Harman Phoenix II – My first roll and some brief thoughts on the development of this new film

Harman have just announced the release of their second colour film, Phoenix II. As per the last few releases out of the factories in Mobberly, I have been lucky enough to have received a few rolls to shoot and write about in the run up to the official announcement. This new film has launched in both 35mm and 120 formats, but so far I’ve only managed to shoot a roll of 35mm in time for this launch article, so you’ll have to wait a week or so for my 120 results (I have 1 shot from my first roll left in the Makina 67 at the moment)…

Phoenix II is the second iteration of colour film from Harman and replaces the first version entirely, that is to say, the original Phoenix film is set to effectively be discontinued – though they do say in the literature they sent out about Phoenix II that they “may decide to coat this film again in the future if there is significant interest”. In short, if you like the original, I would be inclined to go out and buy a whole load of it to both demonstrate the demand, and indeed make sure you have some in stock for a bit in case they don’t make it again!

If you followed the story of the first Phoenix film you will know that as a film stock, it subtlety improved in quality over its lifespan. This is a product of the fact that these films are a part of Harman’s experiments in creating a brand new colour film. Like the original, Phoenix II is a stepping stone in the development of a new film. It is not yet designed to be perfectly colour-accurate, rather it is a iteration of their process toward a new colour-accurate film and as as such should be considered as an “experimental” film – it is even marketed as such. In short, the colours etc are a bit whacky, and the film might see subtle changes to how it performs throughout its production run.

Now, the first Phoenix film really was whacky, so much so that the results from it varied quite dramatically from one persons results to the next. This was sometimes due to how the film was shot, how it was developed, sometimes how it was scanned and indeed sometimes how it was post processed on peoples’ computers – or possibly indeed a product of all of the above variables. With that in mind, you should probably take the results I have achieved with Phoenix II as simply indicative of what you might get, rather than what you will get if you shoot a roll of this film.

With that said, Phoenix II definitely seems to be a step toward a more conventional colour film. There’s still a good bit of halation (which I quite like sometimes), and the colours this time seem to have something of a propensity toward emphasising greens. It does though seem to be a little more effective at dealing with scenes that present a wider range of highlights and shadows. Grain seems to be a little more in line with what you might expect from a consumer colour film of this speed too.

Phoenix II is DX coded and marketed as a 200 speed film, as I shot my first roll at EI200, but the literature that came with the film indicated that best results are achieved at between 100 and 200, with certain shooting conditions benefiting from it being shot at slower speeds. I suspect I need to experiment a little more to determine exactly what is meant form that statement.

I think this is a really interesting development from Harman that shows potential for more varieties of colour film from them in the future, perhaps even a much more colour-accurate film. I have read occasionally that some people in the wider film photography community have issue with Harman selling a product that isn’t a final iteration of their development plans. Personally, I can’t really understand the logic of that perspective. For one, there is a proven market for “experimental” films – it seems a pretty sizeable percentage of film photographers today enjoy the idea that some film stocks can give them unconventional results. With that in mind, the simple business decision to release iterations of a film stock that will sell, and therefore will help the continued development of the film, is what seems much more logical to me – especially in the context of a world where there are already more colour-accurate films currently available. With that said, I do think – at least given the time to continue to develop their colour-accurate film, that Harman should return to manufacturing these more experimental films in the future. They aren’t really the sorts of films I like to shoot particularly regularly, but it strikes me that if there is a market and demand for them, they should attempt to respond to that demand – at least if it makes financial sense for them to do so.

Phoenix II is available now with a target retail price of £12.99 a roll – this is the same price the original was announced at back in 2013 and will be available at least until they release their next iteration.

If you would like to find out more about Phoenix II you can do so on their website harmanphoto.co.uk as well as on various social media platforms @harmanphoto – once you get your own roll, they are also encouraging the use of hashtags #phoenixfilm2 and #harmanphoenix2

My first roll was shot with my Leica M4-P, Omnar 50mm F2 Bertele and was developed and scanned by Analogue Wonderland (where it is also available to purchase – whilst stocks last, at least…) – I have subtly, but not particularly heavily tweaked my results in Lightroom too.

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