harman phoenix 200
Hey Siri: How do I make my hands look not weird holding up a box of film?
Have you ever thought about the correct tone for blue in the sky, or are you a normal person without a head injury?
How bright it is generally should be a factor of what film stock you should be using. Usually. As requested.
Mix-matching specific film stocks to environments that do not match those recommendations can create close-to-perfect science experiments: “What would it look like if I used x-film-stock in an environment / with a purpose they tell you not to?” This is the nerdiest and costliest rebellion of all time. It’s actually quite dumb.
Harman Phoenix 200 has an orange box with a red-orange phoenix graphic on the side of it. The orange color to me says, “This film stock is warm AF.” But it’s not warm as in a Kodak Gold sort of sense where you’re getting more warm tones in the images you’re creating. It’s more like, “If you don’t use this roll of film in a warm place with a bright blue sky, I don’t know man, best of luck. Otherwise, enjoy this eclectic film stock.”
So of course, like an excited little kid, I couldn’t help it. I wanted to try it as soon as possible. As soon as the weather app on my phone started showing partly sunny skies in London, I was like, “It’s time.” So I took out the Harman Phoenix 200 and loaded it up in my Canon Elan II with a nifty-50 around just to see what the results would be.
Unfortunately, I don’t know if I was ready for this film stock. As you can see immediately from this pair of frames in the first few shots, this film stock cares a lot about the color blue, and about highlights and shadows, in an obsessed sort of way. This first shot of this lady on this bench is okay and not really interesting, but you can tell that because the camera was facing away from the sun, there was a lot more of that highlighted candy blue to be captured.
I like the composition of this guy on this bench instead a lot more, but as you can see, the camera is facing the direction of sunlight; the bench is less highlighted, and the sky is more highlighted. It’s a laid back image but in my broken brain, everything is far more intense. The shadows that make up the buildings in front are so, blue? I should point out that these changes - when pointing towards the sunlight - happen in one way or another in every film stock, but with Phoenix 200, the effects feel more pronounced and, maybe this is a weird way to describe it: “electric”.
I started doing my own thing: wait for blue and focus on buildings. Phoenix 200 really wants to pull blue and make your highlights pop in a weird way. If your subject has less highlights, that sky is going to be dark. More highlights: bright. Pretty straightforward. In the above set of four, the top two are kind of tough - the shadows are insanely overblown.
That being said, I really liked these bottom two images in the set above. The plainness of the different buildings and light, the tree in between that was flowered, I felt was really, really good. There was a man in the window but again because there isn’t room for dynamic range, he’s lost to the shadow. I liked the guy on the bike in the bottom right image mainly because he’s cycling in the opposite direction of the sign that says “Except cycles.” Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think? Maybe a little too ironic… If you really do think.
I started playing with some double exposures towards the end of the roll. Getting the feeling that the film stock itself was going to produce some weird results, I would make up for those weird highlights and colors by attempting some weirder compositions. Fight fire with fire.
Most of them were really bad, but the above two I was okay with, and the second one with the pink flowers I think really is so interesting. In the window you can see a person wearing a shirt. Cool. This is probably my favorite shot I took.
Perhaps the most balanced (normal, not weird) example of what Phoenix 200 can do in practice is the last image I took in the roll below.
The grain? Goes hard. Highlights / shadows? Goes hard. Blue? I feel like this is the perfect color for the sky. We did it, Harman.
I’m not in a rush to use this film stock again. It is “cool” in a I bought it at Urban Outfitters kind of way (non-derogatory at Urban Outfitters), but the overall effect of this roll of film is kind of too out there for me, too specific. It’s kind of like if I got a really old disposable camera, pulled the film out and stuck it in my SLR. I don’t know what the purpose of that is but, okay cool, if that’s your thing. Live your life.
I’ll use this again someday.
Film: Harman Phoenix 200
Frame Dates: 23 - 26 March
Development Date: March 27
