Harman Photo cryptic announcement/teaser

[koraks]

I'm sure the forums, reddit & Insta will be flooded with examples within a week.
The issue with color film is that I find it incredibly hard to judge by means of online examples.

 

[Agulliver]

I'm sure the forums, reddit & Insta will be flooded with examples within a week.
The issue with color film is that I find it incredibly hard to judge by means of online examples.

You are not alone in that thinking.

But I believe it's possible to get an idea of what a film can achieve even with online examples. It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to manipulate an image originated on Ektar to look like one shot on Superia 400. These films all have their own characteristics which do come out in online photos, even with manipulation.

It is true, more for colour than B&W, that screen and device make a difference. When I view a photo on my laptop it often looks quite natural, whereas on my phone the colours are way more vibrant and saturated....and tend to overdo the reds. If I cast from either device to my TV, it's quite natural....because that's how I've set up my devices....my phone is not primarily for viewing photos or movies.

Instagram will have lots of images on December 1 from the content creators/influencers who were given samples a month or so ago.

 

[albireo]

I'm sure many people will love it for its quirks.

Yeah.. Personally I'd have to see what those quirks are. If it's just quirks as in 'slightly off' spectral signature whilst preserving an overall realistic tonal balance, I'm all in. Will it look like some early iteration of Gold or Kodacolor, a honest yet still imperfect product? I'll buy stacks of it to support the company,

If on the other hand it's going to be one of those gimmick films giving strong and obvious colour dominants and used by people in the hope that showing a landscape with pink grass or orange skies will somehow make the photo, I'll jump straight back into mamma Kodak's arms.

 

[koraks]

It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to manipulate an image originated on Ektar to look like one shot on Superia 400.

I don't know about that. All I know is that what I see online and the optically exposed prints I hold in my own hand made from the same type of film can sometimes look very, very differently. For instance Portra 400 printed onto DPII doesn't look one bit like the Frontier scans I see online all the time. The difference isn't due to screens, calibration etc either. It's really fundamental.
It's different if you work hybrid/scan a lot, but since I virtually only shoot film in order to optically print, I really need/want the hands-on experience.

If it's just quirks as in 'slightly off' spectral signature whilst preserving an overall realistic tonal balance

I would expect that. Sort of a very funky spin on Aerocolor, with a low-tech 1950s-1960s look to it. I don't expect pink grass etc. from it. I do expect things like we've seen a few pages back with the people in the city underneath the red LED signs. Washed out / grey-ish skin colors seem very likely given the spectral response.

 

[MattKing]

I'd be interested if it emulated something like the colour palette of mid-late 70s Agfa films - the ones that relied on Agfa processes, rather than C41 or E4/6.
That would be distinctive, without being gimmicky.
Most likely though the market wouldn't be happy with that - no enough bright, saturated pizzazz.

 

[albireo]

I'd be interested if it emulated something like the colour palette of mid-late 70s Agfa films - the ones that relied on Agfa processes, rather than C41 or E4/6.

Do you have an example Matt?

 

[0x001688936CA08]

Another "leak":

 

[MattKing]

Do you have an example Matt?

Really clear memories - at that time I worked in a camera store where the customer's Kodachrome and Ektachrome were processed by Kodak, while their print films and Agfa slide films were processed by a lab that used Agfa chemistry and Equipment and paper. The Agfa palette was warm and rich and somewhat muted - not totally unlike the later Kodak Portra NC, but not the same either.
This example ad suffers greatly from how old it is and the copy shown, but it gives a flavour of what I mean - plus lots of related marketspeak:

 

[albireo]

Really clear memories - at that time I worked in a camera store where the customer's Kodachrome and Ektachrome were processed by Kodak, while their print films and Agfa slide films were processed by a lab that used Agfa chemistry and Equipment and paper. The Agfa palette was warm and rich and somewhat muted - not totally unlike the later Kodak Portra NC, but not the same either.
This example ad suffers greatly from how old it is and the copy shown, but it gives a flavour of what I mean - plus lots of related marketspeak:
View attachment 355073

Lovely thanks!

 

[George Mann]

If it's to be truly successful, then it should be distinctly different than anything else currently available.

 

[bfilm]

If it's to be truly successful, then it should be distinctly different than anything else currently available.

But a subtle and vintage color rendering would be far preferable to the wrong and weird color rendering that some are indicating or suspecting it might be. I continue to hope that it is fairly nice and normal colors.

 

[bfilm]

Really clear memories - at that time I worked in a camera store where the customer's Kodachrome and Ektachrome were processed by Kodak, while their print films and Agfa slide films were processed by a lab that used Agfa chemistry and Equipment and paper. The Agfa palette was warm and rich and somewhat muted - not totally unlike the later Kodak Portra NC, but not the same either.
This example ad suffers greatly from how old it is and the copy shown, but it gives a flavour of what I mean - plus lots of related marketspeak:
View attachment 355073

It would be wonderful to have a film like this, but much of the qualities of this film derive from it being color reversal. But it would be nice if Harman made something similar in their color negative film.

 

[bfilm]

I agree that it can be difficult to tell very much about a color negative film from examples on the web. You can get such wildly variable results in scanning color negative film, that it is difficult to know what is the true look.

Even with color reversal film, you can push things so far in scanning settings or in the image editing software, that if a true and accurate scan was not your goal, it might be hard to tell much about the film characteristics.

If you can know something about how it has been scanned, and the scanning has been balanced and conservative, then you can get some idea of the film.

 

[Dustin McAmera]

It's the same company.

Yes, obvs. That's the point: they already have the ULF thing: they could add people's next-step demands to it.

 

[pentaxuser]

Another "leak":

Well the reds and oranges look pretty good based on the box

pentaxuser

 

[MattKing]

It would be wonderful to have a film like this, but much of the qualities of this film derive from it being color reversal. But it would be nice if Harman made something similar in their color negative film.

The Agfa print films + chemistry + paper + lab equipment reflected the same approach.

 

[Flighter]

Well the reds and oranges look pretty good based on the box

pentaxuser

And that side of the box has the Phoenix on!

 

[LeoniD]

with a low-tech 1950s-1960s look to it.

Ooo, if it's got those Agfacolor Neu watercolor tones, my days of searching for and resurrecting expired Svema will finally be over

 

[SilverShutter]

It is just depressing what the last few years have turned the colour negative market into. I understand the whole range of issues that have been long dicussed here, but the fact that we have lost the classic reliable cheap C-41 everyday film to become almost a boutique item. This new film is a welcome addition but I can already imagine it will be limited, hyped and expensive. Hardly a solution to this problem

It honestly makes me wonder how newcomers to film must be feeling like.When I started to shoot film about 10 years ago, had it not been for the readily available supply of C41 films I would have quickly given up, and wouldn't not have afforded me to make the mistakes I needed to make in order to learn exposure and such.

 

[Brad Deputy]

The mainstream Kodak and Fuji films have returned. They can be found for ~$8 a roll in 3-packs at Freestyle and B&H, or your local camera store. I've had no trouble obtaining it since September.

 

[SilverShutter]

The mainstream Kodak and Fuji films have returned. They can be found for ~$8 a roll in 3-packs at Freestyle and B&H, or your local camera store. I've had no trouble obtaining it since September.

That's good to hear. Here in UK and Ireland, it's about £10-12 a roll last time I checked. Maybe the market will bring the prices down somewhat. But I miss being able to buy a brick of 10 36-frame rolls for about £30-40, just a few years back. The prospect of having to spend £100 for the same these days means I hardly even bother with colour film these days (and less work for my local lab too).

 

[mshchem]

I dug out my copy of "Silver by the Ton" a 1975 ish history of Ilford. It mentioned that Ilford didn't use any of Agfa's postwar open source patents because Ilford lacked the resources to prepare the chemicals that Agfa made in house. A lot has changed since the late 40's early 50's. Patents have expired etc.

I wonder if this is just aimed at people interested in something different. I have enough color film, I'm not sure if I will be a customer.

I really hope it expands the use of film and works out for Ilford, I mean Harman.

 

[cmacd123]

I certianly miss the time when I could go into almost any chain store and buy a 36 exposure roll of Fuji, Konica,or Ferrania-3M (depending on the store) as a store brand film for about CDN$3.00. The boxes for the three brands all had the expiration date is a uique place per brand, so I could even chose what type I wanted, by picking the store that I shopped at.

 

[mshchem]

That's good to hear. Here in UK and Ireland, it's about £10-12 a roll last time I checked. Maybe the market will bring the prices down somewhat. But I miss being able to buy a brick of 10 36-frame rolls for about £30-40, just a few years back. The prospect of having to spend £100 for the same these days means I hardly even bother with colour film these days (and less work for my local lab too).

I remember buying a brick of Kodachrome in the 70's (pretty sure back then a brick was 20 rolls).

 

[Henning Serger]

The most interesting parallel is Orwo/Inovis.

To be precise: Not ORWO, but FilmoTec. FilmoTec had the right to use the ORWO brand name for their BW films in the past. But that has stopped with the recent insolvency of FilmoTec. The big mass-volume photo lab ORWONet continues to have the right to use the ORWO brand name.
InovisCoat is also in insolvency, for the second time in their short history. In their first insolvency they lost their factory in Monheim, which since then belongs to Polaroid as a daughter company.
I had a detailed factory tour there in 2019, talked with both the engineers and the busieness management. All these experts are gone now, there has been a huge brain-drain at InovisCoat.
And they were a very small team even before this second insolvency.
Therefore we should have very realistic and cautious expectations concerning possible future products.

The plant has been manufacturing color for Polaroid for a long time and supposedly there is a lot of ex Agfa capital (both human and material) yet

That Ex-Agfa capital belongs to Polaroid and is working for Polaroid for more than a decade now.
InovisCoat has a contract that they can use the infrastructure in certain time-slots. But with the recent insolvency and further brain-drain that has of course become even more challenging.

Despite their start with original Agfa machinery from the former Agfa-Leverkusen plant and Agfa experts they needed more than a decade to produce a decent colour negative film. And had two insolvencies!
So you can imagine how difficult establishing an economically and technologically working colour film production is.

Best regards,
Henning