📸 Fujifilm Recipe EP8: Harman Phoenix 200 by me

Photos in this post were shot using my custom Harman Phoenix 200 recipe. You can find the recipe down below.

This image is available on my print shop here

Hello friends,

Today I want to share this recipe for Fujifilm cameras I’ve been cooking which I’m very excited about.

And it’s modeled after the one and only, Harman Phoenix 200!

I’ve seen many photos and videos of people shooting with this film stock. And I’ve gotta say, the stock has quite a dramatic look that’s definitely not for everyone.

I love the vibe of it though. It’s quite “lofi” and nostalgic, with blown highlights, harsh shadows, a lot of grain, with very saturated and warm colors, reminiscing of color reversal film stocks.

As always, trying to pretend that your digital shots are shot on film is a futile exercise imo. Results of film photos can be quite different depending on how you shoot, scan and “correct”. It’s better to think about Fujifilm recipes as trying to capture a “vibe” of film stocks, rather than mimicking the stock it self.

With that said, I think I’ve managed to capture the “essence” of the film stock with this recipe. I really love the results, and I’m planning to shoot a whole photography project I have in mind with this recipe. Hope you’ll like it too!

Inspiration for this recipe

My biggest inspiration for this recipe is actually this video and this video from Kyle McDougall. He presents in those videos a very neutral, low contrast, well corrected and well scanned photos of Phoenix 200. And when I look at them, the photos screamed out to me “THIS IS A LOT LIKE FUJIFILM’S CLASSIC NEGATIVE!”. And here we are.

The 2 biggest distinction for me from Kyle’s photos are the reds and greens. The way the color red render is quite orange-y, and the foliage shifts to this turquoise color feels almost exactly like how Fujifilm’s Classic Negative base sim renders them. I’d say my biggest source of reference for this recipe is his photos.

I also look at a lot of other photos for inspiration for this recipe. Some of them are quite dramatic in contrast, saturation and color shifts in comparison to Kyle’s photos. Though I’d say my second biggest source of reference for my recipe is Brae Hunziker’s video here. It’s mostly because he shot those in Hanoi which is where I live, so it is quite easy for me to get close to matching the exact settings.

Anyways, you’ve suffered enough of my rambling. Let’s get to the main course.

My Harman Phoenix 200 Fujifilm recipe

This recipe is made on my X-T30ii and is compatible with X-Trans IV cameras (X-T30ii, X-S10, X-T4, X-E4, etc). For X-Trans V cameras, change CC FX Blue from Strong to Weak.

Film Simulation: Classic Negative

Dynamic Range: DR400

Grain Effect: Strong, Large

Color Chrome Effect: Off

Color Chrome FX Blue: Strong

White Balance: 6000K, R+1, B-1

Highlight: +2, Shadow: +2 (OR Highlight +0.5, Shadow +0.5 if you want lower contrast. More explanation below)

Color: +4

Sharpness: 0

High ISO NR: -4

Clarity: 0 (or -3 if you prefer the “pro-mist” look without a filter)

A quick explanation and how to “season to taste”

Color

First, the most important things that makes this “Harman Phoenix 200” for me is this part:

Film Simulation: Classic Negative

Color Chrome Effect: Off

Color Chrome FX Blue: Strong

Color: +4

Classic Negative is the whole reason I started this, so it’s a no brainer. Setting “color”, or saturation rather, to +4, compliments the look very well, as phoenix itself is quite saturated.

I found that setting CCE to Off gives the reds in the scenes a brighter orange color, and CCFX Blue at Strong to get the deep blue skies. All of it I think mimicks the film stock quite nicely.

White balance

6000K, R+1, B-1

Last part of the color equation, white balance. The consensus seems to be that Phoenix 200’s color temperature is quite a bit warmer than Daylight WB. I’ve seen lightroom presets that set WB upwards to 6300K.

I decided to settle on 6000K, with a conservative shift to the warmer side. I want my photos to be quite warm, but not “dying sun apocalypse” warm, which is the occurring theme I see from some initial scans of Phoenix 200. Feel free to bump it up a bit to get the apocalypse look though!

Contrast

The film stock itself is quite contrasty, almost positive film like. Despite that, the homescan photos I saw from Kyle McDougall are very well controlled in this department.

The first version of this recipe baked the contrast in pretty deep (Highlights +2, Shadow +2). At first, I thought I would try to make a more faithful interpretation to the film stock, but it ended up way too contrasty sometimes, which is quite annoying.

With this much contrast, the recipe was looking great in overcast days, but when there’s a lot of contrast in the scene, the photos look a bit too crunchy.

It’s definitely a look in sunny days, for someone who loves silhouettes and shadows. I’m into that shit as well, but baking all these contrast in is quite restrictive. Plus, it’s easier to add a bit of contrast into it in post when I slightly edit my jpegs, rather than take away the contrast.

So my “revised” contrast curve now is Highlights +0.5, Shadow +0.5. It’s still “above average”, contrast wise, but I think it’s a good compromise, combined with DR 400. Again, I can always add a bit of contrast in post if I really want to.

If you really want to nail the look in camera, you can probably just have a version with low contrast for sunny days and one with high contrast for overcast days in your camera.

Oh and I typically underexpose all my photos by at least 1/3 to 2/3 stops.

Detail

Sharpness is at 0 because the film stock doesn’t seem to be very sharp, and I think it’s quite a nice vintage look. I’d probably knock it down to -1 or -2 for a sharper lenses, but I’m using the TTArtisan 25mm f2 (review here) quite often with this recipe (and loving it!). 

The lens has quite a vintage rendering and it’s not burdened with modern lenses design philosophies like “corner to corner” and “critical sharpness” and “resolving power”. Therefore I don’t feel the need to take sharpness a notch down further. This is quite a personal preference thing though, so if you like sharper photos, just bump it up (or add it in post 😸)

Same goes for clarity.

And last but not least, grain at Strong, Large. I just like it that way :). Phoenix is also quite a grainy film stock, although when you go up to medium format, those grain becomes much less apparent.

It’s not for everyone though, so if you like a cleaner look, you can set it on Weak, Small, or just turn grain off :). Sometimes I do that too, when I want a more modern look.

A note about halation

The film stock does have some orange halation/glow, which is obviously not replicable in Fujifilm cameras. I’m sure you can replicate it the way people replicate the halations on Cinestill 800T in Photoshop, so if you’re into that, I’m sure you’ll find a way.

And that’s it!

I really love this recipe I made. So much that I’m shooting a new project exclusively on this recipe!

I hope you like it (and enjoy the photos as well). Let me know if you shot with it, I want to see the photos!

Some more photos of my Phoenix 200 recipe.

And that’s it. As always, subscribe to the newsletter to see more mediocre photos I took with different recipes. Check out my Instagram/Threads if you’re into that, when I can be bothered to post something these days 🥲.

Next episode: Ilford HP5!

Disclaimer: Some of the links in the post are affiliate links. You know the drill.