Shanghai GP3 100 220 - still an unfinished product?

MCB18 · Feb 24, 2023

To be clear, 220 leaders/trailers are almost the same as 120 leaders/trailers. The leader is supposed to be longer, but that is to accommodate legacy equipment, the start mark and film are the same distance away on both. The trailer is also technically a bit longer than 120, but you just cut the paper at the end of the 120 numbers and your good. I’ve looked at the ISO documents to confirm this.

Sirius Glass · Feb 24, 2023

Fill coming off the paper, film buckling, finger prints, lack of choice of emulsions, Shanghai has managed to kill off any hope that I had for a 220 film resurrection for me. Even Lazarus was more successful.

MCB18 · Feb 24, 2023

Sirius Glass said:
Fill coming off the paper, film buckling, finger prints, lack of choice of emulsions, Shanghai has managed to kill off any hope that I had for a 220 film resurrection for me. Even Lazarus was more successful.

Trying my damn hardest to avoid any of these things. The paper is cut right, the film is cut to approximately the right length, the film is taped correctly, the roll is rolled correctly and tightly, and the paper comes with proper seals. And no fingerprints, at least that I am aware of.

Nokton48 · Feb 24, 2023

I'm into thirty+ rolls without any serious issues. Got another thirty to go so we'll see. I do like the tonality in good ole D23 1:1. I'm not using it for anything that isn't repeatable so I'll not argue against it. So we will see.

Sure have a lot of really good negatives to print. Soon the darkroom will warm up. I still like this film

Donald Qualls · Mar 1, 2023

I've got one exposed roll that I hope to get processed soon, and a few more waiting. Assuming I don't get the horrible stuff some of the early rolls have shown, I'll keep using it. I've seen many good examples of images from it, and 20 on a roll is more convenient than 10 in my RB67.

Huss · Mar 4, 2023

Mine is from the new batch as it has 220 leaders. The quality seems crazy variable - one roll ok, the next one crap. I have 15 rolls left! Because I bought more after I had two great rolls and so thought they had figured it out.
Trying to sell those - advertising them as lomo-esque!

MCB18 · Mar 4, 2023

Huss said:
Mine is from the new batch as it has 220 leaders. The quality seems crazy variable - one roll ok, the next one crap. I have 15 rolls left! Because I bought more after I had two great rolls and so thought they had figured it out.
Trying to sell those - advertising them as lomo-esque!

How much per roll? I would be curious to have one or two, if for no other reason than to dissect them

Huss · Mar 4, 2023

Let me get round to placing an ad. Don't want to stiff the site!

MattKing · Mar 4, 2023

Huss said:
Let me get round to placing an ad. Don't want to stiff the site!

Feel free to sell it directly and then buy a subscription or donate the same amount.
But I would suggest the subscription - you could then use the galleries for your images, and link to them in the threads.

Kino · Mar 4, 2023

Maybe we can have a "Best image marred by fingerprints on the emulsion" contest next month...

MCB18 · Mar 4, 2023

Kino said:
Maybe we can have a "Best image marred by fingerprints on the emulsion" contest next month...

Hopefully none of my film makes it on there…

redbandit · Mar 13, 2023

I just used and developed my first roll of this film.... its an interesting film.

The interesting part is, i used rodinal 1:100 for 25 minutes like the box said.. i did 30 sec agitation to start, and 10-12 seconds every 3 minutes. poured off at 24:30 and it was empty tank by 24:45

1. the used developer came out with a slight purplish tint, so i have a feeling their is something good on the film..

2. It had some curl on each end.. far far less then foma/arista

3. it loaded on the spool BETTER then a roll of 35mm Delta 400 does. It was freaky. It took me as much time to roll a 12 frame roll of 35mm onto the reel, thats like under 2 minutes start to finish..
Needed NO prodding what soever... That arista i did the other day took about 10 minutes to get on the reel.

4. The images are nice... i have a few frames that came out solid clear, but i think those may be the ones i estimated the exposure on,,, shoot what sekonic says, then the light meter, then dial down a stop to guestimate.

5. some images came out blurry due to long exposure time and hand held usage.

6. no edge data whatsover.

It shoots through a window well, but its hard to see birds in the trees on the negative, that were easy through the penta prism.

MCB18 · Mar 13, 2023

Anyone used stainless steel for 220 film? Should I consider it? After a certain point, ratcheting the film onto plastic reels gets hard, as the film just wants to buckle rather than go forward, and I figure that stainless steel fixes that, as you are pulling instead of push the film.

Donald Qualls · Mar 13, 2023

MCB18 said:
After a certain point, ratcheting the film onto plastic reels gets hard, as the film just wants to buckle rather than go forward,

If you don't use the same reels for 35 mm from time to time, this is probably caused by process residue in the reel grooves beyond the normal 120 film length. My solution for this has long been to give each (Paterson or Arista) reel half a quick going over with an old toothbrush (along the grooves) after dumping the PhotoFlo solution and hanging the film. Brush, water rinse, and stand the reel halves (still separated) to dry alongside the empty/rinsed tank and core. When I come back to the darkroom next, they'll be dry and I can put them up on the shelf. I never have trouble getting 35 mm or two rolls of 120 into the reel; I'll be loading my first ever 220 soon (this week, most likely) but if I can get two rolls of 120 onto a reel, 220 should be a breeze.

Another trick I've read about is to run the point of a soft pencil along the full length of each groove (on a dry reel) -- this deposits a tiny amount of graphite on each side of the ridge, which acts as an inert lubricant when you next load film. I've only done this once, however, because I've never felt I needed it.

All this to say, I have almost no use for stainless, for either 120 or 35 mm, and while I do have a pair of 220 reels in my Nikor tank, I doubt I'll ever use them, because I can load a Paterson in half the time and with 1/4 the annoyance as trying to get wide film into stainless (and I can't load two rolls into a stainless 120 reel).

Flighter · Mar 13, 2023

I found washing my Paterson reels in water with a bit of fabric softener added cured all the problems I used to have with 35mm film sticking in the reels when trying to load them.

Ai Print · Jan 29, 2024

I have one A24 back for my Hasselblad system and one Hewes 220 reel that I can take this for a spin with. I have had a brick of this stuff in my fridge for like 2 years, been too busy with other things to try it out until today.

It loaded, transported, unloaded and reeled up fine, spacing looks spot on so the back checks out. I souped mine in HC110 1+31 to keep it simple so the contrast is a bit stout. The base seems a bit thin so I do wonder about flatness but it did dry flat. Mine has a tiny bit of base fog, not as clear as Acros, TMX, other slow speed films. It seems to have FP4-like grain, tones seems good too. I do see some marks on it here and there, a few pinholes and some banding in blue skies. No fingerprints.

I'll run another roll or two, likely do a pre-rinse next time to see if that calms the blobs and bands down any. I want to like it because I do love 220 for certain uses, but I need to able to rely on it too.

Seems fairly "experimental" from most of the reports on here thus far.

loccdor · Jan 31, 2024

I tried a roll of Shanghai GP3 100 in 220 recently. There are a few scattered emulsion defects, on par or a little better than what you get from Fomapan. Overall I enjoyed the film. At $15 per roll, it comes out to $7.50 per 120-equivalent roll, not a terrible price. If you want absolute quality for money, Kentmere is a better deal, but has a completely different lower contrast feeling. Both can be nice. There was no problem getting it onto the reel or running it through the camera, though I did notice the tape between paper and film is oddly slanted, suggesting it is taped by hand instead of machine.

A problem is that the inside of the box has a lot of incorrect developing times. I used 7.5 minutes at 1+31 HC-110, which was right, but they were suggesting the same time and temperature but twice as diluted.

Ai Print · Feb 5, 2024

loccdor said:
If you want absolute quality for money, Kentmere is a better deal, but has a completely different lower contrast feeling.

Does it come in 220?

loccdor · Feb 5, 2024

Ai Print said:
Does it come in 220?

No. In 220 you're stuck with fresh GP3, or I've seen expired Portra, Portra B&W CN, some Plus-X, various Fuji Color Negative, and various slide films. Probably more is around, but that's what I've seen popping up on the market in the last few months.

MCB18 · Feb 5, 2024

loccdor said:
No. In 220 you're stuck with fresh GP3, or I've seen expired Portra, Portra B&W CN, some Plus-X, various Fuji Color Negative, and various slide films. Probably more is around, but that's what I've seen popping up on the market in the last few months.

Reflx makes Aerocolor in 220, and I sell Aviphot in 220, so there are options.

loccdor · Feb 5, 2024

MCB18 said:
Reflx makes Aerocolor in 220, and I sell Aviphot in 220, so there are options.

True, that's good to know, I wasn't thinking about hand-rolled stuff. PM your listing if you like, I might be interested.

loccdor · May 15, 2024

I shot some of this GP3 early this year and also in 2010 and went to compare my notes and images.

HC-110 1+63 (H) at 18 minutes, or 1+31 (B) at 9 minutes, seems right for shooting this film at 100. I also tried B dilution at 7.5 minutes and that came out weak, might work for 50. There are some times stated out there that are just a bit too short. The box's times are not all accurate or consistent, don't trust the packaging.

Also, I developed it as high as 25C, moderately warm developer does not seem to be damaging in and of itself, though it looked like warm monobath causes problems based on testing earlier in the thread.

I got disillusioned with Portra in 220 that I was planning on shooting this summer so I'll bring a bunch of this stuff instead and report the results.

AnselMortensen · May 15, 2024

I just bought a few rolls directly from the Shanghai website...
I had bought a few rolls a couple years ago, and had mixed results when I had a lab process the film.... I really liked the good results, the image quality was very nice.
Now that I can process 220 B/W myself, I am giving the film another chance by removing one variable from the equation.

loccdor · May 15, 2024

AnselMortensen said:
I just bought a few rolls directly from the Shanghai website...
I had bought a few rolls a couple years ago, and had mixed results when I had a lab process the film.... I really liked the good results, the image quality was very nice.
Now that I can process 220 B/W myself, I am giving the film another chance by removing one variable from the equation.

Good luck! I also really enjoy this film when it goes right, as well as Plus-X which it may have some relation to.

MCB18 · May 15, 2024

loccdor said:
Good luck! I also really enjoy this film when it goes right, as well as Plus-X which it may have some relation to.

GP-3 has no relation to plus-X. GP-3 is UN54 from what I’ve gathered.

Shanghai GP3 100 220 - still an unfinished product?

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