Harman Phoenix Colour Negative 200 ISO daylight film - anyone tried it yet

[TomB_tx]

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Harman Phoenix II is now out, claiming to be quite improved over their previous "experimental" release. It does seem to be improved, with better grain, etc. and scanning does seem easier than the original. I didn't try anything fancy, just shooting around the house checking color and consistency, etc. The film still has no orange mask like normal color negatives, but overall it scanned well with just automatic settings on an Epson V850. Colors generally looked pretty good except that bright reds are quite orange compared to the Fuji 200 I processed in the same batch. Here's a shot of a bright red wagon, no tweaks - just auto scanned. The greenery, flowers, and background bricks all look natural, only the red looks off. Also, I shot with an M7 on auto exposure, and most shots indoors under LED room lights were very underexposed, while other color films in the same situation were not - so there seems to be something about sensitivity and light spectrum (or rapidly strobing sources) that is unusual.

But the improvements are promising, and hopefully they will continue to develop the product, as another color film source would be appreciated.

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[TomB_tx]

Just for comparison I shot the wagon with Portra 400 and processed in the same Cinestill mix and scanned the same. Note the colors of Portra below. To be fair, this was in cloudy shade where the Phoenix II had sun, so the shade is cooler. Also the indoor shots on Portra had consistent good exposure, unlike Phoenix II.

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Edited yesterday at 12:46 AM by TomB_tx

[erl]

2 hours ago, TomB_tx said:

Just for comparison I shot the wagon with Portra 400 and processed in the same Cinestill mix and scanned the same. Note the colors of Portra below. To be fair, this was in cloudy shade where the Phoenix II had sun, so the shade is cooler. Also the indoor shots on Portra had consistent good exposure, unlike Phoenix II.

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Thanks Tom for the comparisons. Clearly the Phoenix still has a way to go. If I may point out that your scan of the Portra is rather Blue and not true to the real quality of Portra. The cost of Portra is beyond me these days, except for exceptional occasions. I have not tried the Phoenix11 and probably will not as yet. I tried the the original Phoenix in both 35mm and 120 format and was disappointed in its reliability. Currently I find Kodak Gold a better and more reliable compromise between cost and accuracy.

[wlaidlaw]

Phoenix II looks a bit like Kodak Colorplus, which I disliked when I used it in my R9 in India in 2016. 

Wilson

[TomB_tx]

9 hours ago, erl said:

Thanks Tom for the comparisons. Clearly the Phoenix still has a way to go. If I may point out that your scan of the Portra is rather Blue and not true to the real quality of Portra. The cost of Portra is beyond me these days, except for exceptional occasions. I have not tried the Phoenix11 and probably will not as yet. I tried the the original Phoenix in both 35mm and 120 format and was disappointed in its reliability. Currently I find Kodak Gold a better and more reliable compromise between cost and accuracy.

I agree that shot with Portra does have a blue cast, but that was not apparent on other shots on that roll, so I attribute it to the "open shade" lighting at that time which is more blue than sunlight. Of course my home processing in Cinestill C41 and AGO processor can affect it as well. I also didn't do any adjustments in the Epson auto scan or any post processing - I'm too old to mess with that much now unless it's an "important" picture. But both this and the Phoenix shot had the same process & scan, so some comparison is valid.

[TomB_tx]

4 hours ago, wlaidlaw said:

Phoenix II looks a bit like Kodak Colorplus, which I disliked when I used it in my R9 in India in 2016. 

Wilson

Interesting - I think Harman (Ilford) will keep working on the product to improve it - color film design & manufacture is an art in itself.

[wlaidlaw]

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Hopefully the Phoenix II has a wider latitude than Colorplus. It is the only colour negative film I have used in the last 30 years, where I was getting under and over exposure in the same image with blown out light bits and blocky no detail dark bits. You would not believe it came from the same company that gives us the excellent Ektra and Porta plus the perfectly adequate Gold 200. Kodak had the nerve to classify this as a "Professional Film" excellent for use in hot sunny climates. Unfortunately their advertising fooled me and as I did not get the 8 rolls developed until I got back to the UK, by which time it was too late. Apparently this is a really cheap film which is sold as their cheapest colour film in third world countries. 

Wilson

[david strachan]

Thanks for the heads up Wilson.

I'll stick to my Gold 200.