Review - Shanghai GP3 120 black and white film

flyinfiddlesticks said:

Ah brilliant. This is a timely review for me.
I have just got myself a mamiya rb system and ordered a first batch of shanghai (along side my fav Delta 100) for those. I shall be following the recommendations closely!

cheers!

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I put a roll through my RB with a motor drive back, by the third frame it seemed to loose power, then it just stalled. backing paper had separated and was jamming in the feed section.

4x5: I had several sheets with what looked like roller marks across the emulsion.

The lack of quality makes it questionable for any serious use, which is a shame as it can produce good images.

is it possible a comparison with a black and white good film like a kodak...like a Ilford?...or is the GP3 too bad to allow a comparison with more famous quality brands?...I'm speaking about the final imagine...so I'm reffering to the sharpness,contrast,acutance ecc.ecc.
The GP3 lost with a comparison with more expensive film or not?I know that the emulsion is very bad...I remember that one time i bought a roll and when I developed it...I saw that there were a lot of scratches !!!It didn't never happen with other films.

It's great that there is so much choice of film available.

Here in the UK, the cheapest price I can see for 5 rolls of Shanghai GP3 is £17.90 including postage. My regular supplier sells 5 rolls of my favourite film, Kodak TMax 100, for £18.99 including postage.

For me personally, it's not worth trading reliability and consistency to save £1.09, or .27pence per film. Of course, the market may differ in other countries.

I buy via seller uranium99 on eBay, and I get 10 (ten) rolls for about £18 delivered to the UK. He also offers 20s, 50s and 100s at even better per-roll pricing.

Of course there is a trade-off for price versus quality/consistency in this case, but I do find it hard to turn down the opportunity to be able to blow through a roll at a cost of £1.80. It's "good enough" for what I see as my level of photographic skill.

Well, just to give you an idea of why I opted for the Shanghai when testing a new camera, I bought ten rolls for $27.93 posted to my door. To buy the same amount of landscapepics favourite film, Kodak TMax 100 would set me back $71.94 plus a further $18 in postage. That's buying from the nearest store which sells 120 film (60kms up the road).
I'll buy a film I can trust not to exhibit any of the 'quirks' everyone's mentioned when I can afford to put in a decent sized order of film and paper from Freestyle in the U.S. That could be months away so, in the meantime, I'm just happy I have something to shoot to get a feel for this camera.

interesting to see how shipping figures in...

for me: Kodak tmy2
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000JLK5UU
$20.45/5 rolls, free shipping.

I love the first photo. Thanks for the review of this film. Where do you buy your shanghai?

peters8 said:

is it possible a comparison with a black and white good film like a kodak...like a Ilford?...or is the GP3 too bad to allow a comparison with more famous quality brands?...I'm speaking about the final imagine...so I'm reffering to the sharpness,contrast,acutance ecc.ecc.
The GP3 lost with a comparison with more expensive film or not?I know that the emulsion is very bad...I remember that one time i bought a roll and when I developed it...I saw that there were a lot of scratches !!!It didn't never happen with other films.

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Please friends...give me a personal opinion about my question!...thanks
Adiós!

peters8 said:

Please friends...give me a personal opinion about my question!...thanks
Adiós!

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I find it not so dissimilar to Plus-X in some cases. I posted some examples above. Here another:

Berkeley Marina Ben Rolleiflex 3.5E3 Xenotar ShanghaiGP3 Rodinal 1-50 by rich8155 (Richard Sintchak), on Flickr

peters8 said:

Please friends...give me a personal opinion about my question!...thanks
Adiós!

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Kodak and Ilford are A+ film. Every time. Never a miss. Anything wrong is my error.

GP3 is sometimes C-, sometimes B. Usually B-.

I have used about 30 rolls of Shanghai. And about 20 sheets of 4x5.

You can graduate with a C. But you won't get a lot of applause. Your mom will love you no less.

I've been shooting "Ultrafine Plus", which seems to be rebranded Shanghai GP3, I get the same problems with numbers, spots and dots. (http://photofying.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/roll-41-ultrafine-plus) I've had 40% of the rolls I've shot already show these problems.

I don't understand quite how you avoided the problem. Did you sponge the film before development? Or did you manage to clean it already in the development tank?

(I have another couple of boxes of this film and would love to be able to shoot it with consistent results.)

wilper said:

I've been shooting "Ultrafine Plus", which seems to be rebranded Shanghai GP3, I get the same problems with numbers, spots and dots. (http://photofying.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/roll-41-ultrafine-plus) I've had 40% of the rolls I've shot already show these problems.

I don't understand quite how you avoided the problem. Did you sponge the film before development? Or did you manage to clean it already in the development tank?

(I have another couple of boxes of this film and would love to be able to shoot it with consistent results.)

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I developed the film as usual. Actually, just thinking about it, I let it stand the ilford rapid fixer 1:4 for about 5 minutes without agitation, plus a few more minutes with intermittent agutation afterwards. The I washed it via filling it with water, inverting it a few times, and pouring it out. The water had tiny bits of gunk suspended in it, giving a creamy appearance. I then gave it a quick wipe down with a wet sponge right after getting it out of the tank, which got off the muck. That roll had no spots or numbers.

quejai said:

I developed the film as usual. Actually, just thinking about it, I let it stand the ilford rapid fixer 1:4 for about 5 minutes without agitation, plus a few more minutes with intermittent agutation afterwards. The I washed it via filling it with water, inverting it a few times, and pouring it out. The water had tiny bits of gunk suspended in it, giving a creamy appearance. I then gave it a quick wipe down with a wet sponge right after getting it out of the tank, which got off the muck. That roll had no spots or numbers.

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I used to be a big fan of this film, but in recent times I have had the circles and numbers issue with nearly all my film.
I have had this issue with different developers and could not solve this problem through different development processes - I think if you avoid this issue for the next 5 or 6 rolls, then maybe your development technique is a good cure (hooray!) - please let us know!

mkillmer said:

I used to be a big fan of this film, but in recent times I have had the circles and numbers issue with nearly all my film.
I have had this issue with different developers and could not solve this problem through different development processes - I think if you avoid this issue for the next 5 or 6 rolls, then maybe your development technique is a good cure (hooray!) - please let us know!

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I had the same problem with ultrafine plus... It was my first roll, and I had never seen this issue before. Good to know it can be dealt with. Ultrafine xtreme 400, on the other hand, is really really good and cheap. Never had any problems with that.

I love GP3 in 4x5. It used to be rated ISO100, but fans of the film found it best to rate it EI50, and I read somewhere that the manufacturer has recently started rating it as such. Extremely fine grained at EI50, beautiful tones, bit of a retro look that I like a lot with my Aero-Ektar/Speed Graphic and human subjects combo. Bob Crowley over at New55Project explained that it is one of the emulsions still left today that closely resembles T55. Works great in Rodinal 1:100 stand dev.


http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=88929764@N00&q=GP3

Namiki by Dr. RawheaD, on Flickr

Shanghai is one of my favourite films, for those recommending to stick to Kodak/Ilford, I would still buy Shanghai even if it was the same price (or even a little more expensive) than any other black and white film. It delivers truly wonderful tones and appears to be amazingly flexible.

Just to add to above (since it's not letting me edit). My GP3 (120) always game in black labelled boxes, in firecracker red paper that was nicely thick, easy to tear open and lined on the inside with foil. A+ packaging. Apart from the tape thing.

Never had blotches, spots, or other artefacts, except the time I tried pushing to 3200. Tonality was still good, weird pattern over it though.

My EI 800 semi-stand Rodinal 1:100 worked out great. Usually just shoot at 100 though.

Haven't shot anything in a while.. might order some new rolls.

Oh, also I prewashed my film every time with agitation. 'Violently' purple/blue dye came out every time.

mkillmer said:

I used to be a big fan of this film, but in recent times I have had the circles and numbers issue with nearly all my film.
I have had this issue with different developers and could not solve this problem through different development processes - I think if you avoid this issue for the next 5 or 6 rolls, then maybe your development technique is a good cure (hooray!) - please let us know!

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I have a similar experience. Wonderful film to work with. Stand development using Rodinal gives me wonderful negatives. But then I bought a ten-pack and experienced to have the paper's negative numbers being imprinted on the negative itself. First, I thought it was due to warm storage (summer heat) of the film so I bought another brick and kept in the freezer until using it. However, it turned out to be just as worse as the previous batch. So I'm a bit reluctant for the moment using this film. It's a pity, because it has some great qualities and a good option when trying out old cameras and toycameras. By the way, the film I had problems with had the batchnumber 5156, good until 2013.

Molli said:

With regard to those advocating the complete avoidance of any "cheapie" films - for those of us who are just testing the waters, whether switching from digital, coming back to film, trying out a new camera - these films are invaluable. If it weren't for the price of, say, LegacyPro films when I first got back into film a few years ago, I'd have been too paralysed to ever trip the shutter. The availability of Shanghai GP3 120 film gave me a little bit of breathing room, economically, to invest in a medium format camera that I'd never have bought had I only had access to the more expensive films. One of these days I hope to take photos worthy of a better medium but, until then, I choose to commit my atrocities to the cheapest film and paper I can get my hands on.
There HAS to be a market for the novice, the dabbler, the plain, old flat broke or there won't be a "beginners" level to start in; ergo, no newcomers moving into film photography and taking it to a professional level. Then, also, not everyone wants to take it to that level.

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Molli, I'm with you 100% on this.

I have not yet tried Shanghai GP3 (planning to soon), but I shoot a lot of officially branded Fomapan and Freestyle's Arista rebrand. I also dabbled with LegacyPro and am a semi-regular shooter of Lucky SHD. Without those economical films, I might not still be shooting film today. Photographs don't make me any money, so the farther my cash can stretch, the more film I can shoot. The more I can shoot, the better I get, which encourages me keep going and continue to buy film. Not just the cheap stuff either. I have boxes and boxes of Tri-X in the freezer.

Economy aside though, I also reject the notion that a higher level of technical quality automatically equates to better photography. Lucky SHD 100 can objectively be called a POS when it comes to manufacturing standards, but I still love the look it gives and there's many photographs I shot with Lucky that I wouldn't go back to shoot on "better" films. Each film's unique visual aesthetic has its own value.

OK, so I thought I'd add my 2c to this thread. I bought 3 rolls of GP100 last year. I shot one roll on my Kiev60 (Ukranian camera, chinese film, east german glass, why not?), and gave it to my local lab to develop (i'm not sure what chemicals or process). It came out rather underexposed (ie very pale negatives), for which I was willing to blame my light-meter, but it also had the the problem of the dots all over it, they showed up worse in the paler areas.
So I did a bit of research back then, and thought the answer was that the circles and numbers were coming off the backing paper during the developing process (well, as far as i know the lab might have a machine that feeds it all in and doesn't deparate the backing paper).

So the other two rolls I thought I'd leave until I got the kit to process my own, which I do so I just did. Shot a roll in my Mamiya 645AF, which has a real ttl light meter so it should be accurate, rated it at ei64. In a paterson 3x135 tank, with the Shanghai and a 13-frame 35mm test roll of Rollei Retro 100, Rodinal 10+800 at 22C, spin-agitate at the beginning, big sloshing inversions at 10 and 20 minutes, a few gentle rolls at 45 minutes, otherwise stand until 60 minutes. Ilfostop 50+950 for a few minutes. Rapid Fixer 1+9 for a few minutes. Then wash, just take the lid off and let it flow in, grab the centre spindle and slosh up and down as it goes, once it's full of water tip it out and go again. Did that a few times, not counting or anything, but washed well enough, last time with a bit of Ilfotol, then hang up to dry.

It developed OK from what I've seen, but the circles are still there on the paler ones (I was doing some night-time long-exposures and sort of guessed the time so they're probably a bit underexposed), but the darker negatives look like they've got no visible circles. It's hanging to dry in the shower, I'll be able to tell better when I scan it and see. Also, it's a rather dull grey emulsion as others have said too. Nothing like the crystal-clear Ilfords i've had, the Rollei Retro in the same mix is perfectly clear too. That's nothing I can't fix once i've scanned it, but this does look like it would be a rather useless film in the darkroom with all that fog.

So for those who have and haven't had the circles, what do you do differently? It was washed well enough at the end. Maybe I should wash at the beginning? I've got one roll left to try out, otherwise I'm just going to stick to the pile of expired PanF50+ in the freezer, it cost about the same and I know it works great.

Or maybe It's just a QC problem, a bad batch? For people who have had the problem and then haven't, was it all film bought at once?

quejai. welcome to APUG!

Dr Croubie said:

thought the answer was that the circles and numbers were coming off the backing paper
[...]
Or maybe It's just a QC problem, a bad batch? For people who have had the problem and then haven't, was it all film bought at once?

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I have had good and bad luck with the Shanghai film, but I like it when it is good.

What decided the backing paper print-through came from was poor ink on the paper affecting the emulsion. This assumes your "red window" isn't an issue, which was on an old Brownie I have. Black gaffer tape fixes that.

Obviously this isn't ever a problem with the sheet film.

The decision that it was the ink interacting with the emulsion - and I could be completely wrong - made me realize just how complex a boutique film plant would be to produce small runs of high quality film. The number of things that have to be "right" to make a first rate film is mind-numbing. OTOH it is completely possible to pour your own plates in your own darkroom.

I'd like to think that the manufacturer would monitor the reputation of its products, see these sorts of posts, and find ways to remedy these problems.

Then again, the number of people outside China using this film probably amounts to the population of a small town in China's countryside, while the major group of users are the Chinese themselves -- and maybe they're just happy to have some film, any film. IDK, it's just a bit odd that a factory would continue to produce a quasi-defective product.

Trask said:

I'd like to think that the manufacturer would monitor the reputation of its products, see these sorts of posts, and find ways to remedy these problems.

Then again, the number of people outside China using this film probably amounts to the population of a small town in China's countryside, while the major group of users are the Chinese themselves -- and maybe they're just happy to have some film, any film. IDK, it's just a bit odd that a factory would continue to produce a quasi-defective product.

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I just had a thought, maybe they are fully aware that an old batch was defective, so they're flogging it off cheap via ebay. Us dumb westerners who are buying it are a tiny market compared to their home base, so they're not so concerned about the bad publicity...