Film Experiments: Harman Phoenix II 200 and Kodak Portra 400

Now that I’ve developed a few rolls of “regular” film I’ve been finding myself wanting to branch out and experiment, so for my birthday (already months ago!) I picked up two novelty films, to me anyway.

Harman Phoenix II

The first one was Harman Phoenix II, an “experimental” film that’s newly produced, which makes it exciting to film photography people. I’m too new to really find it exciting, I barely know about any kind of film, but when I looked it up online I found myself really liking the way people’s results were coming out, even though people were straightforward that results were inconsistent.

I do not like these results very much, honestly, and these are the best I got! My more typical result is maybe better illustrated here.

First of all it’s obviously underexposed, and according to the Internet it is actually better shot at ISO 125, and if I were to do it again, I think I’d actually set my camera to 100.

Second part is less solvable. It’s all orange af! This is due to the equipment used by labs being meant for normal film, which is orange. This film looks very different. It looks purple.

I can’t scan at home, and I don’t want to. So I don’t think I can get good results, and I should give up, but I am still tempted to try again at ISO 100.

Kodak Portra 400

This is a classic, professional film so it’s hardly “experimental”—except to me, deciding whether or not the cost (about twice as much) is worth it.

I love how it looks so much, it’s almost unfortunate. This is definitely what I’m going to be picking up for vacations and trips, I’m pretty sure. Apparently it takes editing and adjustments very well, but I’ve got no idea about that yet since I haven’t felt the urge to adjust anything. It’s so good!

Next Up

I’m currently shooting a roll of Cinestill 800T! This is a night film which I find super intriguing (especially after the end of daylight savings time). I really hope this turns out better than the Phoenix though, since it’s going to take a number of weeks to get through 36 night shots. I’ve also picked up a daytime filter so that’s some possibility as well!

I’m also planning on making a Bluesky account just for photos, which then I can pull into a feed for my website. Whenever I find the time! I’ve been very busy lately, so photography is the only artistic hobby I’ve been able to peruse (easy to grab a camera to take with me to various places!). I hope this changes soon!