Harman Phoenix 200 - 120
First introduced in December of 2023 in 35mm format only, Harman Phoenix is a 200 ISO color negative film produced by the British manufacturer Harman Technology Ltd. While long involved in the making of black and white films, Phoenix 200 is the company's first major foray into a color film. The film is billed as an exploratory first step toward the production of further color films by Harman, so time will tell where this adventure will take us.
Harman Phoenix 200 is an interesting film. It appears to use the same film base as Harman's other C-41 film: Ilford XP2. Developed Phoenix has a distinctly purple base which can have effects on both printing and scanning. Due to this purple base, minilab and home scanners tend to produce scans that have a warm, yellow cast. This cast can be corrected for with attention and effort but it should be noted that depending on where you have your Phoenix printed or scanned, your mileage in terms of the look of your results can vary quite a bit.
The purple base aside, Phoenix 200 has proven itself to be a film of high contrast and grain. The higher contrast can give it fairly poppy colors. If care is taken to eliminate the yellowish color cast, the overall color palette can be pretty true to life, albeit with the aforementioned contrast and saturation. There is a halation effect similar to but not as strong as seen with the Cinestill color films. Backlit subject matter or bright, distinct highlights can have a glow around them.
Phoenix 200 is also a film that loves to have as much light as possible. Overexposing it will quickly have an effect on contrast and color casts in the highlights, while even slight underexposure quickly causes a loss of detail in the shadows. We do not recommend exposing this film any fast than its 200 speed rating. Giving it 1/3 to 1/2 stop overexposure is not a bad idea in terms of safeguarding against unintentional underexposure and the loss of shadow detail. Overall we would say its latitude is certainly narrower than your typical color negative film and makes handling this film more akin to shooting with slide film in terms of the care needed for accurate exposure.
Harman Phoenix 200 in the 120 format made its debut in September 2024.
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