Harman Phoenix II

Harman Photo's radical colour negative film has had a serious reboot.

- John Gilbey gives the new emulsion a test drive

Colour negative film once formed the core of the amateur photography marketplace. From around the 1960s until the early 2000s, no family event or holiday was complete without someone toting a 35mm or 126 format film camera loaded with colour print film to record the occasion.

The arrival of digital compacts, and subsequently the ubiquitous presence of high-quality mobile phone cameras, removed the mass market appeal of the product, and the High Street infrastructure of One Hour labs and chemist shop photo-finishers all but disappeared. This left just a relatively few keen stalwarts using colour negative film, mostly for certain specific tasks such as portraiture and landscape.

In the past few years, however, colour negative film has had something of a resurgence. A raft of mostly repurposed or rebadged types of film stock have been made available under imaginative and colourful branding, that's designed to be attractive to those seeking a retro, analogue colour film experience.

Harman’s Phoenix II seems to buck this trend, offering a wholly new emulsion which has been built from the ground up. I decided to take a look at what it offers.

Background

The folk at Harman Photo kindly sent me a couple of rolls of Phoenix II to try out. As you would expect from a major supplier - Harman also produces the Ilford-branded monochrome films and other products - the product as delivered held few surprises. A blue-themed cardboard carton holds a traditional black plastic tub to protect the film cassette, complete with a soft ‘pop’ and subtle waft of chemistry when you open the tub.