Harman Technology release Harman Red, a redscaled version of Phoenix

Harman Technology release Harman Red, a redscaled version of Phoenix

This sort of thing never happens to me. Back in January I was contacted by the marketing department of Harman Technology about a new product they were launching. 'Please don’t share the information in this mail with anyone else as we haven’t shared it yet', read the email. Well that sounded exciting. It continued, 'We have a new product launching, probably later this month, which will be called HARMAN RED and is a redscale version of the Phoenix 200 film.'

By coincidence I had recently redscaled some Harman Phoenix film, which came out really well. Harman had seen these images and wondered if I might be interested in trying out Harman Red. Well, of course I would! A few days later a package arrived containing some rolls of Harman Red. Typically, it's arrival coincided with some of the most miserable weather of the year. Two storms rolled across Portugal, accompanied by wind and heavy rain, so there wasn't much chance of going out to take some redscale photos.

When the weather briefly cleared, I rolled a twelve exposure length of Harman Red into a Rapid canister and loaded it into the new (to me) Lomo Smena SL, the Rapid film version of the 8M. As usual I used the app Camera Meter to judge the exposures and took the film on a shopping trip and 'around the block'. Although I rated my redscaled Harman Phoenix at ISO 50, the box speed of Harman Red is ISO 125, so I chose that for the exposures of the Harman redscale film. 

When I took the film to the lab it was machine processed at 55°C and scanned. I don't have any details of the processing and scanning, aside from the temperature, but I reckon that's a good test of how this film will be treated in a commercial lab. I was really pleased with how the images came out. As usual with these Rapid films decanted back into 35mm cassettes there were light leaks. I had used a different 35mm cassette to my first decanted Rapid film to try to avoid the leaks, but it looks like these are all cheap and nasty cassettes. That said, I'm embracing these imperfections. You can buy light leaks presets for photo editors, or make your own, but there's nothing like the real thing.

Harman Red was really nice to use, even decanted into Rapid canisters. However, I reckon that to get the best out of the emulsion it really needs a lot of light. When the sky was clear we had lovely contrasty orange and black images, but when the conditions were hazy the results were more muted. Mind you, even in these situations I really like how the skies came out. For me, the high contrast Harman Phoenix is a fabulous emulsion, and Harman Red complements this perfectly.

Now that the film has been officially released there are more details on the Harman Technology website (https://www.harmanphoto.co.uk/harman-red-125-35mm?___store=harman_photo_brochure&___from_store=harman_photo_uk). 'Depending upon the exposure and colour characteristics of a scene, images can range from strong “apocalyptic” looking bright orange and red tones to more subtle orange and green tones with delicate shadows', is how Harman Red is described. It, 'has a usable exposure range of EI 50 – 400. For best results we recommend shooting between EI 100 – 200 depending on scene brightness and contrast.' Looking at the nice 'apocalyptic' example of a sunset, I might well expose my next roll at ISO 200. 

I was delighted with the redscaled images, and Harman Red is a great idea. After the launch, all of the early comments were really positive, and it looks like this is something people were looking for. I would say Harman Red is a great option for anyone who wants to try redscale film but doesn't have the facilities to do so.

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