New color film stocks are a rare thing in the 2020s. This goes some way to explaining why the original Harman Phoenix 200, announced in December 2023, was greeted so rapturously by the analog-shooting community. The prospect of new color film, made by a company with a good reputation (Harman owns Ilford, the B&W specialists) could only be a good thing.
And indeed, Phoenix 200 itself proved to be… good. A little grainy, a little unpredictable, with a color palette that was striking, but hardly true to life. My colleague Gareth’s 3.5-star Harman Phoenix review was pretty representative of the majority opinion at the time – good for a first try, but we’re eager to see the next swing.
