Phoenix II - released 2025-07-16 - speculation and hints during the lead up

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I mean i have this image in my mind where an ordinary street sign has an additional and smaller sign above saying: "If reds don`t render proper call 555-HARMAN-123" or something...
 

pentaxuser

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mshchem, you may not have been able to answer my question yet but from yours and other replies on this and another thread I will take it reds come out as orange so that the colour of the edges of the Yield sign was red

This seems like a major defect in terms of colour rendition and one that does not seem to be correctable but just an observation on my part

pentaxuser
 

Ten301

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I applaud Harman for their efforts with Phoenix I and II, and this is no way intended to be a negative statement. However, I’m reading and seeing the examples of the difficulty others are having achieving anything close to a true red with Phoenix II. I cannot understand how Harman could release an improved 2nd generation of Phoenix with such a glaring shortcoming, even with the understanding that the film is still a work in progress?
 

mshchem

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mshchem, you may not have been able to answer my question yet but from yours and other replies on this and another thread I will take it reds come out as orange so that the colour of the edges of the Yield sign was red

This seems like a major defect in terms of colour rendition and one that does not seem to be correctable but just an observation on my part

pentaxuser

I am absolutely not keen when it comes to scanning color negatives.

I don't know how to answer your question other than the sign isn't orange.

I used VueScan, fooled around a bit with the Microsoft photo editor for about 3 minutes.
Based on other folks results, I think this is a pretty good film, definitely worthy of trying.

Sharpness and grain look quite good.
 

dcy

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I cannot understand how Harman could release an improved 2nd generation of Phoenix with such a glaring shortcoming, even with the understanding that the film is still a work in progress?

All things are relative. I think the relevant question is whether Phoenix II is a noticeable improvement over Phoenix I, and from what I gather the consensus is that it is a huge improvement, even if you can point to one specific issue that got worse.

  • Dynamic range? --- Improved. ➕
  • Film speed? --- Improved. ➕
  • Scanning? --- Improved. ➕
  • Halation? --- Improved. ➕
  • Grain? --- Improved. ➕
  • Uniform color sensitivity? --- Improved. ➕
  • Overall color rendition? --- Improved. ➕
  • Huge of the color red? --- Worsened. ➖

Seven steps forward, one step back.

I don't think it's unreasonable that they'd release a product like this.
 

Ten301

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All things are relative. I think the relevant question is whether Phoenix II is a noticeable improvement over Phoenix I, and from what I gather the consensus is that it is a huge improvement, even if you can point to one specific issue that got worse.

  • Dynamic range? --- Improved. ➕
  • Film speed? --- Improved. ➕
  • Scanning? --- Improved. ➕
  • Halation? --- Improved. ➕
  • Grain? --- Improved. ➕
  • Uniform color sensitivity? --- Improved. ➕
  • Overall color rendition? --- Improved. ➕
  • Huge of the color red? --- Worsened. ➖

Seven steps forward, one step back.

I don't think it's unreasonable that they'd release a product like this.

Perhaps and, again, I am not attempting to be negative on Harman. I realize Phoenix II has made some substantial improvements over the first incarnation.

That being said, the red ‘problem’ is going to be so noticeable, it is going to be difficult to ignore. It will make it very hard to use the film as anything approaching a ‘normal’ film. For example, bright orange apples? Orange roses that are supposed to be red?

Reading these posts, I believe I understand how Harman is funding its R&D for Phoenix, and I’m also aware that creating a new color negative film out of thin air is a next to impossible task. I guess I expected, perhaps naively, that Phoenix Gen. II would have been somewhat more refined, or Harman would have waited just a little longer to release a film that could get reds somewhere in the ballpark.
 

dcy

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That being said, the red ‘problem’ is going to be so noticeable, it is going to be difficult to ignore. It will make it very hard to use the film as anything approaching a ‘normal’ film. For example, bright orange apples? Orange roses that are supposed to be red?

Yeah. Then again, you probably can't use Phoenix I as a "normal" film either. So I don't see that Harman or the consumer is losing anything.

I guess I expected, perhaps naively, that Phoenix Gen. II would have been somewhat more refined, or Harman would have waited just a little longer to release a film that could get reds somewhere in the ballpark.

I have no intuition as to how much work it'd take Harman to fix the reds.
 

dcy

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This reminds me of two approaches to software development:

Historically, most software products release a new version when some particular set of features is deemed complete. But some software projects, like the Ubuntu Linux distribution, releases a new version on a fixed calendar schedule and features that aren't deemed mature by a given date are postponed to a future release.

I have no idea what Harman's plans are, but if I was Harman I would be trying to find a balance between having regular enough releases to maintain public interest while having each release be enough of an improvement to get good publicity.
 

Agulliver

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Phoenix I was certainly not possible to use as an everyday or "normal" film. Phoenix II may come closer....I have some now but won't be shooting it for about a week. But it's still not meant to be "normal". Whether the odd rendition of red is noticed or spoils photos depends on what you're photographing. A nice landscape with greens and browns might well look a *lot* better with Phoenix II. A still life of apples and tomatoes, less so. Not sure how it's going to render skin tones but I've seen some very nice portraits shot with Phoenix II so there's hope.

In the end, those of us who use it should probably take the time to report here and to Harman what we like and don't like about it....so they can have feedback as to what to change for Phoenix III.
 
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To expand a bit on what I said earlier, here's how I see it. And I invite people with more in-depth knowledge such as@Lachlan Young, @laser and @Henning Serger to rectify my conjectures where they miss the mark.

As you you have adressed me, I will reply. Trying to make it as short as possible 😉:

We know for a fact that Harman is employing several people on their color development.

The general problem all film manufactuers are facing is that you cannot simply "hire an emulsionist / chemist / chemical engineer" who is well educated and trained in creating photographic emulsions. Because making photographic emulsions is such an extremely specialist task / topic, that it is not taught at universities (or other educational institutions).
So after hiring a chemist or chemical engineer, you have to train / educate him in house by yourself, by your own company to become an emulsion specialist. That takes about 3-5 years, to become a (very) good emulsionist.

They have a whole set of challenges on their plates, of course - but hey, so does Ino/Filmotec.

We should not forget that both InovisCoat and FilmoTec, after being purchased by Jake Seal and his investment group, got into insolvency and suffered a huge brain drain (all the experts I met at my factory visit at InovisCoat before the insolvency left the company in the insolvency). FilmoTec also suffered a huge brain drain, as most of all long-employed experts there left the company. Also most of the FilmoTec machinery was sold.
Meanwhile both companies are even officially liquidated, so they does not exist anymore from a legal point of view.
As Jake Seal is now main shareholder of Film Ferrania, we have to wait and see whether - or which - assets of InovisCoat and FilmoTec could have been saved, and may perhaps in the future be used in connection with Film Ferrania.


So based on technical complexity, it's unlikely that either #2 or let alone #3 would be feasible in response to a single customer pestering Filmotec for a bit and waving a modest amount of cash in their general direction. Looking at things from that end, we could make some haphazard quantitative assumptions and see how the numbers would work out. Keep in mind we're not talking about Kodak and Fuji here, so production batch sizes will likely be a heck of a lot smaller. Let's say an initial market-oriented production batch would be, ah, wild guess, 50k rolls for this new Orwo 200 product. Let's also say that for the purpose of this incremental development of the product, around $0.50 per roll would be made available for R&D expenditure (which I think is rather on the very generous side). This would mean an R&D budget of $25k. You can't do all that much for that kind of money. Put a chemical engineer into a well-equipped lab and he'll burn through $1k/day easily in brut wages, cost of capital, materials etc. That means 20 days of work plus a little administrative overhead, and at that point nobody in the R&D chain has made any money off of the thing except 'Bernd the Dipl. Ing' who goes home with a decent but still modest salary. You can't do all that much in 20 days - maybe, if you're very lucky, #1. But only downhill with the wind in your back and looking at the end product with not too critical a QA focus. So also from that end, things don't really look in favor of "yes, dear customer, we will make you a properly masked film out of nowhere in little to no time at all."

You are right, the above mentioned amount for an R&D budget is next to nothing. Creating a CN film is extremely difficult, and even an established colour film manufacturer with a working CN technology / infrastructure would need about a higher six-digit to lower seven-digit € sum to create a completely new CN film (a mass-market compatible "normal" film).

Therefore:
Harman technology's approach to integrate their loyal customers into the R&D process, making the R&D steps accessible to their customers, asking for their feedback, and generate funding for the continued R&D by selling these R&D steps = experimental films, is really the only practicable way for a relatively small company to manage that huge challenge (Harman has about 200 employees).
And their BW products are also not high-margin products, which could potentially be used as a "deep reservoir" for funding the whole colour film development.

Both from a technological, and from an economic point of view Harman technology has chosen the absolute right strategy. And they deserve to be supported by the film community.

Best regards,
Henning
 
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