Phoenix II pictures

Meinrad · Thursday at 11:47 AM

Salü,
took some quick shots yesterday, developed in Jobo C41. Base is pink/violett, and reds are muddy orange (see swiss flag as reference) Would love to see your pictures..

...

pentaxuser · Thursday at 11:59 AM

Wow the reds look a long way from red. The Swiss flag and what I assume to be red sun shades on the building based on the Swiss flag look very definitely orange

Are you sure it is not your settings on your scanner that is giving this effect I have seen a few pictures from Phoenix II and all had much better reds?

pentaxuser

BrianShaw · Thursday at 12:02 PM

Thanks for the examples and starting the thread. You are a true Photrio influencer as Im now even more interested to use this new film. I’ve been influenced! The red is a bit surprising yet I like the overall look. The lack of clear whites doesn’t bother me either. It will be interesting to see how the film renders with a McBeth Color Checker. Can you describe how you scanned these, please?

Meinrad · Thursday at 12:15 PM

I am using a Plustek 8200i with vuescan. This time i had to set the white balance (first auto setting and adjusted a little with the sliders) because of the violet base. It might be very likely you will get better results as the chemistry was already used before and i didn`t fiddle a long time with the settings in vuescan, just until i liked the result.

blee1996 · Thursday at 12:48 PM

Thanks for sharing your early results! @Meinrad

One quick question: which ISO settings did you use for exposure? 200?

From my experience with Phoenix I, I got consistently good results by:
- Expose at ISO 100
- Scan as slides, and convert in Negative Labs Pro with neutral settings

You can see from my flickr stream of Phoenix I photos from bad to good chronically

Harman Phoenix 200

Harman Phoenix 200 - the new color negative film

www.flickr.com

Meinrad · Thursday at 12:51 PM

ahh, good question! The guy in the shop showed me some negatives and he suggested 125, better 80, so i have set it to 125, but I used an old Leica meter and would call it more guessing but measuring ;-)
Your reds are looking much better, so theres hope, nice shots by the way!

koraks · Thursday at 2:12 PM

Meinrad said:
and reds are muddy orange (see swiss flag as reference)

This has more to do with how you scan & color correct than with the film as such. Try scanning these as positives/slides and then adjusting the color balance manually as I propose here: https://tinker.koraks.nl/photography/flipped-doing-color-negative-inversions-manually/ It takes a little practice, but you can get really consistent results this way. It has worked fine for all CN films for me, including Phoenix I so it will most definitely also work with Phoenix II.

If you could post a positive scan of one or two negatives, I could give you an example of how it could be inverted manually. I bet the reds will come out red that way.

kori · Thursday at 3:59 PM

Looks good.

so much different with Phoenix I

chromemax · 2025-07-18T05:25:52-0400

These are mine, a quick test with flowers of my garden:

Color fidelity is better than Phoenix I, look at skins tones on colorcheker (first two top left samples) but there is still some of work to do on reds and magentas. Grain of Phoenix II is much better than Phoenix I, great job done by Mobberley guys, but is still far from the grain of Kodak or Fuji films.

Lachlan Young · 2025-07-18T05:51:02-0400

It's quite consistent with partial masking (i.e. of greens, but not yet red). The base colour would tend to support this.

Meinrad · 2025-07-18T08:53:03-0400

@Korax:
here is the picture with the swiss flag scanned as positive with all settings for color to 1, if you would like to try i would be really curious.
But I have to say i am more the dogma-95 guy (if you remember the movie makers manifest from the 90ies) so i try to keep post pro to a minimum...

brbo · 2025-07-18T09:05:30-0400

Where have all the colours gone...

koraks · 2025-07-18T09:33:23-0400

Meinrad said:
here is the picture with the swiss flag scanned as positive with all settings for color to 1

As @brbo implied, something's not right what that scan. Scan it as it looks to the naked eye. See post #9 for an example. Your scan right now has a very dominant magenta cast all over the place.

Meinrad · 2025-07-18T09:37:31-0400

yes, the base is violet....

koraks · 2025-07-18T10:22:35-0400

Meinrad said:
yes, the base is violet....

AFAIK it should look something like this:

(Taken from here: https://www.revelab.es/harman-phoenix-200-nueva-pelicula-negativa-color-c41/)
Which inverts to something like this with a simplistic linear inversion:

Note the color of the Phoenix mkI box, which look quite natural.

Can you post a photo of the St.Gotthardt hotel negative on a light box?
It's kind of odd that your negatives would behave so differently from those of e.g. @chromemax. There doesn't appear to be a very fundamental red-problem on his film.

You mention these were C41-developed in a Jobo. Was this fresh developer?

Here's your photo with a straight linear inversion, similar to what I did above:

That gives very orange reds, indeed. It takes a massive, selective adjustment on the reds to make them look a little more realistic:

Interestingly, if I do that on your other images, things start to fall a little more into place there, too:

Note skin on arm and hat in the shop window.

There's something odd going on with your negatives or your scans. And I'm really not convinced it's the film as such.

Meinrad · 2025-07-18T10:34:50-0400

actually it was developed in Jobo chemistry, and it was last roll of eight before pooring it away, so far from optimal.
But the negatives i have seen in the store looked about the same....
Another Film is loaded, this one i will try with fresh chemistry, but i bet it will look about the same...

koraks · 2025-07-18T10:44:19-0400

Meinrad said:
But the negatives i have seen in the store looked about the same....

Are you sure about that? Your negative looks odd to me, even for Phoenix.

Here's what my Phoenix I looks like:

In your place I would be inclined to re-bleach and re-fix that film.

Meinrad · 2025-07-18T10:47:03-0400

Thank you your work Korax! Yes, the red tone matches better reality, maybe little bit too vivid. Unfortunately I do not remember the ladie's skin tone nor the right red hat in the window - i paid attention to other benefits (no - only joking ;-) , i have seen the szene only through the viewfinder)....
Maybe the truth lies between both, like always...

koraks · 2025-07-18T10:51:55-0400

The red in my edit is exaggerated; I used a Streetview image of the hotel as a reference, but I overdid it a little. I wanted to demonstrate what kind of adjustment would be necessary to bring things a little closer to where they should be.

Anyway, the base color on your negatives looks surprisingly dense. I suspect this has something to do with the issue with the reds, and I also suspect the cause may be in the processing of the film. It's just a hunch though. I don't have any Phoenix II at hand to play with (and I really doubt I'll get any of it soon - just too many other things to do rn...)

Meinrad · 2025-07-18T11:08:33-0400

I will definetly try another one with fresh chemistry, but what interests me much more how it will comev out with reversal processing. On the one hand it seems much more tame than the original Phoenix, but with a tinted base - more dense or not - i doubt it will become my favorite film for reversal. I have asked in the shop if Phoenix will be become obsolete, and he said most likely yes...

I just stumbled about an interesting story about the banana-king Schoggi shop: The city prohibited him to sell bananas because they suspected they have been brought by airplane - and they didn't want to have anything on the fan zone which falls not to their save the climat rules...
Only when he had proved that they came by ship he could continue his business... - now i understand he was smiling on the picture, he became a local celebrity....

koraks · 2025-07-18T11:11:00-0400

Meinrad said:
I have asked in the shop if Phoenix will be become obsolete, and he said most likely yes...

Nobody knows at this point. I do agree with the 'likely yes' assessment, but that's really just a hunch.

Meinrad said:
I just stumbled about an interesting story about the banana-king Schoggi shop

Haha, that's a neat anecdote!

brbo · 2025-07-18T12:01:51-0400

koraks said:
Nobody knows at this point. I do agree with the 'likely yes' assessment, but that's really just a hunch.

This video was linked before and the reviewer kinda authoritatively stated that Phoenix I will not be produced anymore (earlier in the video he claims to have talked to Harman people):

chromemax · 2025-07-18T12:05:05-0400

About pink/magenta stain I think that it is a dye that can be seen in every in color film and some BW film with color derived chemestry (e.g T-max).

Most color labs use a short or no wash going directly on stab bath, a regular procedure that can be find in kodak datasheet.

In home processing, where you can "waste" time, color films can be thoroughly washed. After the first 30" water rinse after fixer, water came off with a strong magenta color; if you wash your films for 10-15 minutes with a series of 30-60-120 seconds rinses untill wash water are clear the magenta cast on film disappear. I saw this with slide films (and may be that velvia magenta cast was due to washing too short?), color negative films (thorougly washed color negs have a less dense orange mask), with chromogenic BW films and of course with maskless color negs like Phoenix.

koraks · 2025-07-18T13:00:32-0400

@chromemax thanks for posting that; looks pretty much exactly like HP5+ and as you said Kodak TMAX. I always wash my film fairly thoroughly, although there's still a little magenta coming off by the time I call it good. At that point, most of it gone though. Btw, an alkaline wash can accelerate this dye release. A weak sodium carbonate solution works quite well; soak for 5 minutes or so and most of it will be gone.

I'm not quite sure whether the problem with the reds @Meinrad runs into is explained by this, but it's worth a try to just thoroughly wash one of the negative strips and see if that helps any. Your own negatives look very nice and clean, I have to say that!

mshchem · 2025-07-18T16:48:01-0400

chromemax said:
About pink/magenta stain I think that it is a dye that can be seen in every in color film and some BW film with color derived chemestry (e.g T-max).

Most color labs use a short or no wash going directly on stab bath, a regular procedure that can be find in kodak datasheet.

In home processing, where you can "waste" time, color films can be thoroughly washed. After the first 30" water rinse after fixer, water came off with a strong magenta color; if you wash your films for 10-15 minutes with a series of 30-60-120 seconds rinses untill wash water are clear the magenta cast on film disappear. I saw this with slide films (and may be that velvia magenta cast was due to washing too short?), color negative films (thorougly washed color negs have a less dense orange mask), with chromogenic BW films and of course with maskless color negs like Phoenix.

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Very important findings! The retained tint maybe not a big deal with XP-2 printing black and white??? Sure does matter when scanning and color printing a color film like Phoenix II. I received my 3 rolls of 120 Phoenix II today, I will try to wring a decent negative out of it.
Thanks for sharing this!!!

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