of what is known about it, can be found here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/harman-kentmere-200-announced-2025-05-08.213596/