or “Is Ilford Harman or Harman Ilford?”
The official release from Harman for Phoenix 120 says: “Following the release of our first ever 35mm colour film in late 2023, we’re thrilled to announce that HARMAN Phoenix is now also available in 120 format”. Fair enough, and I realise they say HARMAN, and seem to be keeping this quite separate from the ILFORD brand – I wondered why? Is it because they want to market the “new” “first ever” aspect or do they think black and white purists may frown? I remember using Ilford colour film in the 80’s so wondered what this “first ever” was about.
It seemed to me that this missed out/ignored a huge chunk of the ILFORD history. It is my understanding that Ilford introduced colour to their line up in 1960. I certainly used Ilford Colour film in the early 80’s. I suspect that it may well have been 3M/Scotch film, re-branded. I’ve scoured the internet (Googled!) to see if I can find a photo of the packing that I remember, and I can’t. The current Ilfocolor “Vintage Tone” (Packaged in China) reminds me of it, but it’s not the same, and lets note it’s sold as “Ilford Ilfocolour” and NOT “Harmen Harmocolour”! Then there is Ilford Ilfocolour Rapid – retro edition. It’s a single use camera.
It appears that Harman is Not Ilford and Ilford is not Harman! Harman Technology own the rights to use the Ilford (Photo) name for black and white, lets call them traditional products. While another quite separate company, a Swiss based (mainly) paper coating company own the rights for “Ilford Imaging”. Hence Ilford Gallery Ink Jet Paper is absolutely nothing to do with an Ilford FP4 film! Ilfocolor (no U) is owned by the Swiss company, as one of the Ilford Imaging products, so they use that Ilfocolor brand for their colour film, single use cameras and reversal film. So when Harman made Phoenix, one assumes in the Ilford manufacturing plant in the UK, it is indeed their first colour film. While the Ilford Ilfocolor films from the Swiss company, seem to be imported from China.
Well that answers that! You may at this point be asking “why is he rambling on about that?” – good question. The answer is nothing more that I like to know these things! In this case, prompted by the fact I recently scanned some slides, no negatives! Negatives in slide mounts!! Another confusion of two things that don’t belong together!! At least when you buy a roll of Kodak film, you know it’s made by Kodak don’t you (or do you?)?
Digression: Kingswood Capital Management owns Kodak Alaris Inc who share the Kodak trade mark with Eastman Kodak Company. ummm.
S.H.O.U.T. 
When Harmen launched their colour film I also had feelings of deja vie all over again!
My Dad told me about how Ilford launched a colour film back in the 1960s but it wasn’t very successful. Apparently it was damaging their reputation so they withdrew it and stuck to Black and White. I can’t ask him more about it as he is no longer with us, but I do remember him saying it had funny colour casts and was fussy about exposure – sounds a bit like the new Harman film!
What may be a virtue to the ‘Lomography’ enthusiasts would have been an embarrassment back then, I suspect.
I’ve just checked a 1963 edition of the Photographer’s almanac and in the colour film section it lists two Ilford films – Ilfochrome 32 colour slide film which I’m guessing may be something else badged – and an Ilford colour film for negatives, ‘Ilfacolor’ – which was 32 ASA and is described as a ‘Tripack’ and which seems to use some weird proprietary process and must be returned to Ilford for processing. Kodak at the time appeared to use C-22.
My Dad always believed that the film was made by Ilford – but obviously the adverts of the time give nothing away. Curious that it seems to have its own process, though. Not sure if we’ll ever know, now?
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Hello, it’s interesting isn’t it! In the early 80’s (while I was still at school) I remember having a 10 pack of Ilfocolor 20 exposure films. It was a time when I was running on pocket money so for me to have 10 rolls was most certainly a one off at the time. It must have been cheap!
A short time later my first job was in a processing lab, and I got to identify most films of the day by the colour tone of their base, and the markings pattern, rather than the name printed on it. Hence “Tudor” I knew to be Fuji film. I seem to remember the Ilford looking to me like it was 3m Scotch base, so always thought of it as such. Of course I could be easily wrong.
I’m fascinated to learn that they may actually have manufactured the colour film themselves! Then again lets not forget that XP2 is a C41 film! My understanding is that the “Tri-pack” films are essentially a film with (3) layers, each responsible for a colour hue (rather than using colour couplers). I assume it was RGB to print YMC in negative? – Beyond my knowledge! I suppose that is rather like Kodachrome and the K14 process. I wonder if in 30 years young people will be asking what on earth was the weird process of ECN2? Of course we also tend to forget that indeed there was an E1,2,3,4 and 5 before we got to E6 of today, and interestingly the E2 from about 1955 was for their 32 asa film. As a further observation, isn’t it funny that in early digital days we had memory cards that were 16mb 32mb 64mb 128mb, now we use the same but it’s in GB, strange it should follow the 32asa 64asa 125asa! Isn’t there a saying something like “Everything changes but nothing changes!” – Cheers Andy
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Just done a bit of research myself – not easy these days as a search engine (especially Google…) will give you three or more pages of ‘hits’ for any search which are really just adverts, often only loosely connected to what you asked for 😡🤬
i persisted and on about page five found a very interesting website of photographic memorabilia which includes a lot of Ilford history. It appears they did make both Ilfochhrome and Ilfocolor in house in the UK – and several other colour films, too. It also seems their colour experiments went right back to the 1920s! It appears to be an early pre-war film that was ‘problematic’ and withdrawn. After WW2 they were restricted by Kodak patents which is why they had their own somewhat odd process, to circumvent Kodaks patent – until it expired, then they switched to a more conventional process. The article doesn’t explain why they pulled out of colour, but it seems they were well into it and one time, both reversal film (movie film and slides) as well as negative film for prints. Well, that was a revelation! 😵.
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I used a couple of rolls of Ilfochrome in the 1980’s, nice film. There were rumours at the time that it was an Agfa emulsion.
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Hello! I’m sure that there was always re-branding going on much more than we knew. I just about remember Agfa CT18 and CT21 before they changed to 50/100 and 200, (ISO to ASA!). The Agfa Vista 200 that I used to buy in Poundland was re-branded Fuji C200! I also seem to remember that Polaroid made not only a 35mm slide film, but a machine that half resembled a bulk loader in which they could be instantly developed! Ohh the fun of it all!! – Cheers Andy
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