Greetings, fellow film shooters.
Like many of you late last year, I was excited that Harmon was releasing Phoenix 200, its first-ever color negative film stock. No re-spooling or re-branding here. This is a truly new and unique C-41 emulsion.
When I finally got my hands on some, I loaded it into my Canon P, went out, and did some shooting on a sunny, winter morning. From what I had read and seen, this film was grainy for 200, heavy on contrast, and tended to lean into the yellow/orange in its colors. I figured the early morning light would be a good match for that. If I have any sort of personal aesthetic, it leans heavily into saturated colors, inky black shadows, and high contrast.
There's a row of shops here in Memphis with hand-painted signage out front. Every photographer in town has hit this place. I was curious to see how the colors would render on Phoenix. Man, it was wild. The yellow and orange were certainly there, as was the high contrast. And dark. I mean, the blacks were BLACK. I shot this roll at box speed, and I 100% agree that this film is better suited to being rated at 160 ISO or maybe even lower. I will do that for the next roll, for sure. I've also heard that it works a bit better in flat light conditions, so I may try a little of that as well.
I think my favorite shot from the roll was of another Memphis photo icon, the Joe's Liquor neon Sputnik. Phoenix is also known for its halation of light sources, so I thought this would show that off nicely. It was blue hour on a cloudy day, and I had recently just bought a Canon LTM 50mm f1.2 for my P.
So, I had it wide open and shot it at 1/60. The halation was great, and the dark, contrasty nature of the film emphasized the vignetting of the lens at that setting.
So, what do I think? Phoenix 200 is really weird and I like it a lot. It's not an everyday sort of film stock, and it might flat-out run contrary to the way some people like to shoot. If you like pastel tones on Portra 400, Phoenix is not your film. But, if you're like me and enjoy things like Cinestill 400D, Candido Collective 200, or the beautiful and magic Adox ColorMission, I think you would do well to shoot this film.
Phoenix isn't perfect, and Harmon has even said as much. Think of this as V.1 and be excited that there will hopefully be newer, better iterations to come.
And finally, I think we can all be excited that there is a brand new film stock out in the world now. That is a win for the film shooting community. If Harmon can keep this up, who knows? Maybe Kodak will bring back Kodachrome!
All of these pics were developed and scanned at The Darkroom Lab. I have not done any edits.
