Comparing Two Newest Colour Films: Phoenix vs. NC200

There are only two colour-negative film lines in production today, other than those manufactured by Kodak. They are both made in Europe as the first completely new C-41-based emulsions since the mid-2000s.

In this article, I will compare them side-by-side to see which of these formulas is closer to replacing Kodak’s legacy of innovation and excellence in colour photochemistry.

(I will be comparing Harman Phoneix II with ORWO Wolfen NC200, a.k.a. KONO Color 200, a.k.a. Optik Oldschool OptiColor 200).In this article: How many colour-negative film options do we really have? Guess! Experiment overview and methods. Answer key. Side-by-side: portraits in natural light. Side-by-side: portraits in studio light. Side-by-side: product photos. Side-by-side: exposure tests. Differences in developing and scanning. Price differences. Which film is the best? Support this blog & get premium features with GOLD memberships!

Thank you, Lily Li Hua (Instagram: @lilianlihua), for modelling!

How many colour-negative film options do we really have?

There are nearly three hundred options out there for film photographers today (although the actual number is likely much higher). But as is the case with most goods, many of the films listed above are rebranded, respooled, or modified versions of an original stock.

Rebranded products aren’t a bad thing, of course. Some will charge a premium on top of the original product, but many will cost the same or less than the manufacturer’s price. Rebranded stocks may be the only way to get your hands on a particular emulsion, and, as I wrote recently, some film modifications (like those made on CineStill films) are nearly impossible to replicate at home.

That said, those products could not exist without the downstream factories that make the film. And if you dig a little deeper, you’ll quickly find out that there are only three places on the entire planet that make colour-negative film.

The largest factory that makes colour-negative film is the Kodak facility in Rochester, New York. It makes so much of it that movie directors buy it in batches that cost several million dollars per production, and many more millions are spent by our still photography community. Kodak makes Vision 3, Portra, Ektar, Gold, ColorPlus, Ultramax, and many other types of emulsions sold under many different names.

InovisCoat GmbH (better-known as ORWO) makes ISO 400 colour-negative films, which include ORWO NC 500, plus the new films packaged by KONO (Color 200) and Optik OldSchool. Unofficially, they are also responsible for Lomography Lomochrome films and those sold under the Ilford Ilfocolor brand. InovisCoat GmbH  is located in Monheim am Rhein, Germany.

Harman Technology is the last factory on this list that makes colour-negative film in the town of Ilford, UK. They also manufacture all Ilford-branded black-and-white film; however, they license the Ilford brand name from a Swiss company that split from the original Ilford years ago. Because Harman does not have the rights to use Ilford on colour-negative films, they distribute their new colour product under the name Harman Phoenix.

The important distinction between Kodak films and ORWO/Harman offerings lies in Kodak’s use of its enormous facility and IP on a large scale since 1892. In contrast, ORWO has only started coating colour-negative film recently, and Harman sold their first colour film since the 1960s last year.

Kodak continues to make the most colour-accurate colour-negative film in the world (while its historically close rival, Fujifilm, has recently exited the colour-negative film market — now presumably selling Kodak-made colour-negative films under the Fujifilm brand).

In short, Kodak makes virtually all colour-negative film on the market, whereas ORWO and Harman are the newcomers, starting nearly from scratch. (To be fair, ORWO relies on vintage Agfa IP to formulate their films, whereas today’s Harman has zero experience with this type of product, discounting Ilford XP2 — a black-and-white film made for C-41 developers).

Alas, despite being on track to be recognized as a UNESCO cultural heritage, film photography depends on a complex, expensive production process that needs to be continuously funded. Last week, Kodak reported scary numbers, which made some photographers wonder how long the company can last.

Bearing that (and the tariffs) in mind, let’s compare the two remaining options for colour-negative film that aren’t made by Kodak: Harman Phoenix II and KONO Color 200 (a.k.a., ORWO Wolfen NC200).

If Kodak were to disappear tomorrow, which one would you choose?

Guess!

These new films, formulated by ORWO and Harman, don’t look like Kodak. They’re grainier and their colours aren’t as accurate. But they’re getting better with each new iteration. They can also look very different from each other, but could you tell which is which just by examining the photos above?

The answer key is below the fold.

Experiment overview and methods.

Even in ideal conditions, various scanning software can alter the colours and even the appearance of grain frame-to-frame, making the act of comparing films challenging and fraught with bias.

Instead of relying on a black box that is film inversion apps, I used film Q, which implements an open and predictable standard: histogram stretching. This method does not involve automatic colour correction, sharpening, or saturation adjustments; it simply inverts the image and optimizes individual colour channels using a simple, deterministic algorithm.

Histogram stretching is the cleanest and simplest method to invert film negatives without altering the underlying colours. But, of course, there would still be differences if any edits are applied on top (which is why I clearly label any changes in this article other than light cropping).

All scans in this article are made with Nikon SUPER COOLSCAN 5000ED and VueScan (set to neutral/positive, leaving inversion up to film Q). All the film was developed at home in the same Paterson tank. The photos were taken on my Nikon F2 and Nikon FM2n with 50mm Nikkor 1.8 lenses. Indoor lighting was cast using my Amaran F21x panel set to 5500K (daylight).

I also doubled up my exposures, asking Lily to keep her pose as still as possible while I took two frames on each film for each pose/exposure settings. Needless to say, a lot of materials and effort went into this project.