Harman Phoenix Looks Good in a HOLGA

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I bought a roll of Phoenix 200 (120) in Barcelona while dropping off a small boatload of film at Carmencita Film Lab. It was there…staring at me from the top shelf of the film fridge, right at my eye level…and I couldn’t resist the impulse.

It was the last day of the trip, in fact I was headed back to the airport in an hour from the centre of the city.

But, I had three rolls waiting for me at home and I wanted to see as quickly as possible if it would be okay to shoot in the Holga.

AND IT WAS.

Well, sort of…

The above photo was an image of my coffee and a person outside the shop window walking their dogs. I had the Holga on the Shade setting but it’s not enough light as the Shade is F8, if memory serves.

Carmencita scanned this roll using the Nortisu and neutral settings. I added some contrast and lifted the shadows a touch.

Side note on Carmencita: They keep a record of how you like your scans to be adjusted in your profile which is amazing. For example, if you like a certain color balance or contrast (etc.). One of my favorite labs, super friendly, incredible scans. Now 9 EURO worldwide shipping back to you! #notsponsored

The scenes that had plenty of sunshine came out great. I shot a bunch of multiple exposures to add some texture into the shadows and intrigue overall. This can be a gamble but I think it paid off, with one shot in particular.

The shot below where you cannot see anything was in a decently lit bathroom. I wasn’t sure if there would be enough light, but obviously not as evidenced by the scan below.

Here’s what the scene looked like! (Should have used Flash)

A double exposure shot in the shade came out like this:

This next shot was a 2x exposure of a shop window with the lamp, then another shot of this graffiti door which was in full sun. If it had just been the shop window, I doubt you’d see anything except the lamp.

SO, if shooting this film in a Holga, aim it towards something in the sun…or a strong light source.

When I posted these results on Instagram, a commenter said the experimental nature of Phoenix lends itself to being shot in a Holga. I agree, but it’s also a more expensive option to experiment with compared to Gold 200.

On the other side of the coin to this though, Phoenix is an investment, a film not made by Kodak, which could be argued, it is essential to support. It won’t do well for the industry long term if we are all relying on one company for color film, especially in medium format.

Tangent! Speaking of color film in medium format, I’m going to be testing out this release from the Film Photography Project team soon, so stay tuned! Have you shot this yet? Let me know!

What do you think of Phoenix? Have you tried it in 120 yet?

While I don’t appreciate the way Harman has teased Phoenix (it’s too much/long haha), I do like that when they release it, they’ve already shipped it out to distributors, retailers, shops, etc., so it’s available when they announce it.

I’ve been traumatized by my Orwo pre-order! (There’s a video about this on my channel :) ). I’m not a fan of pre-orders in general though.

I’m back from my travels and looking forward to shooting Phoenix this autumn! I’m curious to see fall colors on it and will likely use the Holga again now that I am more familiar with how to use it with this film. However, at least one roll is going through my Rolleiflex!

The dynamic range of Phoenix depends on the scanning process, but I’d say it’s not as terrible as it first seemed. I was able to recover much of the shadows from my files (lowest res scans) that had been well-exposed.

If you watch Shaka1277 or Pushing Film, Alex and Hashem talk a lot about scanning Phoenix (both 35mm and 120). There’s a lot more room to play with home scanning it seems than often what comes back from the lab!

If you are looking for more materials or content about Phoenix and haven’t binged YouTube yet, there are quite a few creators who have published videos on it as usual! I made a playlist here, but let me know if there was anyone I missed!

Phoenix 200 in 120 YouTube Playlist

Thoughts?

Chat soon!

~Molly