Film in China

Just a blurb here about something I found out last week about the state of film photography here in Shanghai and greater China.

The lab I send my negatives to for scanning, as well as my C41 and E6 film for developing, normally has a 5-6 business day turn around time, depending on how much you send them. I typically send in 10 rolls or so worth of scanning plus 4-5 rolls of developing. A few weeks ago we had a major holiday here in China and because of this, I did not send my film in the next week because I knew that the lab would be swamped. The second week back I prepared my film, (13 rolls of C41/E6 for development, about 15 120 rolls for scanning). My wife called to talk to the owner and they reported to her that the turnaround time for my submission would be around 3 weeks, if that. They are absolutely deluged with film from the holiday and it will take a solid month to get it all processed.

Good times for this lab. They tell my wife that their business is only increasing.

interesting

It would be informative if you could mention if the average snapshooter in China does digital or is film use by same still common? As in more common than in the States?

Wow! That's absolutely amazing. That's exactly how the world used to run. I used to decide when to send film in based on the holidays on the calendar... Haven't had that thought in a long time. Thanks RattyMouse.

That is cool to hear. Thanks. Is there any way of knowing the format breakdown? Is most of it 120? 35mm? Other?

And do you actually see all that many film cameras out in the wild? Or are they still a rare sight?

Ken

Dear Mr. RattyMouse, would you be able to check availability with your film suppliers in China of Lucky SHD 100 and Shanghai GP3 or of any other non Kodak/Fuji/Ilford film, please?
Thanks!

Ricardo Miranda said:

Dear Mr. RattyMouse, would you be able to check availability with your film suppliers in China of Lucky SHD 100 and Shanghai GP3 or of any other non Kodak/Fuji/Ilford film, please?
Thanks!

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I see LOTS of Foma at my film store as well as Agfa. I did see Shanghai GP3 but havent seen it in awhile. I'll check next time.

Ken Nadvornick said:

That is cool to hear. Thanks. Is there any way of knowing the format breakdown? Is most of it 120? 35mm? Other?

And do you actually see all that many film cameras out in the wild? Or are they still a rare sight?

Ken

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I will ask that next time my wife talks to them (they speak no English so I can't ask). I send them a LOT of business so they take my wife's calls pretty seriously.

Film cameras are still VERY VERY rare out in the wild. Make no mistake, China is just as digital as the rest of the world. Still, amongst the teaming masses, there are still a lot of film shooters here. Just hard to spot.

snapguy said:

It would be informative if you could mention if the average snapshooter in China does digital or is film use by same still common? As in more common than in the States?

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China is massively, massively digital. I doubt the average person even remembers film here in China. My coworkers are stupefied that I spent $3000 on a film camera recently. That is so far over their head that they just cant make any sense of it. Everything here is digital to the masses.

RattyMouse said:

Everything here is digital to the masses.

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That is the key operative here.."Masses".....you are "Niche", the digital hype machine loves to try to drown out the notion that any niche could exist in the shadow of their grand product...but people are starting to see through it.

Thanks for sharing...

China Just Overtook The USA as the World's largest economy.

One of the best video that I saw that explains how new economies are rising, and paradigm of the "old world" is this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTznEIZRkLg

And if you like the video above - you will like this one even more :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sqnptxlCcw&feature=related

PKM-25 said:

the digital hype machine loves to try to drown out the notion that any niche could exist in the shadow of their grand product...

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You make it sound like some sort of digital-NWO conspiracy, whereas it's just consumer capitalism operating as it always has done.

I suppose plate manufacturers might have thought the same about the roll-film hype machine ...

pdeeh said:

You make it sound like some sort of digital-NWO conspiracy, whereas it's just consumer capitalism operating as it always has done.

I suppose plate manufacturers might have thought the same about the roll-film hype machine ...

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The digital hype machine is just one part of the giant Consumer Capitalism machine.

RattyMouse said:

I see LOTS of Foma at my film store as well as Agfa. I did see Shanghai GP3 but havent seen it in awhile. I'll check next time.

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Thanks!

RattyMouse said:

Good times for this lab. They tell my wife that their business is only increasing.

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Good to hear.
At Photokina I had a long and very interesting talk with Vishal Soniji from 'Camera Film Photo Limited' in HongKong: http://www.camerafilmphoto.com/
He reported increasing business as well, both from customers in HongKong, but also from customers from the PR China.
He told me that e.g. the demand for 8x10" from PR China is currently surprisingly high. Lots of Chinese photographers like big formats.

HongKong has a very active film photography scene. Film has an increasing popularity there. And HongKong is quite important for the economy in mainland China / PRC. HongKong often sets the trends, which then spill over to the PR China.
Millions of Chinese from the mainland visit HongKong each year. And see the trends there.

I remember very well my visit in Bejing and Tianjin in 2002. At that time I could buy film at every corner of the street: Kodak, Fuji, Lucky.
The photo shops were fully equipped with almost everything you needed. Supply was quite comparable to western countries.
At that time almost film only, digital was very seldom.
The Chinese tourists at the Forbidden City and the Great Wall etc. took photographs "like hell" with their film cameras. Lots of them were from Chinese production, e.g. 'Great Wall'.

And let's have a look at the current (economic) situation: Total population of PR China is about 1,3 billion people. Today about 600 million of them have a standard of living quite comparable and sometimes even better than in western industrialised countries.
Let's assume 80% of these 600 million are taking photographs in any way: with a smartphone, compact digital camera, DSLR or maybe even film.
These 80% (480 million) are in one way or the other active in taking some photographs.
Just in a kind of "thinking experiment" let us assume that it could be possible to get only 0,5% of these people interested in taking photographs (also) with film.
Well, 0,5 % would be a tiny niche compared to digital.
But nevertheless it would be 2,4 million people.......very little compared to the digital market in relative terms, but quite a big number in absolute terms.
That is why the Chinese market is so important for a sustainable future of film: A niche market there has the size of a mass market in lots of other countries.

Of course you don't get these 0,5% I have set just as an example automatically. You have to be active, you have to do marketing for film.
But if we do that in all countries and get the "0,5%" all over the world, the film market would even grow again being bigger than today.
It can be done.
Let's do it.

Best regards,
Henning

Henning Serger said:

. the demand for 8x10" from PR China is currently surprisingly high.

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That is interesting given that shanghai 8x10 seems to have disappeared from eBay in recent months.
Although I haven't checked Taobao or Alibaba recently, but shipping charges usually rule them out anyway

Henning Serger said:

It can be done.
Let's do it.

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One way could be to organize some workshops in China - good opportunity to earn some money and promote film.

Henning Serger said:

...
He told me that e.g. the demand for 8x10" from PR China is currently surprisingly high. Lots of Chinese photographers like big formats.
...

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This makes a lot of sense when you look at traditional Chinese art, especially the landscape genre. It's a very different way of perceiving art and one's place within the environment compared to Western notions.

pdeeh said:

That is interesting given that shanghai 8x10 seems to have disappeared from eBay in recent months.

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Most photographers who are using 8x10" go for high(est) quality film.
And there are so many options on the market offering better quality than Shanghai.
And nowadays there are enough Chinese photographers having an income that allows using better film at higher costs.

Best regards,
Henning

Henning Serger said:

Most photographers who are using 8x10" go for high(est) quality film.
And there are so many options on the market offering better quality than Shanghai.
And nowadays there are enough Chinese photographers having an income that allows using better film at higher costs.

Best regards,
Henning

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The LFF has a couple of full threads on x-ray film - so quality is an indeterminate metric unless you restrict its definition to specific characteristics!
Having used the shanghai in 120 only, I feel that it quite holds its own in image quality! The only iffiness, to me was the backing paper which wouldnt be an issue in LF.

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I've been wanting to try Shanghai but in 35mm format since I don't yet own a working medium format.

Henning Serger said:

Most photographers who are using 8x10" go for high(est) quality film.
And there are so many options on the market offering better quality than Shanghai.
And nowadays there are enough Chinese photographers having an income that allows using better film at higher costs.

Best regards,
Henning

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I have to admit that in larger format 11 x 14 and larger, many large-format photographers are actually looking for the Shanghai film because it is at a price that is reasonable without having to shoot x-ray film.

So your assumptions may be a little off.

I myself like consistency so I shoot mostly Ilford B&W but mostly because I don't want to have to switch between different films depending on which camera format I shoot so I stay with Ilford in all formats to keep things simple. But if I could find some 11 x 14 Shanghai found I certainly would pick up a box as once you get past 8 x 10 the prices are just ridiculous and any normal film is better than the x-ray stuff. but not because x-ray film is of that quality, simply because x-ray film has a double sided emulsion and that is difficult to deal with for processing and printing purposes.

analoguey said:

The LFF has a couple of full threads on x-ray film - so quality is an indeterminate metric unless you restrict its definition to specific characteristics!

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Well, ask 10 BW photographers about the characteristics of a film and you will get at least 15 different opinions....

FP4+, Fomapan 200, Fomapan 100, T-Max 100 and 400, Adox CHS 100 II in 8x10" have very reasonable prices.
You get very good to excellent quality with these films. They are reliable and easily available.
The photographer get a convincing price-performance ratio.
The vast majority of photographers go for these films.
There are reasons why you have problems to get the Shanghai film. And one important is reason is: demand.
The market has send the signal.

Best regards,
Henning

As an aside, I wonder if the slowly surging rejection of all things online as a result of the infringement of one's private sphere (NSA etc) will have a positive kickback on analog technology such as film photography.

Nope. We'll have more in-country intra-nets / WANs profusing - China has an interesting thing actually. Own versions of social media and search engines.
I expect though that a lot of English based websites will hence focus more on the Indian market -especially as the govt is now gearing up to put pretty much everything online and on social media. (one recent example was that we could check abt 50,000 govt officials attendance real-time, including differences in lunch breaks)


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analoguey said:

Nope. We'll have more in-country intra-nets / WANs profusing - China has an interesting thing actually. Own versions of social media and search engines.
I expect though that a lot of English based websites will hence focus more on the Indian market -especially as the govt is now gearing up to put pretty much everything online and on social media. (one recent example was that we could check abt 50,000 govt officials attendance real-time, including differences in lunch breaks)


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I would LOVE to see that happen here. I could only imagine what Washington would look like.