My first roll of the new Phoenix II color film came back from the lab yesterday and I don’t hate it.
Some of the images I really love.
But compared to Phoenix I, it seemed to do better with traditional lab scanners. Phoenix I, if you haven’t shot it and processed at a lab, is notoriously difficult to get decent results with Frontiers (and even Noritsu although it does better with this) even if the lab applied special settings provided by Harman.
It is SUPER pink in the highlights in overcast situations. And the shadows are very blue-green, which is my favorite part. This is probably my favorite couple of images.
If you scan at home, your results will probably look very different. But so many people use labs so I wanted to see how the lab would work with Phoenix II and also am still burnt out from home dev/scanning a bit. Plus my garden is going crazy so ain’t nobody got time to be scanning film around here. :)
These were developed by Boston Film Lab aka CatLabs.
I used my Olympus Stylus Epic 115 point and shoot for these and they are low res web versions. That being said, I find Phoenix still grainy with a good amount of halation.
Phoenix II seems to handle a slightly wider latitude compared to Phoenix I which is a welcomed improvement!
I like the colors especially now in sunnier shots.
To compare, here are some recent shots with Phoenix I (albeit medium format) that was developed by the same lab around the same time.
So, for Phoenix II, I’m seeing slightly better latitude overall depending on the scenario and an interesting color change. I have one more roll of 35mm and two rolls of 120 of Phoenix II to shoot and am very interested to see how it goes!
Despite it still being ‘experimental’, I’m glad to see Harman continue to explore this project and hope that someday they come out with a color film that isn’t so experimental and can be used in a variety of conditions with a more balanced palette. Especially given the current volatility of other color film manufacturers.
Have you shot this yet? What are your thoughts?
~M
Some lovely images here Molly, very peaceful - I am very much enjoying the vibe of Phoenix II I am still yet to shoot. but I look forward to it. Good little read -Thank you
I only shot Phoenix I in overcast conditions (because of the lack of latitude). I shot my first roll of Phoenix II in bright sunny high contrast mixed lighting conditions and wasn’t very happy with it. I love the tones you got out of II on those overcast shots though, so I’ll be waiting for a cloudy day to see what I can do with it!