I've shot two rolls of it in 120. I generally like it although much depends on the scan: most lab scanners don't do a good job with it because of the lack of orange mask. I got ugly scans back from my lab so I rescanned myself and everything is much better. I do find a tendency toward a sickly yellow-green cast, but that's probaby my scan profile that needs to be adjusted.
Here are a few examples from a month or two ago, all metered at ISO 200 (box speed). I was using an old camera from the 1950s so can't vouch for the accuracy of the shutter speed, but nothing seemed over or underexposed to me.
It has a very unique alt process look to it. If you balance the color they're never really 'correct' and tend toward pastels. I would scan it as a positive and do a simple inversion and work from there.
speedgraphic wrote:
I would scan it as a positive and do a simple inversion and work from there.
That's a good idea; I've done that a few times with Kodak Aerocolor IV 2460, which also lacks an orange mask. The colours came out too cold but I suspect that was a white balance error on my part. I'll try scanning my Phoenix II negatives again that way to see how they come out.
This was from using Phoenix v1 in a Holga. I have not used v2 but basically it is an improved version, so think v1 but better.
What it is notorious for is limited DR, and you can see this by how hard the shadows drop off. As for color - you need a unique custom profile for it. I scanned this myself w my digicam, then used neglabpro to convert. I created the profile by getting a WB read from an unexposed part of the film - the way you would converting any film using NLP.
Yes. It's worth shooting. I'd agree with what folks already said about scanning. I was fortunate in that the lab I used gave me reasonable colors. The colors were not "accurate" and with this film stock probably never will be, but they are predictable and reasonable.
Color shifts that I've noticed on my rolls are reds shift magenta, yellows shift orange, greens get muddy. Shifts are much less severe than Phoenix version 1. They are far less likely to mess up skin tones.
Sharpness/resolution is decent on 120. It's noticeably better than Phoenix version 1, if you've tried that stuff.
Ok, I'll give it a try. Will be interesting to see how it scans. Unlike most people, I use SmartConvert not NLP. So far it has been ok with films that don't have an orange base.
