Harman release a brand new film and they call it “RED”. Well, sort of new anyway.

It’s a “Redscale” Film. And if you don’t know what Redscale is, it’s colour film that has been flipped the other way round in the cassette. Yup! The gloss side of the film is facing the lens. And when you shoot and develop the film in C41 the red layer of the film gets exposed first and it creates this Red, Orange, Yellow look. I read it was discovered by mistake back in the day. Probably by a large format photographer putting his colour sheet film in the wrong way round.

Harman sent me some to try out so I wasted no time and was looking forward to seeing what I could get from it. So I went to the beach. It was a light overcast day. I wasn’t sure if Redscale needed strong light but after reading online that it hold up perfect on light overcast days I felt rest assured I was going to get some nice Redscale negatives.

Here is the vlog I made for the channel.

I used my Nikon F6 with a 50mm Zeiss Milvus f1.4 lens and developed the film in Cinestill C41 chemistry. Rotary processed.

When I saw my scans inverted I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t get a totally red looking overlayed image. As you can see my sky is Yellow! Leading into an Orange Red towards the bottom.

Here are some more images from the beach. The light hardly changed.

I wasn’t so convinced at first. I’m not sure seascapes does Redscale much justice, so I took another roll and went off to the local farm. The lighting was similar to the beach. Same camera, lens and process.

These were much different as this time I hardly had any sky in my photographs and I started to get a more deep red.

I didn’t really know what to expect when I was shooting these films. And I wasn’t sure if I liked the idea, but the more I looked at my photographs the more it got me wondering about other scenes of photography. Street, Woodland, Urban, Buildings, Portraits. And the more variety I photographed the more I began to enjoy the look. Unfortunately I can’t print colour in my darkroom. But there is nothing stopping me scanning and making an inkjet print, framing and putting on the wall at home for something different in-between my Black & White and Colour prints. Redscale could look pretty quirky in the right home.

Phoenix 200.

So we know Harman already has a colour film. Phoenix 200. It’s their only colour film. And you’ve guessed it. They have taken Phoenix 200, flipped it in the rolling machine and relabelled it RED. And because of the “Flip” they have rated it at 125 ISO. But I still got good results more or less.

It’s no secret. You can clearly see the Phoenix etched on the RED negatives.

And although Phoenix 200 is a very good film, in it’s own unique way, you don’t have to buy Redscale Film if you have a darkroom, closet or anywhere else that is pitch black to shoot Redscale. Just take a roll of colour film you have into the dark, pull it all out of the cassette, cut the end away, turn it over, tape it back to the cut end of the film that is hanging out of the cassette and rewind it back into the cassette. You now have Redscale film to shoot. It is a bit of a faff and can be quite tricky to do in the dark, that’s why Harman have done all the hard work for us.

I even tried a selfie of myself with a static light indoors. Manual lens. Always a bit hit and miss to focus but it’s not that bad! Different anyway. Or is it different. You’ve more than likely come across this look in magazines and record covers in the pre digital days. Unless it was an orange filter on the lens. Who knows.

Was Redscale used for Record Labels pre digital era?

Back at the Farm.

Of course it’s not going to be to everyone’s taste. And if you are pretty good with photoshop you can create the same look without buying or sabotaging a roll of colour film, but where is the fun in that? I’d rather shoot a roll of Redscale.

Here is a Car that I photographed for a showroom. And you can see I turned it into Redscale using a dark orange layer in Photoshop.

I don’t think you’d ever want to shoot someone’s Wedding or Commercial Event on Redcsale. Of course you wouldn’t. But loading a roll with intent for experimentation is fun. As I found out.

We haven’t had much sun here lately so I am looking forward to getting out on a sunny day, or maybe in the golden hour, around town for some Street/Urban Photography. I think that is where this film would suit me best.

Above all, well done to Harman for making this film possible for us to try. Can you imagine a Film Photography Community with no new products?

I’m definitely going to try more with Redscale. I may even try other colour films and flip them in the darkroom and see what results they give.

New Film Merch!