Like pretty much everybody else in the analog world, I was pretty stoked to hear about the release of a new color film stock by Harman Technologies. It’s not every day (or even every decade?) that a new 35mm film stock is developed from scratch and released into the wild during the age-of-digital-everything. Even though I mostly shoot black-and-white, I coughed up $35.97 to buy three rolls of the new Phoenix 200 “experimental” film from the Film Photography Project store in early December 2023.
Fast forward a couple of months and I finally got around to home developing a batch of color film, my first roll of Phoenix 200 included. But since it was a brand new film, the next question was how to scan it with my flatbed scanner and Silverfast 8 to get the best results. After digging around online, I didn’t find much to help my workflow.
So here’s what I’d recommend if you’re using Silverfast software to scan Harman Phoenix 200 film:
First some things to know about Phoenix 200 to get the best results:
— It likes light. If the film is underexposed or shot in poorly-lit settings then the shadows tend to be muddy. Many people recommend rating this film at ASA 125 instead of it’s “native” 200.
— Embrace the grain, because there’s a lot of it. And it’s chunky. But that’s not always a bad thing.
— Don’t expect it to be Portra 400. It doesn’t have nearly the same latitude, meaning you’re going to lose details in the highlights and have blow outs — and shadows may be muddy and not black — but whatever. Have fun with it. It’s experimental and it’s new.
— Consider using a flash when shooting indoors. For me it made the difference between usable-if-not-perfect photos and shots that will never leave the folder on my desktop, or negative sleeve or whatever (except maybe for this post to prove my point).
Those are my basic tips for shooting Harman Phoenix 200. Now on to digitizing those negatives.
I use an Epson V600 flatbed scanner with Silverfast 8 software. It is far from a perfect setup, but it works pretty well for a budget rig. Silverfast has color profiles for a few dozen film types, which in my opinion can be wildly inconsistent and have some major color shifts from one image to the next even with similar lighting. So even when using well-known makes of film, it never hurts to play around with the profiles or color sliders to tweak your final output.
Once I loaded my Phoenix 200 scans onto the flatbed, I started playing around with different profiles to see if I could figure out a good fit, or at least something close to the examples I’d seen online and Instagram from professional labs.
Honestly, none of the film profiles worked to my liking for Phoenix 200. So I went with the little-used “other” settings. That’s right — the best Silverfast film profile for Harman Phoenix 200 is using no profile at all.
Under the “Negafix” dropdown, select Vender: Other, Filmtype: Other, and then play around with ISO/ASA settings. Standard worked best for me (although <Linear> is selected in the included photo). Monochrome is also an option.
Sorry this reads like one of those recipe blog posts with a bunch of words and a simple solution at the end, but I do hope it helps. Happy shooting!
