New Harman “Switch Azure 125” film boxes seen in the wild.
Harman has been treating us to a new film release every year as of late, with their specialty colour-negative film, Phoenix 200, seeing updates and variations every six months or so. It appears that it’s about to be the time for a new update!
The film manufacturer had already made significant updates to its Phoenix colour-negative film fairly recently (analog.cafe/r/harman-phoen…) and supplemented its line with the redscaled Harman Red film (analog.cafe/comments/clxm). The Asure may be the new addition to this family of punchy, experimental films.
A glimpse of “Switch Azure 125” first appeared on Dan Rubin’s Instagram account, which eagle-eyed @matigol1906 noticed and shared on Reddit (reddit.com/r/AnalogCommuni…).
Some Reddit users speculate that Azure is another Harman experiment that switches the layer order to create an effect similar to Lomography’s Lomochrome Purple (analog.cafe/r/lomography-l…) or Lomochrome Turquoise (analog.cafe/r/lomochrome-t…). But that’s just a guess; we’ll find out soon enough.
If you’re feeling creative and aren’t willing to wait for this new film, you can also redscale Lomochrome Purple and Lomochrome Turquoise films:
Lastly, since we’re talking about slide film, I recently wrote about how you can develop it at home using Rodinal and C-41 (into positive slides): analog.cafe/r/how-to-make-…
Update: Harman SWITCH is a registered trademark in the UK.
I’m quite happy to see the company working on their colour product line. Whether this new product is for you or me, or even if it’s good at all, does not change the fact that the company is investing in our analogue medium decades after the entire industry collapsed.
I still meet people online and IRL who do not believe that film is being made at all today. To them, it’s a relic of their or their relatives’ younger lives. But it’s alive, and many people and large businesses are invested in making this incredibly complicated product accessible to most people who want it.
(Context: sights of Harman Switch Azure film boxes in the wild — a new film from the makers of Ilford films: analog.cafe/comments/ig3n)
Thank you to Suzy (mas.to/@serichards) for finding and sharing this bit of information!
The trademark reads: “Photographic film, paper and plates all being unexposed; unexposed sensitised photographic films; strips of sensitised photographic film [unexposed]; unexposed colour photographic films; unexposed cinematographic films; unexposed camera film; photographic developers; photographic sensitisers; photo-sensitive material, namely, unexposed photographic film; chemical preparations and substances, all for use in processing photo-sensitive materials.”
This is a lot of products. But of course, this does not mean that Harman intends to make all of that; it simply means they would like to reserve the exclusive right to name any of the above products “SWITCH” in the UK.
The trademark was registered on January 21st, 2026. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Harman whipped up a brand-new film in under a month.
Confirmed: Harman will be launching a new film on March 5th, 2026.
@matigol1906 spotted a new film box by Harman that read Harman Switch Azure 125 early in February this year. @serichards then showed me a trademark registration for the same name in the UK. We now have the date. I haven’t seen the film, so I will be discovering it together with you. Any guesses as to what it would be?
I’m certainly excited to see a new colour film product coming from Harman. I’ve reviewed all the previous iterations here: analog.cafe/r/harman-phoen….
On our podcast (analog.cafe/comments/0l73 season 2, ep 1), Daren bet that Harman will bring their “Portra-level” film this year. I’m holding him to his word; we defined “Portra-level” as anything with greater colour accuracy than Kodak Gold. I doubt that this upcoming release would be that film, but I have expectations of my own:
I hope that this will be something that looks very different from all the colour films ever made. Harman delivered on this exact expectation each time (even when they upgraded Phoenix I to Phoenix II), except for the redscale films. Given that redscaling is a fiddly yet simple process of flipping the emulsion side (find out how to do it at home here: analog.cafe/r/the-redscale…), I am hoping that Azure goes beyond that.
My most likely guess comes from the above Reddit thread, where someone suggested that Harman may switch the colour film layers within the film itself to produce a film like Lomochrome Purple (analog.cafe/r/lomography-l…) or Lomochrome Turquoise (analog.cafe/r/lomochrome-t…). While that would not make a colour-accurate film, a.k.a. “Portra,” altered film layers will absolutely make new colours, and open up doors to experimentation, such as further redscaling that’s actually not redscaling. The following guides illustrate what I mean:
Leaked samples of the new Harman film, Switch Azure 125.
A new experimental colour-negative film is about to hit the shelves. A glimpse of its packaging appeared online earlier this month, and as the release date approaches, sample images have leaked too. If, like me, you can’t find the patience to wait for the official reveal, this thread will satisfy that itch and provide additional context about this new film.
As you’ll see from the samples below (or by following analog.cafe/comments/3epm), Azure indeed appears to be a Harman Phoenix emulsion with the colour layers switched in a way that makes it look like another classic experimental film: Lomography Lomochrome Turquoise (analog.cafe/r/lomochrome-t…).
This is not a redscaled film; this type of colour shift can only be achieved by the factory that creates the emulsion, as it involves altering the order of layers within the film itself. But of course, nothing is stopping you from trying to redscale (or “bluescale”) Switch Azure itself, as I have done a similar thing with Lomochrome Turquoise earlier: analog.cafe/r/bluescaling-….
Some of you have guessed (evidently correctly) what this film is going to look like, based on the packaging and the colour scheme alone. Let’s celebrate by patting ourselves on the back for that and making plans to pick up a roll. I know I will!
“Flip the familiar on its head and turn the everyday into something strange” — Harman launches their new experimental film: Switch Azure 125.
The UK film factory’s latest product is a mod of their Phoenix colour film emulsions, designed to produce a stark orange- and blue-forward false-colour palette. I’ve already shared some samples of this film following a product leak¹ (review coming soon), so instead of talking about the aesthetics, today I’d like to focus on the significance of a large-scale production of an experimental colour imaging material by a 147-year-old traditional black-and-white film manufacturer, one of the last few remaining in the world!²
Following the collapse of the analogue photographic industry in the early 2000s³, the film industry shrank significantly. While the recent interest in this medium has grown, there were only *two* colour film manufacturers (not counting Polaroid) just a few years ago — down from dozens in the film’s heyday.
It would be hard to imagine a complex and “obsolete” industry bouncing back with such gusto in 2026 without the community of supporters who showed undying excitement about it over the past decade.
Just five years ago, the best we could hope for was a re-issue of a film stock, such as the comeback of Kodak Ektachrome E100 (analog.cafe/r/kodak-ektach…) and the reformulated Fujifilm Neopan Acros II (analog.cafe/r/fujifilm-neo…). But as the pool of photographers hungry for film grew, many small and medium-sized producers entered the market. ORWO/Lomography released a new colour film chemistry⁴, Film Ferrania began producing black-and-white film, and, as of late, the Chinese Lucky Film Co. released its own colour film⁵.
And yet, Harmans’s stark addition to their very traditional black-and-white-only portfolio of photochemistry may be the most daring direction a factory of their size has taken so far:
“By ‘switching’ two of the three colour couplers around, this creates a differing contrast response to the individual channels which can render blues as orange, yellows as a vibrant azure and reds as hues of purple/blue” — Giles Branthwaite, Sales & Marketing Director.
Harman Switch is very much like Lomochrome Turquoise (analog.cafe/r/bluescaling-…). Neither of those films is traditional, at least by what a typical pre-2000s photographer would consider. Yet both are tremendous investments, likely hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I think that this new film, along with a swelling flow⁶ of new, innovative products for analogue photographers, is yet another sign of our analogue medium showing remarkable optimism and innovation, in today’s mostly digital world of media.
While this may still not be the film some have hoped for, “Phoenix Portra”⁷ may indeed become a reality should the excitement and the investment into this medium continue at the current pace.
⁶ — Analog.Cafe News has been documenting many new releases since 2018: analog.cafe/news.
⁷ — In S2E1 of the Analog.Cafe Podcast, Daren argued that 2026 is the year when Harman will release a colour film that’s more accurate than Kodak Gold: analog.cafe/comments/0l73
Dmitri
Dmitri
Dmitri
Dmitri edited on Mar 5, ‘26
Dmitri edited on Mar 5, ‘26